The argument over Labor’s 43% 2030 emissions reduction target is rapidly coming to resemble that of Scott Morrison’s nonsensical 2050 net-zero target, and it’s every bit as political.
Labor can rightly insist it took 43% to the election and won, but any talk of a mandate is undercut by its relatively low primary vote. But by the same logic, the more ambitious targets — and realistic, in climate emergency terms — of the Greens and the teals have even less of a mandate. It’s more likely that Labor is acutely aware, from the Gillard era, of what happens when it appears to break election promises in relation to climate action.
The government also wants to paint itself as the sensible centre on climate: 43% stands in contrast to the Coalition, which has no climate policy beyond the discredited targets of the Abbott-Morrison era, and with the Greens, whom the government wants to portray as irrational zealots.
Thus the invocation of 2009 by Anthony Albanese, aided and abetted by the press gallery, which has decided in its institutional memory that the Greens should have voted for Kevin Rudd’s hopelessly compromised carbon pollution reduction scheme (CPRS), thus avoiding a lost decade on climate. But that’s the stuff of political science fiction — it would merely have entrenched a weak emissions trading scheme delivering little in emissions abatement. The only thing that would have avoided a decade of climate wars was keeping the Coalition out of power.
Labor now is only too happy to exploit this fake history and suggest that the Greens remain once again poised to wreck sensible climate action in the name of policy purity. It’s all about wedging the Greens, who can only complain about Labor’s take-it-or-leave-it approach.
But whether the target is 43% or 50% or higher is less important than the fact that the government has no intention of resiling from approving new coal and gas projects — so that we can continue to generate colossal revenues from fossil fuel exports. Gas projects like Woodside’s Scarborough gas field, and what will likely be the world’s dirtiest gas project, Santos’ Barossa project in the Northern Territory, will add billions of tonnes of carbon emissions over coming decades. The government also has applications for more than two dozen new coal mines.
Labor’s view is that our fossil fuel exports are not our problem — it’s other countries that burn our coal and gas after they import it, so don’t complain to them about those emissions. It’s committed to expanding our fossil fuel exports as much as it can.
There’s the real conflict, and it’s a profound one deserving far more coverage than the 43% debate — especially considering taxpayers get next to nothing in tax revenue from fossil fuel companies selling gas overseas.
It also points to the basic hypocrisy of the Albanese government, which is promising to step up in the Pacific and talking about taking seriously the concerns of Pacific Island nations about climate change while also backing the addition of billions of tonnes of emissions to the atmosphere for the benefit of the resources sector. Whether we embrace 43% or 50% won’t make any difference to that impact on small island states.
Any politician approving new coal, oil or gas projects in Australia should be charged with crimes against humanity. Labor should refuse donations from the fossil fuel sector so we know they could possibly be trusted with acting in the best interests of the people and not just the corporate profit agenda.As well as a Federal ICAC we need a complete ban on corporate political donations and corporate lobbyists. A country that allows corporate political donations has no real democracy.
Yes, a good start.
Labor and the independents and Greens have a clear mandate now to rewrite the rules to neuter the political power of the fossil fuel lobby. Sadly, Labor will not do it, and that irks me deeply as a lifelong Labor supporter.
On the bright side, the Labor government is at least infinitely better than the LNP ones were.
Gotta agree Fairmind. As a Bernard Keane fan, I’ve questioned his concept of `mandate’. The electors must be considered in a democracy.
I think someone must have misunderstood you Paul! I too wouldn’t call the lowest primary vote since 1934 (or was it 35?) a mandate. I’d call it a “watch yourself mate, you’re a hairsbreadth away from having to consult every independent on every decision.”
Better?
As typhoid is better than cholera?
Flu better than covid?
How about their being ‘good’?
Well, maybe they’re a lighter shade of grey….But if they continue to approve new coal and gas projects, they will lose me forever! Saying that the emissions are only generated by the countries burning our coal is like saying cigarette manufacturers are innocent of harm, as it’s the smokers’ fault that they get cancer! I have never been a great fan of Albo (or most of his Cabinet) but did hope he was fair dinkum about climate change. Looks like I was wrong yet again. The smartest thing I ever said was “never trust a politician!”
