09/05/2019

Cloudy Outlook On Climate Change Ahead Of Election

Canberra Times - Michelle Grattan*

After the initial surge by Scott Morrison, Bill Shorten planted his feet more firmly in the campaign's third week.
Favourable assessments of his performance in Monday night's debate gave the Opposition Leader a confidence boost.
The previous day's multi-billion handouts for child care and dental treatment for pensioners injected a sugar hit into his campaign, keeping Labor's pitch squarely on voters' cost-of-living pressures.
Shorten's plan, also announced that day, for a Labor government to subsidise the wages of childcare workers, while it might go over well in the community, was highly contentious policy, potentially taking him into trip-up territory. Initially he left the way open to extend this largesse to other workers but then quickly closed that down.
Opposition Leader Bill Shorten at Agfest in Tasmania this week. Picture: AAP
Climate change
The serious policy headwinds buffeting Shorten have been coming on the issue that also plays well for Labor - climate change. The question kept being asked: what would the opposition's 45 per cent emissions reduction target cost the economy?
There were always two ways for Shorten to confront this fundamental question. Produce Labor modelling to provide a detailed answer. Or declare it unanswerable, while asking the cost of doing nothing.
The first course would have been the instinctive way to go. But it would take Labor into a maze of contestable numbers.
Refusing to own any particular set of figures, which is what Labor has done - apart from passing nods to assessments that suit its case - is risky. But it keeps the issue in the sunny uplands of the debate, tapping into people's general desire for action on climate.
For the government, the imperative has been to accept the widespread concern about climate change (anything else would be politically unthinkable) but exploit many people's reluctance to pay too much personally to address it.
Morrison's line is that something should be, and is being, done but it's a choice between targets. "Do you have a reckless target, or a responsible target?" he asks.
So the government is heavily focused on any modelling. It is trying to pin big cost numbers to Labor's target, most recently with this week's release of a report from economist Brian Fisher, who runs the consultancy BAEconomics.
The Fisher report is critical of the cost of Labor's policy. But the opposition dismisses it as lacking independence, and Shorten, in line with his broader tactic of refusing to get into the weeds, simply went into attack mode. "We will file this report under P for propaganda," he said.
Polling done in April and released this week by the progressive think tank The Australia Institute showed while Labor had the edge on the climate-energy issue, there is still a high level of uncertainty about which side has the best policies.
Protesters hold placards during a rally on climate inaction outside the office of Prime Minister Scott Morrison in Cronulla on Friday. Picture: AAP
On which party was better for reducing emissions, 40 per cent said Labor; 22 per cent the Coalition; 38 per cent didn't know or were unsure. A third (34 per cent) said Labor policies were better for lowering electricity prices; 29 per cent preferred the Coalition; 37 per cent didn't know. A third (33 per cent) chose Labor as better for energy reliability; 30 per cent said the Coalition; 37 per cent didn't know.
As the campaign passed the half-way point, the polls showed a tightening. Both Newspoll and Essential this week had the Coalition trailing 49-51 per cent, compared with 48-52 per cent previously.
The two sides continue to report the geographical lumpiness in this campaign. Labor is taking rather a beating in regional Queensland over the coal issue, where Shorten's carefully-crafted formula on Adani (designed to say everything and nothing) apparently isn't cutting it.
But to be able to win nationally the Coalition needs a primary vote well over 40 per cent: in Newspoll, it is on 38 per cent and in Essential, on 39 per cent.
And while Shorten has had more glitches than anticipated in this campaign, Morrison this week took some pain over his association, via the preference deal, with controversial businessman Clive Palmer.
Both leaders had a heap of trouble with candidates. Two Victorian Liberals had to be relegated to the scrap heap, for Islamophobic and homophobic comments respectively.
On Thursday, campaigning in Tasmania, Morrison found himself too close for comfort to Jessica Whelan, candidate for Lyons, who was accused of anti-Muslim online comments she claimed were doctored. Morrison initially stood by her, but then more posts emerged, and by early Friday Whelen was gone.
On the Labor side Luke Creasey, running in the Greens seat of Melbourne, finally stood down on Friday after more of his offensive online activity from some years ago appeared. On Monday an ALP Northern Territory Senate candidate had had to resign for his social media behaviour.
In the first four days of pre-polling, which started Monday, about 510,000 voted, compared to 315,000 in 2016. Shorten's Sunday announcements were timed for the start of pre-polling; Labor's formal "launch" this Sunday will put out more voter bait. The Liberals' launch is a week later.
One highly important day for Labor next week will be when it issues its comprehensive costings, which will show a better surplus over the forward estimates than the budget. The opposition hopes this will help counter Morrison's bid to own the economic management ground.
A difficulty for Morrison is that while negativity might have served him effectively in the campaign's early days, even Liberal-leaning commentators are saying there's not enough of the so-called vision thing for the next term. But attempting to produce this now would carry its danger for Morrison: it would attract more scrutiny onto him, blunt some of the negative hits, and could be received cynically as an expedient gesture. What an underdog should do in the final stages of a campaign is always vexed.
As for Labor, as it contemplates the tightening it is banking on 2019 being like 2007, when sufficient voters had decided on a change well before the campaign's last days.

