Climate 200, the nonpartisan group trying to elect independent MPs to break the policy impasse on climate change, has appointed former independent MPs Tony Windsor and Rob Oakeshott to its advisory council.
Windsor and Oakeshott have 39 years of parliamentary experience between them and famously formed two-thirds of the “Three Amigos” crossbench during Labor’s period of minority government under Julia Gillard from 2010 to 2013.
Climate 200, set up in 2019 in part by environmental campaigner Simon Holmes à Court, will offer arm’s-length assistance in money and advice to community groups looking to run independent candidates in crucial marginal seats at the next election.
It has already raised almost $1.7m from 1700 donors and will target seats like North Sydney, Wentworth and Mackellar in Sydney and Goldstein and Flinders in Melbourne; $285,000 has been donated in just the past week.
Independent polling shows these seats have a large number of disaffected Liberal voters who would not vote Labor but who would vote for an independent who promised action on climate change and political integrity.
A few weeks ago, the group announced that it would match donations up to $100,000 to the North Sydney campaign of businesswoman Kylea Tink — that money is now rolling in, a spokesman says.
Windsor and Oakeshott said yesterday they were there to help independents win elections. Windsor, 70, spent 22 years in NSW state and federal seats and was part of two minority governments.
He tells Crikey that Climate 200 was “looking as though it was starting to plug into some real money. The reality is that you can’t do it without money.”
Being part of Gillard’s minority government — which passed 585 pieces of legislation in three years — showed that politics could be done differently, he says.
“Apart from cutting carbon emissions, that Parliament set up the Clean Energy Finance Corporation and the Australian Renewable Energy Agency, which have contributed to the growth of the clean energy sector,” he said.
“It also established the Parliamentary Budget Office to provide independent advice and analysis of government finances. Without the PBO we would not know, for example, that some of Australia’s biggest corporations held on to $13 billion worth of taxpayers’ money to which they were not entitled, courtesy of JobKeeper.”
The New England farmer says Gillard’s minority government disempowered the “elites” in the executive arm of the government: “There are really only three or four people who make all the decisions and then all the underlings fall into line.”
Having a minority government empowers all members of Parliament because the executive does not have control, he says. In reality, the executive runs riot and the rest of them “don’t have a clue about what’s going on”.
“Independents are largely good people — they can’t all be Bob Katter.”
Oakeshott, 51, was in NSW state politics from 1996-2008 as a National Party member and independent and then won the federal seat of Lyne as an independent in 2008, holding it until 2013.
Both major parties have failed the Australian electorate on climate change, he says: “The time for talking is over. We do not have time on our side. Australia’s elected representatives have now wasted close to a decade failing to take the necessary action on climate change. It is now or never.”
He tells Crikey that an independent member “can deliver substantial progress on complex issues. A big lesson of the recent period is that political parties are struggling with the question of whether they are fit for purpose. Head office is all about donations and has a fixation with polling and these are getting in the way of Australia progressing.”
There is value in voting for an independent in 2022 so these policy issues get priority: “These are big and complex challenges and the political parties are letting them down. It’s rational to look elsewhere.”
His input would be as a “sounding board”, showing where some of the traps and opportunities were in the policy area and at the ballot box.
“Coalition MPs like Jason Falinski, Angus Taylor, Dave Sharma and Trent Zimmerman have had their chance,” he said. “When it comes to the crunch, they vote just like Barnaby Joyce.
“It is time they were moved aside by enthusiastic and effective independents ready to seize the opportunity provided by pathfinders like Zali Steggall and Helen Haines.”
It’s odd to see Oakeshott claiming the ALP have “failed” Australians on climate action, considering it was with him that they passed the last bit of meaningful climate related policy. Though still, I suspect he’s speaking to the base you mentioned – disenfranchised small-l liberals who can’t stand the thought of voting for Labor.
Honestly, I hope this has legs as I am beyond exhausted at the BS of the liberal movement in this country. They claim to be progressive but happily support the conservatives to destroy this country. As a collective, they are cowards. Hell, the only reason we’re seeing movement on this front is because they’re afraid of losing their seats, not because of the climate crisis.
Forget the past, look what labor’s current CC policies are, there’s precious going on, just more tinkering around the edges
… precious little going on…
you know the problem!!!! get into Government first….FFS !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Sure, I agree, but the only way they’re going to get there at the moment is by people being pissed off by this LNP, not because Labor’s policies are so wonderful or indeed different. And if they do happen to win the next election, what indication is there they’ll be much different to the current mob!
Oh I’m sure you’d like voters to forget the past!
