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I know Nick Rowley and he is quite good at describing the pitfalls for
progressive governments and thus allows that political risk for new
government and thus policy is high.
>
> Tightrope politics down under
> Nick Rowley
> 16 September 2010
> Julia Gillard’s Labor will have to perform some supreme balancing
> acts if Australia’s toxic climate politics are to be overcome
>
> So, after seventeen days of negotiation, briefing and cajoling in
> the wake of the August 21 poll, Australia finally has a government.
> Yet with Labor’s return to power dependent on the support of three
> non-aligned Independents and a single Green, quite how the Gillard
> government will set the political and policy agenda remains unclear.
> The support of one Green MP is required in the House of
> Representatives and the Greens also now hold the balance of power in
> the Australian Senate.
>
> On the face of it, the written agreement between the Greens and the
> Australian Labor Party (ALP) creates an impression that the deal
> represents a major re-alignment of the progressive left. This may
> yet happen, but given the nature of Australian politics and the
> voters who ultimately decide elections, it remains unlikely.
>
> The government is now caught in a classic “wedge”: if it pursues
> policies seen as “too Green”, this will only add force to the
> argument that the best way for ALP voters to ensure the Party does
> not forget its progressive values (on asylum seekers, climate
> change, public investment etc.) is to continue voting Green. At the
> same time it would allow the right to appeal to the suburban
> property owning classes (where Australian elections are
> traditionally won and lost), by reminding them that the government
> is in alliance with a motley band of radical environmentalists out
> of step with the mass of the Australian public and continuing to
> hold economic and social views more at home in the late 1960s. This
> is a strong argument at a time of economic stability; a potentially
> devastating one if the economy weakens.
>
> Walking this tightrope is just one of the many balancing acts that
> the Gillard government will have to negotiate: too Green and you
> lose the election; too conservative and you lose the numbers keeping
> you in power. My sense is that in practice the relationship between
> Labor and the Greens, rather than emerging as a serious, reciprocal
> relationship, will prove more akin to sharing a flat at college. The
> two parties will tolerate one another in the knowledge that the
> alternative – the shallow, right wing populism of the Abbott-led
> Liberal/National Party – is just too awful to contemplate.
>
> In government, balancing this tension will require decisions on
> policy rather than process. And the policy area that remains the
> toughest is climate change. More than 80 percent of Australia’s
> electricity comes from coal. If the country is to achieve economy-
> wide emissions reductions it is a reliance that must change. And
> this will require the government to impose a cost on high polluting
> activities.
>
> The agreement with the Greens includes a shared acknowledgement that
> achieving emissions reduction by 2020 will require a price on
> carbon, and a “committee on climate change” will be established to
> advise on how this could be implemented. The euphemistic phrase
> “price on carbon” reveals there is little appetite to revisit the
> failed Carbon Pollution Reduction Scheme (CPRS) developed by the
> former Rudd government. It leaves open the possibility of imposing
> an interim carbon tax: a solution advocated by the Greens, along
> with Professor Ross Garnaut, eminent former adviser and author of a
> government-sponsored review on climate change.
>
> As a step towards an emissions trading system, a fixed interim
> carbon price imposed on certain sectors of the economy might make
> some policy sense. But the politics is now bad: it would be an
> incomparable political gift to the opposition. For since becoming
> Opposition Leader Tony Abbott has argued that Labor and the Greens
> would impose a “big new carbon tax on everything.” In one stroke he
> would, in the public mind, be proved right. The Gillard government
> must navigate this treacherous territory without allowing the
> permanent political management challenge to sap energy from
> developing and implementing policy in the national interest.
>
> The Roman brutality with which Prime Minister Rudd was toppled,
> followed by the closest election result in Australian political
> history, creates a powerful temptation to focus on the ever-changing
> nuances of the national political soap opera. But behind this show
> lie lessons for progressive parties regarding the dynamics
> surrounding what people want and expect of political parties and
> leaders committed to progressive values.
>
> Firstly, beware the pitfalls of self-proclaimed leadership on
> climate change. In Australia, despite all the rhetoric and hubris of
> the Rudd era, climate policy is still equated with environment
> policy: as a “nice thing to do” rather than a core agenda or part of
> an engaging nation-building narrative. When faced with imposing a
> cost on the polluting activities of existing industrial interests,
> the Rudd government chose the path of least resistance: ensuring the
> price signal was muffled for existing polluters and then, when the
> politics became hard, simply putting everything on hold. This might
> work for some contentious policies, but not on climate change, and
> certainly not after the prime minister had told the country it was
> one of “the greatest moral, economic and environmental challenges of
> our age”. The gap between the words and the deeds became too great,
> and as a leader Rudd lost all political credibility.
>
> Secondly, the dynamics behind “green” politics are here to stay. In
> Australia, whether one considers the increased likelihood of floods,
> bushfires and drought, or the impact of decisions taken by major
> trading partners such as Japan, China and India, climate change is
> not going away. Furthermore, the problem cannot be addressed by a
> few tokenistic “green” policies, but must be a strategic choice,
> like whether or not to get married. From that choice policies need
> to be developed around achieving measurable emissions reductions
> through time.
>
> Failure to address climate change may prove far more than just a
> political failure. It could have truly frightening social, economic
> and environmental implications. But more than Al Gore’s
> “inconvenient truth”, given that we can make choices and develop
> serious policies designed to achieve emissions reduction, climate
> change is also an enabling truth. So despite all the frustration
> following the UN meeting in Copenhagen, the failure of the US to
> pass cap-and-trade legislation, and the drama and toxicity of recent
> Australian politics, I remain hopeful. For a progressive politics
> that understands the climate problem and meaningfully, consistently,
> addresses it will, over the coming century, succeed: both
> politically and in providing a more secure and prosperous future.
>
> Nick Rowley is a director of Kinesis. For two years between 2004 and
> 2006 he worked at 10 Downing Street as adviser on climate change and
> sustainability to Prime Minister Tony Blair.
>
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