*Michelle Grattan is a press gallery journalist and former editor of The Canberra Times. She is a professorial fellow at the University of Canberra.

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News Corp's Climate Campaign

ABC Media Watch

Economists, journalists and an ex-prime minister critical of News Corp coverage of Labor’s climate change policy.



TRANSCRIPT
But now to climate change, where after weeks of mass protest in Britain by hundreds of thousands of people in what’s been dubbed the Extinction Rebellion, the UK Parliament has declared a climate change emergency. It’s unlikely to come into effect unless Labour wins power.
But even the Bank of England is now threatening dire consequences if Britain fails to act:
Climate change could wipe out $20 trillion of assets, Bank of England warns
- The Telegraph (UK), 15 April, 2019
So, with an election in Australia just two weeks away, how is the media here — and the Murdoch media in particular — covering the issue?
Spin through a few News Corp front pages and its determination to ridicule climate action and keep it to a minimum could not be clearer:
APRIL FUELS DAY
- The Courier-Mail, 1 April, 2019
CARBON BILL’S GREEN WHACK
- The Daily Telegraph, 1 April, 2019
Our carbon cut apocalypse
- The Australian, 21 February, 2019
And last week this campaign continued, with alarming new predictions on the front page of The Australian about the cost of Labor’s climate plans:
Price carbon cuts? Yes you can
GDP loss $264bn
Jobs lost 166,500
The wholesale electricity price in 2030 could be as much as 50 per cent higher …
- The Australian, 2 May, 2019
And on News Corp’s Sky After Dark the usual suspects naturally took up the refrain:
ANDREW BOLT: … it’s $264 billion, to be precise. A quarter of a trillion dollars by 2030.
RITA PANAHI: … where is the rest of the media in pursuing this? $264 billion was the best-case scenario, Andrew. It could be upwards of $542 billion, the cost to the economy.  
- The Bolt Report, Sky News, 2 May, 2019
As with several previous attacks, this latest News Corp barrage relied entirely on modelling by one economist, Dr Brian Fisher, who has worked extensively for the Minerals Council of Australia, which would lose heavily if Labor’s policy were implemented.
A fact noted by Labor leader Bill Shorten:
BILL SHORTEN: This fellow and his report remind me of the doctors that big tobacco companies used to roll out in the ‘70s and ‘80s to say that smoking was healthy for you. We do not – we will file this report under P for propaganda.
- ABC News Channel, 2 May, 2019
Fisher’s apocalyptic forecasts were also attacked by left-wing think tank The Australia Institute:
“The last time Australians saw Labor’s climate policies in action, emissions went down 2%, the economy grew by 5% and employment increased by 200,000 jobs."
- The Australia Institute, 2 May, 2019
And they were dismissed by a cavalcade of carbon experts, including the ANU’s Professor Warwick McKibbin, who costed our Paris commitments for the Coalition government in 2015, so should know what he’s talking about:
The impact of @AustralianLabor’s #climate proposal would be a “small fraction" of the economy by 2030, says #ANUexpert @WarwickMcKibbin ...
- Twitter, @ANUmedia, 2 May, 2019
And McKibbin was backed by a host of others, including Professor Frank Jotzo, director of the ANU’s Centre for Climate Economics and Policy:
… Brian Fisher's 'modelling' of emissions targets uses absurd cost assumptions. An abatement cost curve like this would have looked very high 20 years ago, now it's simply ridiculous.
- Twitter, @frankjotzo, 2 May, 2019
Meanwhile, Melbourne University’s climate law expert, Tim Baxter, rejected the modelling, and tweeted:
Literally *no one* I know (and I know a lot of people moving in this space) has any respect for Brian Fisher's work.
Can the media *please* stop reporting it as if it is reliable?
- Twitter, @TiminMitcham, 2 May, 2019
Now if you’d run a front-page story based entirely on Fisher’s work — as The Australian had done — you should surely pass such criticisms on to readers.
But The Oz did not think them worth a mention.
Although it did run another front-page story about an egg attack on Fisher’s house, which included the criticisms from Shorten, and quoted Fisher saying:
“... I’m not claiming to have all the facts, I just wanted to get some sort of economic discussion going.”
- The Australian, 3 May, 2019
Fair enough.
Just a shame The Australian didn’t make that clear the day before.
Of course, the media should ask what Labor’s climate policy will cost. And if Labor can’t give a figure, by all means publish other people’s forecasts. However extreme.
But have a discussion, hear both sides, don’t claim it as gospel.
The media’s duty is to report fairly and responsibly, especially when the Bank of England is talking climate catastrophe and the UK parliament has declared a climate emergency.
But time and again News Corp has failed to do that.
Last week, after reading The Australian’s front-page scare, Kevin Rudd — a casualty of the climate wars — tweeted:
There will be a special place in hell reserved for Murdoch Sr, Murdoch Jr (Lachlan) and the Murdoch media for their decade long campaign of climate change denial ...
- Twitter, @MrKRudd, 2 May, 2019
We’ll see in about two weeks time how much effect News Corp’s campaign has. But whether it succeeds or not, the Murdoch media’s intentions have never been clearer.

