Over the past decade or so, there have been times when I’ve felt more like a war correspondent than a political one. And ahead of the opening of the new parliament on Tuesday, Peter Dutton is certainly not signalling an armistice.
Dutton has locked the Liberal party into voting against Labor’s 43% emissions reduction target because he thinks he can continue to weaponise medium-term climate action against a new government, at a time when inflation is running hot and interest rates are rising.
Not all his colleagues are thrilled. The Liberal party has managed to lose up to 10 heartland seats over the past two election cycles because it can’t bring itself to do the right thing, the obvious thing, the necessary thing: face up to the reality of the climate crisis.
Some Liberals don’t want to be a Trump rump. Simon Birmingham and Jane Hume have made a point in recent days of noting Dutton’s captain’s call on Labor’s 2030 target has not yet gone to the shadow cabinet or the party room.
Continuing the still whispered insurrection, two more Liberals, Bridget Archer and Andrew Bragg, are also reserving their right to cross the floor to support Labor’s legislation.
The post-rout flex in the Liberal party is interesting; it could even become important. But right now, it’s not the main game.
Right now the main game concerns progressive Australia, and whether or not it can keep its collective shit together. Sorry to be indelicate, but I’m not one to mince words.
Over the next two weeks, the new Albanese government, the teal buffer state and the Greens have to decide what’s most important: is it taking the critical first step to end the climate wars, or is it preserving their political product differentiation at voter expense?
When the 47th parliament begins next week, Labor will introduce legislation giving effect to its emissions reduction targets for 2030 and 2050. Rather than thrash the tired tropes of piety and pragmatism, let’s step through the facts.
The Greens and teals are correct to say climate science would demand a number higher than 43%. They are right to say opening up more fossil fuel developments fries the planet, and right to flag the need for urgent action.
This week’s diabolical state of the environment report makes it clear climate change is already lived reality. The natural environment that sustains one of the driest continents on earth is deteriorating at an alarming rate.
People who fled for their lives during the summer bushfires of 2019-20 understand climate change is present tense, not future tense, and so do the people who waded through waist-deep water during the ongoing east coast low, or required a roof rescue because flood waters surged too quickly.
I’ve always been worried about the trajectory of the climate crisis. That’s why I volunteer for the war. But I’m more worried now than I’ve ever been. That escalating concern about now, and the future – whether our kids will be safe, whether they will have opportunity in the net zero economy – informs what I’m about to say next.
The political class needs to end the decade of weaponised lying and bare-knuckle partisanship that has created the lost decade of inaction – and the beginning of the end involves doing something, not dishing up more stylised nothing.
The legislation that will be introduced to parliament next week is not Labor’s definitive plan for climate action. It was never intended to be. What this is, is the first test of whether or not Australia can turn a corner. That’s why it matters.
Dutton has already told voters he can’t, or won’t. Anthony Albanese says he wants to end the climate wars. I believe he actually does. But he’s also trolling Adam Bandt about thermal coal and the great botch-up of 2009 while Chris Bowen has his head down trying to strike a parliamentary deal – which isn’t constructive or smart. It’s more growler from Grayndler than prime minister.
And rather than etching some constructive middle ground, Bandt is also out with his loud hailer, unfurling a list of demands he knows full well Labor has no electoral mandate to meet.
So much for preamble politics. This bulls-in-a-paddock bollocks will either escalate or settle, so let’s not waste too much time with it. Instead, let’s consider the substance of the bill.
Labor is seeking to legislate targets that connect to the Paris process of regular updates, which means – implicitly – the new government is setting up a cycle of ambition while hugging the 43% by 2030 election commitment. Albanese and Bowen have said repeatedly 43% is a floor not a ceiling, and slightly lost in all the agonising about ambition is this basic fact: a new target will be required for 2035.
Now that Bowen is trying to craft a parliamentary consensus, the teals and Greens have launched a push to Dutton-proof the legislation, which I completely understand given the bitter experience of the past 10 years. The focal point of this push is inserting some kind of ratchet mechanism into the bill – to bake in a level of ambition so boilerplate and inexorable it can’t be undone by a future government.
The main problem with this is it’s a pipe dream. As a person who has watched an incoming Coalition government repeal a carbon price – sadly I was there, ringside, reporting that public policy atrocity in 10-minute increments on a live blog – I can say with some authority that the best means of Dutton-proofing this legislation isn’t a ratchet mechanism that duplicates the implicit ratchet of the Paris process, it’s something much simpler.
The best Dutton insurance is to strengthen the legislation surgically, within the scope of everyone’s electoral mandates, get it into parliament, and get it passed.
People really shouldn’t kid themselves that every voter in the country voted for climate action in 2022. A lot of people did, but some Australians remain very concerned about the practical implications of the transition, and they will only make peace with the future when they see the world doesn’t end when a 43% emissions reduction target is legislated.
The best way to Dutton-proof climate ambition is to deliver a solid proof of concept that widens the footprint of support for climate action in the Australian electorate, because if you widen the footprint, the scare campaigns aren’t as salient.
Dutton isn’t opposed to 43% because, like Tony Abbott, he suspects climate action is akin to ancient cultures killing goats to appease volcano gods. Dutton doesn’t lurk around think tanks, sharing his deeply weird thoughts. He’s an ex-cop from Queensland who fancies his chances of taking seats off Labor in the outer suburbs and regions by telling honest, decent, working people that lettuce costs $10 because of the 43% target.
Dutton is just casting around for something salient. Anything really, given the diabolical mess Scott Morrison left the Liberal party in. If Whyalla Wipeout 2.0 isn’t salient, because sometimes the truth actually trumps a well-honed political lie, he’ll roll on to something else.
Then we might actually end the climate wars.
