26/11/2019

(AU) The Political Classes Are Stuck And The Consequences Could Be Catastrophic

Sydney Morning Herald - Sean Kelly*

In the odd hours following Donald Trump’s election victory, many of us traced our shock to the obvious fact the world had just changed. But soon enough we realised that this obvious fact was wrong. The world had changed some time ago. It was just that we had missed it, caught in old ways of seeing, old ways of being. We often take a while to catch up to the present.
Those memories have come back to me over the past couple of weeks, as heavy grey-smoke skies have pressed down on Sydney, and the scent of bushfire has made its way inside. Yes, there have been fires before, just as there had been election upsets before – but to many of us this year feels different. You strike up conversations with people you don’t know about the fact this is the way it’s going to be from now on. And you know, too, that really we’ve been heading this way for some time, it’s just that we are now beginning to comprehend the scale.
And yet debate in this country, as conducted by politicians and the media, remains stuck, unproductively nostalgic for what debate once was, unwilling to concede the change that many citizens feel instinctively.
Deputy Prime Minister Michael McCormack attacked the Greens. Credit: Alex Ellinghausen
To briefly rehearse facts: after the fires began burning, the Deputy Prime Minister, Michael McCormack, said now was not the time to be talking about climate change. Those doing so were “pure, enlightened and woke capital-city greenies”. Then Greens senator Jordon Steele-John attacked those who would prop up coal: “You are no better than a bunch of arsonists.” His colleague, Adam Bandt, said the government was putting “lives at risk”.
But you’ve already heard all this in one of the many pieces of commentary that condemned these comments equally as examples of extreme and unhelpful language.
Illustration: Simon Bosch
Two things amazed me about this ubiquitous analysis.
The first was that while opinions differed on whether it was the right moment to talk about climate change, there was near unanimity on the idea that it was precisely the right moment to have a long national discussion about civility in political discourse and the correct uses of rhetoric. I’m sure the farmers and the firefighters were grateful.
The second was that little of this commentary drew a distinction between the two comments on the basis of truth. What McCormack said was false – it was not just “greenies” linking the fires to climate change - and this was widely noted. But wasn’t it also the case that what the two Greens were saying was true, or at the very least arguable? If we know that climate change comes from rising emissions, and that it is causing natural disasters to intensify, isn’t there a clear line between failing to cut emissions, more destructive fires in the future and more deaths?
The Greens were criticised for point-scoring, which was a curious phrase, suggesting they were treating politics as a game. But it seemed to me it was their critics who were treating politics as though it were a local cricket match, after which everyone could leave the field, shake hands, and go politely on their way. Bandt and Steele-John, in contrast, were treating matters as deadly serious, insisting that politics has consequences, sometimes fatal, and that its practitioners should not be protected from this fact.
They should certainly not be protected from this fact by the media, whose job description you might think lies in the opposite direction.
The difficulty of the current moment is that we are caught between two eras. Behind us lies a period in which debate and compromise between two sides, each of which had reasonable points, was a useful way to achieve progress. When the GST and interest rates were the most important issues, this was fine.
On many issues, it still is fine. And of course political analysis will always include discussion of what is possible. But on more urgent, defining issues like climate change – or the rise of far-right nationalism – we fail when we substitute what change might be achievable for an honest appraisal of what change is necessary.
Similarly, points about the disappearance of civility and the rise of partisanship are important critiques, broadly speaking. But they are not equally applicable to every topic. Our political classes have been handed a hammer, and now they think everything’s a nail.
A final example of politics lagging reality. Our politicians are still debating who to blame for events of 10 years ago, when Kevin Rudd’s emissions trading scheme was voted down. As a matter of history, it’s fascinating. As part of the current debate, who cares? Nobody knew then what we know now, not in the way we know it, in our bones.
The only failures that matter now are the ones ahead. “Accepting the science” no longer means believing in climate change, it means accepting that catastrophic events are on their way unless we act pretty much immediately. We can ignore this if we like, go on deluding ourselves that politics can be discussed the way it used to be. But if we do, there will be consequences, and nobody will be able to protect us from them.

*Sean Kelly is a columnist for The Age and The Sydney Morning Herald and a former adviser to Labor prime ministers Kevin Rudd and Julia Gillard

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