The delicate relationship between Labor and the Greens often swings from confrontation to cooperation. But this week, during the stand-off over the government's housing bill, something snapped, writes David Speers.
But it wasn’t meaningfully better. That’s the problem. If you’re proposing a change that’ll have such a small impact that you might as well not do anything, then it is worth blocking that in favour of pushing for actually meaningful policy.
Remember, we’re talking about policy that even Labor’s own modelling claimed would not start benefiting us for 25 years. Labor could have helped themselves and the rest of the country by being willing to compromise. Unfortunately, their leader was a well-known egomaniac. It was his decision to stubbornly stick with the ineffectual policy rather than try and reach a deal. Or, of course, we could put the blame on the people who actually directly caused the later working policy to be undone: the LNP and the Murdoch press.
I think the policy needed to appear to be a lame duck or it just wouldn’t have passed in the political climate at that time, the backlash from the fossil fuel groups would have been biblical compared to just extreme. What was important was it was an emissions trading scheme - the pricing could be adjusted after becoming law in step with the increasing public appetite to address climate change. The billions of dollars worth of free emissions credits given to coal power plants and heavy polluters would have been fuel for future political fires lit right under their arses. I know it’s sneaky but so are the fossil fuel groups, you have to bring something to a knife fight. The scheme could have made significant progress by now but instead we lost yet another decade.
I suppose the policy’s flexibility could have been abused by any future government too, so yeah that’s a problem. It’s possible the policy could have been making good money for the government by then so it would have been more politically/fiscally costly to reduce the price on emissions.
But it wasn’t meaningfully better. That’s the problem. If you’re proposing a change that’ll have such a small impact that you might as well not do anything, then it is worth blocking that in favour of pushing for actually meaningful policy.
Remember, we’re talking about policy that even Labor’s own modelling claimed would not start benefiting us for 25 years. Labor could have helped themselves and the rest of the country by being willing to compromise. Unfortunately, their leader was a well-known egomaniac. It was his decision to stubbornly stick with the ineffectual policy rather than try and reach a deal. Or, of course, we could put the blame on the people who actually directly caused the later working policy to be undone: the LNP and the Murdoch press.
Good points, and good conversation, thanks 🙂 ❤️
I think the policy needed to appear to be a lame duck or it just wouldn’t have passed in the political climate at that time, the backlash from the fossil fuel groups would have been biblical compared to just extreme. What was important was it was an emissions trading scheme - the pricing could be adjusted after becoming law in step with the increasing public appetite to address climate change. The billions of dollars worth of free emissions credits given to coal power plants and heavy polluters would have been fuel for future political fires lit right under their arses. I know it’s sneaky but so are the fossil fuel groups, you have to bring something to a knife fight. The scheme could have made significant progress by now but instead we lost yet another decade.
I suppose the policy’s flexibility could have been abused by any future government too, so yeah that’s a problem. It’s possible the policy could have been making good money for the government by then so it would have been more politically/fiscally costly to reduce the price on emissions.