What approvals have there been ? And when has anyone in the Labor party ever tried to deflect criticism by using your assertion ?
Your last but one sentence reinforces your bias, and for anyone to make a blanket assertion like that shows an inability to engage in mature discussion. Ponder this – ‘politics is the art of the possible’, not the achievement of the impossible.
And has therefore lost the right to criticise countries like China for being undemocratic and ‘not sharing our values’.
Do you really think that Australia and China have any comparable similarities ? If so, I have a bridge I’d like to sell you. And if you don’t like that, then I have others.
I’m not sure what your point is. Are you suggesting we go to war with China because their society and politics are different from ours? So what if their system is different from ours? So is that of the USA.
You’ve missed my point. We are currently enthusiastically joining the US provocation of war on China, and one of the reasons given for doing this is that China does not share our (democratic) values. I was agreeing with Oneman that any political system controlled by corporate lobbyists (like the USA and increasingly Australia) is no longer a democracy (ie rule by the people), since it is a plutocracy (rule by the rich). So we lose our pompous justification for starting WW3 with China.
While the Chinese do not have our liberal freedoms (neither does Assange nor other Western whistle-blowers, nor increasingly protesters in Australia, incidentally), I would argue that in many ways their system is more democratic than the US, because the government is in control and can reign the big corporates in. If the Chinese leadership stuff up badly enough, they’d be turfed out by the Central Committee. People may not vote directly for them, but US citizens don’t vote directly for their President either.
No matter who you vote for in China, you get the Communist Party. No matter who you vote for in the US or Australia, you get a government controlled by Rupert Murdoch and the big corporations. If the average Chinese joins the Communist Party, he has more chance of influencing Chinese government policy than the average Australian or Yank has of influencing their government policy.
So let’s not get self-righteous about our superior ‘democracy’.
But haven’t the the EU made gas extraction the new “green investment” due to constraints of supply from Russia
In North Rhine Westphalia Germany is currently clear felling the Hambach forest to get at the low yield lignite (brown coal) beneath – one of the largest manmade holes in Europe (85sqkms) and plans to demolish the nearby village of Lützerath.
This has underway since 2019, long before cutting their own throat by not certifying Nordstrom2 on Feb 21st – 3 days before Russia moved on the Ukraine.
What a wonderful world this is, where the working definition of “irrational zealotry” is “taking seriously the overwhelming weight of empirical evidence regarding a profound threat to the survival of human civilisation and all that it depends on”. How our governments manage to bang on endlessly about national security and its prime importance while mostly ignoring global warming is one of the great ironies of our times.
Keane is right. The difference between this government and the previous one is merely a facade of a climate policy. The Coalition could not even manage that. Anyway, Labor need not worry about the Greens, because they have more important to things to argue about, such as flags.
Like your basic take here but the Greens do have the only viable climate policy and I’m confident it is more important to them than flags. However there is a certain appeal in putting the accepted aboriginal flag in lieu of the Union Jack as our national standard. Recognition of their nurturing of this great continent for some 60K years at latest estimates, to my mind, is far more important than arrival of a British settlement group less than three centuries ago.
SSR as always full of it. What’s the point of commenting as its not constructive for helping with the issue at hand.
There are some very smart and committed politicians within Labor, far more policy talent than in any recent coalition government. But if Labor’s pathological hatred of The Greens causes a perversion of policy that any right thinking person knows is urgently necessary, that will serve to start making an utterly unelectable coalition more electable.
Albo, having managed a smaller but more disparate cross bench in the Gillard government must surely realise that Labor’s future is in some sort of coalition with The Green and like-minded progressive independents. 43% was always patently inadequate but in circumstances where the coalition may have been a chance. The circumstances have now fundamentally changed. Ratcheting up climate policy will now be more popular than sticking with an inadequate election promise.
Not only must Labor heed The Greens and stop all new fossil fuel development, it must immediately introduce a windfall profits tax and, if necessary in the short term, mandate a reservation of existing gas production for Australian use. The is not a time for BAU. It is a time for bold and courageous policy!