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Australia’s Politics May Be Changing With Its Climate

New York Times - Somini Sengupta

Peter Holding on his farm near Harden, New South Wales, in March. Asanka Brendon Ratnayake for The New York Times
HARDEN, Australia — It’s been a year of extremes for this country. The hottest summer ever. Torrential rains in the north. A crippling drought in its southeastern farm belt.
Now, with national elections scheduled for May 18, a vital question looms: To what degree will climate change sway the way Australians vote? The answer could provide important lessons for other democracies in the age of climate change.
Australia is acutely vulnerable to climate change, just as it is also a culprit. The continent has warmed faster than the global average; its cherished Great Barrier Reef has been devastated by marine heat waves; and heat and drought this year took a bite out of the country’s economy, according to a top official of the country’s central bank. At the same time, central to its prosperity is the extraction of the dirtiest fossil fuel: Australia is the world’s biggest exporter of coal for power generation.
Against that backdrop, the governing conservative coalition, led by the Liberal Party, is under pressure in key districts as independents assail longstanding members of Parliament like Tony Abbott, a former Liberal leader and prime minister, over their climate positions.
To understand what it all means, I recently drove through southeastern Australia, the country’s most populated area, to speak to voters, both urban and rural, about climate change.
In rural districts, voters who traditionally send conservative lawmakers to Parliament are talking openly about the effects of climate change — in some instances, even coming out to protest. And, in poll after poll, climate change has climbed the ladder of concerns among the electorate.
More than 60 percent of voters identified climate change as the top “critical threat” facing Australia over the next 10 years, while nearly the same share said the government should take steps to address global warming even if that involves “significant costs,” according to a poll by the Lowy Institute, an independent research group.
Another poll by Ipsos, a market research firm, found that half of all Australians gave the government “poor” marks on managing climate change.
Shelly Beach in Manly, a suburb of Sydney. It is part of the Warringah electoral district, represented by former Prime Minister Tony Abbott. Asanka Brendon Ratnayake for The New York Times
The beachfront promenade in Manly. Mr. Abbott has held the Warringah seat for more than 24 years. Asanka Brendon Ratnayake for The New York Times
My road trip began in Melbourne, continued on to Sydney and then took me west to the land of Angus cattle and Merino sheep in the vast, parched countryside of New South Wales. On these undulating hills and bare fields, generations of farmers have raised livestock, sown wheat and canola, and elected conservative lawmakers to Parliament. Climate change, for the most part, they used to dismiss as city talk, or just “rubbish,” recalled Peter Holding, 64, a third-generation farmer who lives near a hamlet called Harden.
That’s changing.
These days, the soil is so dry that a sparse occasional rain shower barely dampens the dirt. Feed prices have skyrocketed. Dams have dried up. Farmers have thinned their stocks.
And in a country town called Wagga Wagga, where talk of climate change would have been shocking not long ago, more than 200 people showed up to a climate change protest rally in March that Mr. Holding, who is active in a group called Farmers for Climate Action, helped to organize. “Don’t Vote for Fossil Fools,” read one handmade sign. “Denial is not a policy,” read another.
An aerial view of a depleted dam on the farm run by Edward and Stephanie Gephardt in Trungley Hall, New South Wales, in March. Asanka Brendon Ratnayake for The New York Times
A dry creek surrounded by dead tree trunks near Yass, New South Wales. Asanka Brendon Ratnayake for The New York Times
Sheep around a lone tree on a dry field near Yass. Asanka Brendon Ratnayake for The New York Times
“You would never run a rally like that 10 years ago, but it’s become blatantly obvious things are changing,” Mr. Holding said. “I don’t think we’re going to get back to normal.”
It all worries Guy Milson. A 68-year-old rancher, he has, he said, “come around” on climate change. The evidence has become impossible to ignore. The drought has scorched his land. He has had to sharply reduce his herds of cattle and sheep. This blistering summer, even the old, hardy eucalyptus trees roasted in the heat.
“We’ve never put so much carbon into the atmosphere,” Mr. Milson said. “It can’t be normal.”