The Greens and how they scuttled any climate change action by Labor Rudd in their hungry pursuit of power without glory have not been forgotten by the electorate. Nor are the preference deals with Family First etc, forgotten. Nor their sanctimonious waving away the huge mandate of Rudds for climate change action.
Forget the past you say, no way.
The Greens ignored the Labor landslide victory run on a price on carbon in this case a carbon trading scheme was to be the means. They voted Labor’s scheme down as it wasn’t pure enough for the minor vote attracting party. That opened the floodgates to Murdoch and the fossil fuel industry’s war on Labor and a carbon price.
Forget the past? No thanks.
The Greens finally and reluctantly agreed to a Labor carbon price, which meant Labor gave the nation only 3 years of a price on carbon, trading or otherwise, instead out of the 6 years.
And when the writing was on the wall after a vicious Murdoch Coalition, the Greens ran to a paper shredder a la Berjeiklian and tore up their agreement with Labor in the hope of not losing a vote from the now diseased and outgoing Labor government.
Forget the past you admonish.
Voting minor and independent plays into the hands of the right; and the Greens have always been seen as a Liberal Lite party, and for good reason.
Few here can withstand the outrage unleashed by the Greens and minor party/independent true believers when criticising the Greens, Keating or Hawke on this forum. Leave the neo Liberal wet dreams of Hawke, Keating, the Greens/ faux independents and minor parties alone! Pure as drive snow.
They are too politically naïve and ignorant to understand that it is the fractured left vote of Labor that enables the Coalition and the plethora of right wing minor parties/independents to win power.
It is after all why the conservative government of the day introduced preferential voting in 1918 to avoid Labor gaining power by the farmers forming their own party and thus splitting the conservative vote!
Yet here you write forget the past. Not likely!
In his fantasies LoL rools the Land of the Morally Myopic & Politically Blind, a’la Jorge Luis Borges’ short story – the cure was a bit drastic.
Have a lie down
‘Since the election, Bandt has twice met Abbott’s chief-of-staff Peta Credlin to discuss paid parental leave, a signature policy for the prime minister. As with the petrol excise, the Greens provide his best hope of securing its passage.’ Unlike Labor.
http://www.thesaturdaypaper.com.au/news/politics/2014/05/31/post-budget-whats-eating-the-greens/1401458400#.U4lj3UMu8nI
Come now, time you faced reality, NO party is free of deals.
“Discuss issues”!!
Heaven Forfend!
Theordabealoraginit!
But what are they meant to do? They talk climate change and get shredded in the media, whilst the LNP do nothing and get praised for thinking about contemplating doing something maybe.
When you say ‘the media’ you obviously mean Murdoch’s media, right? So get passed it. Use the ‘old’ style media in conjunction with ‘new’ style media. Younger, and in general more progressive, people can be reached via social media. The older generations might have to be reached via stalls in markets, I see Green Peace there all the time, why not Labor, or indeed the Greens? Have information booths on the beaches, in the parks, in town centres. The election is early next year, who the hell knows what they even stand for? Justine Elliot (Labor MP) in my region puts out a full page ad every now and again, that’s about it. Pathetic!
Best we stick with the Coalition then. Right! False equivalence is the bread and butter of the Green’s devotees. They ignore the deals with the Coalition including voting down impure Rudd climate change legislation, giving us another 3 years of no action, on and on it goes, the Greens have saved the world.
Same old tired, tendentious tropes.
Can’t you manage nu B/S?
You need another lie down and a Bex
I recall you rightfully extolling John Menadue website and writings, but I doubt if you meant this article of his
The disastrous outcome on climate change and the Greens’ culpability
https://johnmenadue.com/the-disastrous-outcome-on-climate-change-and-the-greens-culpability/
‘Green opportunism leaves carbon policy at zero’.
As I mentioned in my blog of September 2 last year, the defeat of Rudd’s CPRS brought on an acrimonious and divisive debate and a denial of the science of climate change.
As a result public support for a carbon tax on an Emissions Trading Scheme has plunged from 75% in 2007 to less than 40%.
The Greens cannot wash their hands of this debacle.
They triggered it in the Senate.
Whether on climate change or asylum seekers, Australia is paying a heavy price for the Greens’ policy purity.
They have played into Tony Abbott’s hands.
But for the Greens an ETS would have been done and dusted five years ago.
I guess you won’t be a fan of John Menadue’s site anymore.
As a result of the Clive Palmer intervention, we are now unlikely to have any carbon reduction policy in place. In a few weeks’ time it is likely the Senate will vote down the Carbon Tax, its successor an Emissions Trading Scheme and Direct Action.
The party that is chiefly responsible for this fiasco is the Greens. The same is true of its holier-than-thou approach on asylum seekers, but I will leave that for another day.