Yes, just as LNP is a coalition, there should be a Labor/Green one in some form. After all, Greens are left wing people, who do have principles, but lack practicality at times due to idealism outweighing pragmatism. Surely having a mechanism to at least talk and be cooperative would see some good (better at least) policies. And what a strong group it would be politically. Would probable vacuum up so Teals too….
Really ? Look at what a coalition has done to our country since 1943.
Some reasonable pints in your post. What I don’t get is why people believe that Labor’s target is a ceiling ? It’s a floor. And why would you blame only Labor for ‘ a perversion of policy that any right thinking person knows is urgently necessary’ ? It takes two to tango and the Greens have a record of totally dumb political manouvering.
Agree about the windfall profits tax etc, but what makes you think that any new fossil fuel developments wil pass the environmental laws or will even be able to get financing ?
Labor can simply point to those facts and not cop the blame for closing down regions.
Outstanding contribution, BK. The MSM commentators should read this and hang their brainless heads in shame.
But of course, they won’t….they will not tell the truth unless new laws force them to do so.
Usual ‘look over there’ nonsense about anything other than the Greens intransigence.
What all the anti-Labor media commentators forget about is that the Greens have history of letting the perfect be the enemy of the good and essentially voting with the cons to the detriment of Labor.
What they also conveniently forget about is that while labor may say it is in favour of this, that and the other, the reality bis that any proposal first has to get past the environmental laws as well as the foreign investment laws. E.G. – Adani’s ventures in Qld, while provisionally approved, fails the environmental laws and is never going to get financial backing, having already been refused by a number of institutions.
All fossil fuel endeavours face the same prospect. No power stations will ever be built on fossil fuel use in Australia again.
Labor’s 43% is not a ceiling, it’s a floor. Just as the cons’ 27% was in reality because of the independent actions of State governments and individuals going to achieve probably 35-38%, ( not high enough ), but they couldn’t use that figure because of the political ‘optics’. So, Labor’s 43% is more likely to be closer to 60%, so the B/S emanating from the armchair bleaters is just hot air clickbait.
Sad isn’t it, I was convinced that this Labour party was going to be different from the others, that they would stand up to
the fossil fuel, and the other destructive industries. I guess I didn’t read the fine print
My thoughts exactly.
The revenue for these overseas operators selling OUR STUFF runs to hundreds of billions a year. We receive Sweet FA by way of royalties, and subsidise these operators to boot. It’s a bloody disgrace, and Chris Bowen appears to have every intention of continuing the theft. Gotta look forward to that cushy job in the US later, don’t you, Chris?
Regarding the “gas shortage”, only 4% of exports would supply the domestic East Coast market. Is the greed of these multinationals such that they cant be forced to take a hit on that 4%, supplying Aus industry and consumer at cost?? If not, why not, Chris???
Ain’t the “free market” wonderful, apart from being anything BUT free??
Did you see that The NT government has managed to list the feds putting millions of dollars of taxpayers money (or borrowed money) into the gas fracking infrastructure in the Beetaloo Basin on the priority federal funding list? WTF? That’s after Morrison already threw mega dollars at his gas led recovery mates!
Yes, I saw that. Why subsidise them at all? Makes little sense. And meanwhile, Chris Bowen talks of Australia presenting “sovereign risk” for these multinational vultures. Easy fix, nationalise their assets, and use the more than adequately trained Australian workforce to run the plants. I know, I worked in the industry.
Agree, whole heartedly.
I’m with you mate, bring on the revolution
There was no fine print, they were very clear keeping support for the FF industry. For some reason rusted ons told us “Labor is just saying they support it to get into power and then they will do the right thing”. It’s mind boggling. That was the whole reason the best scenario would have been a hung parliament.
Even had there been “fine print” it would have been utter lies.
There isn’t a soggy cigarette paper difference between either of the major parties.
Each beholden to its owners, as intended and ever was, certainly since Hawke & Keating came to power – since when it has been all downhill.
The people who benefit are not those who elect them.
You obviously haven’t read the nuances and haven’t picked the differences between what an anti-Labor hack click-baits and what the Labor party has not yet done.