But all his life, he has been loyal to the right-of-center Liberal Party. He sees the incumbent energy minister, Angus Taylor, a friend, as a possible future prime minister. And he worries that fear over climate change will punish his party at the polls, especially in swing seats around the country. He is also wary of ditching coal, just now. It is too important to Australia’s economy. He says bigger polluters like China should act first.
The average Australian’s carbon footprint is slightly lower than that of an American. The country’s total emissions have risen to their highest level and it is not on track to meet its Paris climate agreement pledge, according to independent monitors. And a scathing report published recently by a research and advocacy group called the Climate Council said the “lack of climate change action is the defining leadership failure of the past decade.”
Guy Milson on a hill overlooking his farm in Goulburn, New South Wales. Asanka Brendon Ratnayake for The New York Times
Sheep on Mr. Milson’s farm. Asanka Brendon Ratnayake for The New York Times
Farther west, I found Edward and Stephanie Gebhardt sitting on their front porch, scanning the skies for rain. The Gebhardts bought a farm just before the latest drought began to set in. Now nearly all their reservoirs were dry. In the muddy slope of one, a thirsty lamb got stuck and died. The fields on which they would normally sow wheat this time of year remained ashen. “It’s almost as if the seasons have shifted,” said Ms. Gebhardt, 31.
Neither of them doubted climate change. Neither had much faith anymore in either of the two conservative parties, the Liberals and their coalition partners, the National Party, that their families had long voted for.
“Honestly I struggle to vote now,” said Mr. Gebhardt, also 31. “No one has come out with anything to help us.”
Voting is compulsory in Australia, so Ms. Gebhardt signaled her dissatisfaction in the latest state polls by voting for a gun rights party called Shooters, Fishers and Farmers. It was a “donkey vote,” she said, the term used here for a ballot protest.
The energy minister, Mr. Taylor, defended what he called the governing coalition’s “balanced approach” to gradually reduce emissions in the coming years, while promoting hydropower and investments in solar and wind energy. “A majority of people want to see action,” he said. “They want it to happen at a sensible pace and without substantial costs to them.”
The Labor Party, the official opposition in Parliament, proposes a faster reduction in emissions and a target of 50 percent renewable energy by 2030. But it has steered clear of the idea of a carbon tax, which another Labor government implemented 10 years ago; that Labor government was then ousted by a Liberal Party leader who campaigned on a promise to “ax the tax.”
That Liberal Party politician — Mr. Abbott, who once suggested that Australia pull out of the Paris climate accord but has since changed his position — is now facing one of the biggest political challenges of his career.
On the way back from ranch country, I stopped by his district, in the suburbs north of Sydney. Neither Mr. Abbott nor his aides responded to requests for an interview.
Zali Steggall, an independent who is challenging former Prime Minister Tony Abbott, at the North Curl Curl Surf Life Saving Club north of Sydney. Asanka Brendon Ratnayake for The New York Times
But one of his main challengers, a lawyer named Zali Steggall who is Australia’s only Olympic medalist in Alpine skiing, eagerly explained why she had decided to run for office in an effort to unseat him. “Tony Abbott has been a massive hand brake on our policies on climate,” she said.
Ms. Steggall, an independent who is running for the first time, was speaking on a warm Wednesday evening at the North Curl Curl Surf Club. She sat before a roomful of voters, with a picture-perfect view of the South Pacific behind her. Surfers went in and out of the waves. The audience, mostly middle-aged white voters, asked about the minimum wage (she said she was not sure raising it would be realistic), immigration (she agreed with the governing coalition that fewer immigrants should be allowed in) and how to bring down the price of electricity (“We need an orderly retirement of coal,” she said).
Ms. Steggall said she favored lifting a luxury tax on electric vehicles and promised to promote renewable energy, but only gradually. She touched on an anxiety that I heard repeatedly from Australian voters: “It’s not about taking dramatic action that will change your livelihood or lifestyle,” she assured her audience.
Ms. Steggall is not alone in taking on Liberal Party stalwarts, either. She is among several independent candidates. Nearly all are campaigning on climate change.
“The fact that all these people are running is a huge message from the electorate,” said Ebony Bennett, deputy director of The Australia Institute, a research group. “We’ve never seen anything like it before.”

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