From former PM Kevin Rudd declaring Scott Morrison “no longer fit to hold the high office of prime minister” to former Labor senator Doug Cameron calling Morrison’s platitudes to victims “bullshit”, the opposition has been quick to criticise the Coalition’s response to the bushfires.
But this made Crikey wonder: just how robust are Labor’s policies?
Land management
Given how quickly critics accused the Greens of causing the bushfire crisis through blocking hazard reduction burning (misinformation that has since been debunked), it’s a little strange that Labor’s strict land management policies haven’t yet been raked through the coals.
NSW Labor’s controls on the clearing of native vegetation date back to when Bob Carr was premier in 1995. In November 2019, NSW Nationals leader John Barilaro lashed out at the lack of hazard reduction burns, saying in Parliament: “The truth of the matter is we still live with Bob Carr’s legacy: lock up the forest and let it burn”.
Similarly, when Queensland went up in smoke (not this time, not even the last time, but the time before that), a report found that Labor’s land-clearing laws created confusion in the catastrophe.The Queensland Labor government had earlier that year tightened restrictions around farmers’ rights to clear vegetation from their properties to tackle the state’s deforestation crisis. While farmers were allowed to clear firebreaks and perform routine burning, apparently no one bothered to tell them. The report found landowners were worried about breaching the new, convoluted and confusing legislation.
Federal Labor planned to extend these laws to other states if the party won the 2019 election.
Firefighting capabilities
Labor’s support for firefighters runs rings around the Liberal Party’s — though, considering Liberal state government budget cuts to fire services, that’s not exactly a huge feat.
Labor governments are vocal supporters for tax breaks and payments for volunteer firefighters. In June 2019, the Victorian Labor government passed reforms into the state’s fire services. This included merging the Country Fire Authority and Metropolitan Fire Brigade, and introducing presumptive rights to cancer compensation.
At the federal election, Labor pledged $80 million to establish a National Aerial Bushfire Fighting Fleet. This included aircrafts as well as bad-ass smokejumper units to rappel out of helicopters armed with chainsaws to cut down trees and form containment lines.
Australia doesn’t currently have a government-owned fleet of water-bombing aircrafts. Instead, we rely on the 160 small planes and helicopters we currently have and any aircrafts borrowed from private companies or international governments.
In December 2019, the federal government announced an extra $11 million for aerial firefighting. This brings its total annual contribution to $26 million.
Climate policy
Last week Labor announced it would adopt “a more ambitious climate change policy at the next election than the Coalition”. Will this be more robust than what the party already released in the lead-up to the “climate election”? Hold your laughter, please.
Bill Shorten’s policy promised to implement greenhouse pollution controls for heavy-emitting companies, cut greenhouse emissions from 2005 levels by 45% by 2030 (almost double the Coalition’s target), and have electric vehicles form 50% of new car sales by 2030.
Anthony Albanese also recently called for a carbon pricing mechanism of some sort (though he didn’t specify what he had in mind), as well as a renewable energy target. Federal Labor has also pushed for a national audit of flora and fauna destroyed by the fires, and wants to bring forward a meeting of Australia’s environment ministers.When you look at the cost of the bushfires, it’s hard to argue that these measures — including lowering emissions — are too expensive. There is, however, one glaring omission from Labor’s climate policy: how to move away from our reliance on dirty energy.
Fossil fuel industry
While Albanese is yet to strut into parliament cradling a lump of coal, he certainly shares some of Morrison’s love for it.
He’s repeatedly expressed his support for the coal industry (even after the fires), arguing that, well, we have to keep dealing in dirty black rocks because someone else will just swoop in and take our place.
The party was also heavily criticised in the lead-up to the 2019 federal election for tiptoeing around whether they’d approve the Adani Carmichael coal mine in Queensland, which they eventually did anyway.
As the adage goes: those who live in glass houses should not throw stones. While Labor’s support for the firies and actual policy on climate change is nothing to be sneezed at, the party has a long way to go until it gets a gold star from us.
Labor still needs to explain the Galilee Basin Pledge. Is it Labor policy or not?
Labor still needs to win the election .Does it need policies for that ? Govts’ lose elections .The LNP may drive the country into a burnt out ,dried up shrivelled shell of a country. And the swinging focus group punters, in their new found wisdom, may decide there’s no other choice.
Nope. Sorry, Crikey. I call BS on this one.
Anything you do to distract attention from the Liberals right here and now is, de facto, offering them support. Just don’t do it, please.
It’s the implacable denial of the Liberal Party, in particular its rabid Right Wing, over the last decade that has brought us to where we are today.
Labor may not be be perfect but (a) they are not in power and haven’t been for seven years (b) at least recognise the problem and have SOME policies (c) actually took electoral risk by bringing policies to the public at the last election. They are in no way comparable to the climate criminals of our ruling government.
The blood of the dead is on none but Liberal and National hands.
Absolutely correct, Graeski!
Just another anti-Labor rant. Not even Crikey can bring themselves to blame those totally responsible for the current disaster.
If Labor had won the last election, at least they had a policy which could have been expanded/changed to meet the present fire crisis…this government has/had NO policy, before, during or after said disaster.
And I will hazard a guess NOTHING they come up with will be effective anyway.
For most of them there is NO climate change…doesn’t matter what they now say, it’s what they DO that matters!!
Exactly! The apology, minimizers, & excusers of the most execrable government in Australian history!
You took the words right out of my mouth. At least they had policies which is more than you can say for this sorry lot
Sorry to duck sideways… but can some mature-age person at Crikey advise whomever the recent highschool graduate was who thinks the plural of ‘aircraft’ is ‘aircrafts’, of their mistake? Thank you…
Thanks for that observation Gumshoe.
It was bugging the hell out of me also.
I put it down to the current trend of sticking an S on the end of everything.
With an apostrophe?
Not usually.
Things like, Datas,Kulchures,informations and the like.
If you haven’t spotted the difference between the Albanese and Morrison response to the continuing fire crisis you cannot be taken seriously as a journalist. The most pressing is the need for national leadership- undergrounding of power, communication systems to withstand the onslaught of fire, planning laws, more than one road between states, professional firefighting forces and their relationship to volunteers and the list could be pages long. Journalists as well as politicians have not understood the implications which have been obvious to those involved in the Tasmanian fires last year or any of the increasingly intense fires of recent years. At least Albanese has been raising the need for a co-ordinated approach for months. We have bushfire refugees staying with us because they can’t go home to their intact house because there is no access.
Let’s look forward not backwards as your article does!
Why are you running an article about Bob Carr and Labor land clearing policies when the LNP’s seven years of government, their policy neglect, and their refusal to plan for this predicted disaster have left people dead and so much of the country in ruins? Australia is facing an environmental catastrophe. But the federal government is committed to reducing ‘green tape’, cutting funding for environment programs and science, and developing new coal mines. That is what needs investigation and comment.