I set out my views on the enormous damage that the Greens have done in my post of September 2 last year ‘Holier than thou … but with disastrous results’. That blog is reposted below.
As Gough Whitlam put it in a different context ‘Only the impotent are pure’.
The Greens have been giving us policy purity in truckloads, but on a sensible policy on climate change they have given us ‘a big fat nothing’.
https://johnmenadue.com/the-disastrous-outcome-on-climate-change-and-the-greens-culpability/
There now that’s a new trope for you; or some nuB/S as you call my posts.
The problem is that the ‘talk’ was just that – Shorten would not know a climate challenge if it fell on his empty head.
That his words came from a hollow sounding vessel was apparent to anyone who wasexposed to it for more than 5 seconds – rote drivel he could repeat backwards and seemed often to so do.
We need politics to be about ideas, vision and the understanding of how to achieve them.
This is not in the toolbox of any party for the simple reason that they are. by definition, a group of people with disparate views, often contradictory – when not virulently & diametrically opposed.
They are about consensus, compromise and complicit collusion with lower means.
And people wonder why they always become both corrupt and sclerotic.
For your information we don’t run like America with the head stool controlling the party. It wasn’t all about Shorten like Murdoch and the Coalition wanted you to think.
Those so called liberals will just have to vote Labor- its not that hard!! pompous, entitled tax dodgers need to do something for others if they are really genuine!!!
Exactly. It was not talked about enough but it was the voters of Wentworth who delivered Morrison his government. They went independent but apparently lacked grit.
Pompous twats.
First and last two paras in a 2014 article by Rob
Rob Oakeshott: How big business hijacked parliament
The rules are simple: fight the bastards, bankroll the other side of politics, cause them damage until they learn to ignore treasury and finance advice and start listening instead to that grubby leveller in politics – money.
The mining tax ads that ran in high rotation were powerful influencers. It was a $20-odd million spend that kept a hundred times that in the pockets of a few. And it remains just one of many examples where Australians are screwing themselves, victims of a clever strategy that muddies the waters of policy reform.
So next time you vote, add political donation reform to the list of items you are voting on. And for the next few elections, please make it a priority. The commercial influence on public decision-making is more important than anything else right now. Australia is losing its future unless we change.
http://www.thesaturdaypaper.com.au/topic/politics/2014/08/09/rob-oakeshott-how-big-business-hijacked-parliament/1407506400#.U-pDdUMu8nJ
Wentworth can’t vote Labor, the demographics and religious make up ensures it.
The LNP is just like the GOP in America…beyond help. They need a very long spell in opposition to re-learn what government is really about.
Oakshott is and always will be a right wing aligned person, the myth pedalled here by Greens voters that minor parties and independents will save is not born out historically and in fact. If you dare question them they go curl into a ball and Labor bash til they drop.
It’s odd to see Oakeshott claiming the ALP have “failed” Australians on climate action, considering it was with him that they passed the last bit of meaningful climate related policy.
Are you not aware of the horrific campaign against Oakeshott by Gillespie and the Nationals and the Liberals? It was truly terrifying for Oakeshott and most of it involved linking Oakeshott to Labor and the Credlin concocted carbon TAX. It worked and he was rolled.
For a current world leadership that aspired to govern emerging generations, time has all but run-out. Climate Change unattended over decades now Climate Threat.
Climate Threat no longer bound or limited by global governance. There was a time when possible. But they, we, blew it. What awaits . . . well, how willing is our species to respond? Basically everything now comes down to leadership. For those who will abandon their personal ambitions and step aside? And the calibre, vision of those prepared to step up and lead?
For Tony, Rob and Simon to assist, support, together, a major contribution.
What fantastic news. thank you, Margot. You have given me hope that we might still have time to change australia for the better – for the survival of future generations. Please keep us updated.
As a long time ALP member, union activist and believer in a better society (no not economy) I am genuinely excited at this. Both of these men exemplify honesty and integrity and have a deep policy understanding. Good luck!
Let’s not forget how Ricky Muir, elected for the 4WD Enthusiast party, aka the roo-poo chucker, developed into an effective, conscientious and effective Senator in a few short months.
He had the self awareness and decency to return to the sawmill and honest work after a single term.
You may think it’s a wonderful show of democracy to have one rehabilitated independent control the nation’s future but it’s not my definition of a healthy democracy.
Medevac Bill anyone?
Caloo Lalay Oh Frabjous day!
with a nod to Steinbeck and cheers for Holmes a Court Oakeshott and WindSOR.
OOPS, I WAS SO EXCITED. should have been Calay, and Windsor, and kept my pinky off “caps lock”.
Lewis Carroll?