The last time South Australians went to the polls to vote in a new government, the state had become a battlefield in a bitter national debate on the climate crisis.
A violent storm in 2016 had whipped up two tornadoes – unheard of in that part of the world – and sent them barrelling down the centre of the continent, ripping through transmission lines and plunging the state into darkness.
In the aftermath South Australians became collateral damage in a national culture war over the climate crisis, renewable energy and how best to respond to an increasingly volatile environment.
Federal politicians seized on the statewide blackout to claim renewable energy was unstable and unreliable, while billionaires Elon Musk and Mike Cannon-Brookes famously arranged a bet over social media about the direction of the state’s power grid.
Against this backdrop, the need to transition to a zero carbon economy sparked fierce competition between the two major parties at the 2018 election – a sclerotic Labor administration that had been in power for 16 years and a Liberal opposition sensing blood.
Four years later, as South Australians go back to the polling booth this Saturday, the major parties have been relatively quiet on the climate crisis and environmental issues.
With the power grid stabilised and the proportion of the state’s energy needs provided by renewables growing from zero to 60% in 14 years, it is no longer the contentious issue it once was.
Residents of Kangaroo Island and the Adelaide Hills are yet to fully recover from the Black Summer Bushfires and headlines from the catastrophic floods in New South Wales and Queensland have dominated during the campaign, but the climate crisis has largely taken a back seat as debate focuses on a crisis in the health system.
Patrick O’Connor, the president of the Nature Conservation Society, says this should be a concern to voters as the time available to act is shrinking, with scientists warning deep cuts in greenhouse gas emissions are needed by 2030.
“The next government will finish its term halfway through that decade. Any government going into an election with nothing to say is very significant,” O’Connor says.
“So far the Liberal government has had nothing to say. If I otherwise liked something about the Liberal Party agenda, what would I be voting for in the next four years on climate change and biodiversity? I don’t know.”
‘Business as usual’
Even with bipartisan support for the transition to renewable energy and the state having a head start on other jurisdictions, South Australia is not without its problems.
Emissions from power generation are falling, but according to the Department for Environment and Water those from road transport are growing fast. They are now the biggest source of emissions in the state.
While this might be considered fertile ground for new policy proposals on freight, public transport, cycling and electric vehicles, the response from the incumbent Liberals has been “business as usual” on environmental issues – consistent with the party’s broader budget-conscious and austerity-minded campaign.
On electric vehicles, for example, the Liberal government introduced an incentive scheme to encourage uptake that included a $3,000 subsidy program. These incentives were welcomed by industry, but they were not as generous as New South Wales’ program, as they also introduced an EV user charge that discourages people from making a switch.
The government is instead relying on its environmental record. It promises to continue work on the expansion of port infrastructure at Port Bonython on the Eyre Peninsula to facilitate hydrogen exports, as well as engaging in early talks to convert the Nyrstar lead refinery at Port Pirie to renewable energy and agricultural projects around carbon farming and lowering methane emissions.
Speaking to Guardian Australia, the environment minister, David Spiers, says the Liberal government’s approach to the climate crisis had prioritised building the infrastructure needed for private industry to do the heavy lifting on the transition.
“We will be continuing our trajectory around what I think is a really strong platform that we put in place with our climate action plan,” Spiers says. “We’ve had a plan out there for the best part of the year. It will be business as usual but not in a way where there is low ambition.
“[We will be] transitioning our economy, getting everything in place, and focusing on two or three areas, agriculture, transportation, hydrogen and carbon and sequestration and storage.”
Sitting on their laurels?
The refusal to expand on what the party would do if returned to government has environment groups in South Australia concerned.
In the lead up to the election, the South Australian Conservation Council – a coalition of groups with more than 100,000 members – issued a survey to both major parties, the Greens and SA Best.
The Liberal Party, however, refused to participate, responding instead with a statement highlighting past achievements.
Spiers, known for colourful attacks on political opponents, says the party did not participate because he believed the survey was “stacked against us” and describes its organisers as “a bit of a joke”.
The chief executive of the Conservation Council SA, Craig Wilkins, stands by the scorecard, its methodology and the responses which are published on its website.
“It was a near identical process in 2018, when the Liberal Party was in opposition and eager to get our support. They were quite happy to follow through and provide comments at the time,” Wilkins says.
Wilkins says the creation of Australia’s largest national park in the Munga-Thirri-Simpson desert was “the most important environmental outcome” from the Marshall government during its term but “no party can be allowed to coast and sit on their laurels”.
Going green quickly
Against this backdrop the Labor opposition has sought to distinguish itself by putting a new $593m government-owned 200MW green hydrogen power plant at the centre of its election pitch.
Labor’s deputy leader, Susan Close, says under current plans the project would be built near Whyalla to support nearby industrial operations, including the local steelworks, but could be opened up to later export clean energy.
“Our view is if we’re going to continue to have manufacturing in Australia it’s going to have to go green quickly. This is our contribution to that,” Close says.
The proposal was dismissed by the Liberal Party, which says the cost of construction was likely to blow out to $1.2b, while Whyalla locals have raised concerns over whether it will interfere with the migration of giant cuttlefish in the Upper Spencer Gulf.
“There will be no trouble for the cuttlefish,” Close said. “We would never do that.”
Environmental groups however have raised concerns after Labor announced on Wednesday it would fund its other election commitments by introducing an “efficiency dividend” of 1.7% across government departments in order to offset the cost of its election commitments. Health, education, police, child protection, Tafe, courts and emergency services would be exempted from the savings measure.
Wilkins said $34m in “core funding” had already been cut from the Department of Environment and Water over the last four years and the efficiency dividend could slash an additional $1.3m in funding.
On other issues both Labor and the Greens say they would support a range of changes if in a position to decide policy after Saturday. They include an expansion of schemes to support solar and battery systems in low-income households, a world heritage application for the Great Australian Bight and the introduction of a state biodiversity act.
A looming issue that will carry over, and is likely to remain vexed whatever the election result, is the construction of a federal nuclear waste dump at Kimba on the Eyre peninsula.
Labor, the Greens and independents all oppose the dump. Wilkins says the federal government has just assumed “they’ll just be able to roll it out and somehow South Australians will accept it and everyone will move on”, but that may not the case, and the election could throw its future into doubt.
“This facility is supposed to be there for nearly 100 years,” Wilkins said.
“That raises big questions, I would have thought.”
• This article was amended on 18 March 2022. An earlier version incorrectly stated that Labor’s efficiency dividend would cover health, education, police, child protection, Tafe, courts and emergency services. Those areas are exempt.
