Prime Minister Scott Morrison took a big step forward on Monday by saying what most Australians have long been thinking about the link between climate change and the bushfires, droughts and catastrophic floods that have ravaged the country in recent years. Hopefully he will now do something about cutting Australia's carbon emissions, too.
The remarks on climate change were perhaps the biggest surprise in a major speech to the National Press Club in Canberra yesterday ahead of the first parliamentary sitting week of 2019 and the federal election.
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| Prime Minister Scott Morrison accepts climate change is causing natural disasters. Credit: Alex Ellinghausen |
As recently as last week, Mr Morrison visited the site of devastating bushfires in south-west Tasmania in forests that had not caught fire in millenniums. Yet he described as "pretty offensive" a suggestion by Greens senator Nick McKim that the fires were made more dangerous by the Coalition's pro-coal policies.
So it was welcome that Mr Morrison on Monday turned around and emphatically accepted the science. "I acknowledge [climate change] is a factor. Of course it is. Australians do – the vast majority of Australians," he said.
It has taken a long time for these words to come out of Mr Morrison's mouth but the real issue is what he plans to do about them. Mr Morrison promised to do more on climate change before the next election but he still suffers from a credibility gap on the issue. In the next breath he repeated his prediction that Australia will meet its emissions reductions targets under the Paris Treaty "at a canter" despite strong evidence that it cannot on current settings.
Mr Morrison may want to reoccupy the centre ground on climate change but it is a pity that he rejected even the possibility of compromise on the equally divisive issue of asylum seekers. "You want to join me on the right ground, you're welcome. But I'm not going to find a middle ground," he said.
The Herald argues that a middle ground exists which gradually saves refugees stuck in limbo in the Pacific without compromising the policy of turning back the boats.
Indeed the Coalition has led the way by sending 500 refugees from Nauru and Manus Island to the US and by voluntarily taking all the children and their families from Nauru. A sensible compromise, however, would require both the government and the equally conflicted ALP to give ground.
The ALP has previously backed a bill put forward by independent MPs giving doctors the final say on whether to bring asylum seekers from Manus and Nauru to Australia for medical treatment. Mr Morrison argues that the bill, to be debated this week, threatens national security and the government must have a veto.
Yet court judgments are already forcing the government to bring scores of sick detainees to Australia for treatment on doctors' orders. A bipartisan deal seems possible which allows truly urgent cases to come here without costly legal battles but which includes safeguards in case there is evidence that border security is undermined.
In general, Mr Morrison has a choice between looking to the middle ground or pandering to what Defence Minister Christopher Pyne described in Monday's Herald as the "shouty" extreme right elements in the media and the party. He should be aware that Australians do not usually back the extremes.
Links
- Scott Morrison tells students striking over climate change to be 'less activist'
- Morrison now officially worse than Abbott on climate change
- Fact-checking Morrison on climate change
- Climate change is 'no laughing matter', Fiji's PM Frank Bainimarama tells Australia during Scott Morrison's Pacific trip
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