The Guardian - Katharine Murphy
The Coalition has no choice but to try and fix the self-created disaster that is its climate policy
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| ‘Climate change is not only a hot-button issue on its own terms. Some of
the research suggests it has also become a proxy for political
dysfunction.’
Photograph: Glenn Hunt/EPA |
This
piece of backroom intelligence shouldn’t come as a surprise, given the
summer we are all still enduring. Record high temperatures,
the hottest January on record; storms;
floods in some places, droughts in others;
mass fish kills in ailing rivers.
Climate change
is back as a vote-changing issue – top of mind for many Australian
voters. Private polling conducted for the environment movement and for
the major parties suggests community concern about climate change is
currently sitting at levels not seen since the federal election cycle in
2007.
If you can remember the events of 2007, you’ll recall that John
Howard was forced into a significant about-face on the issue. Within
sight of the election that swept Kevin Rudd into power, Howard signed
the Liberal party up to emissions trading, a “world’s best-practice” cap
and trade scheme, and declared Australia must prepare for a “low-carbon
future”.
The research doing the rounds as the major parties bed down their war
rooms for the May contest puts climate change in the top-two issues of
concern nationally. Women, particularly, are alarmed by the ongoing
policy inaction, and that’s bad for the Liberals because the party’s
standing among women is already depressed courtesy of the unhinged
shenanigans of the past 12 months.
But there’s some nuance in the research. In marginal seats in outer
suburban areas – the seats that often determine the outcome of federal
elections – cost of living pressures still rank higher than climate
change. But people insist that climate is registering in the top-three
concerns in several outer suburban seats, where the issue is normally
dormant.
The
political consequence of all this is pretty obvious. The strength of
community concern about climate change leaves the Morrison government
vulnerable. The Coalition’s policy record on climate change is
appalling. There is no other word for it. Absolutely, indefensibly,
appalling.
The Liberals have opened the election year trying to put themselves
back in contention. The government is desperately hoping that a full
frontal, never mind the nuances, assault on
Labor’s controversial tax measures is the pathway to a political fightback executed over the opening months of 2019.
During the summer the treasurer, Josh Frydenberg, has led a morale-boosting offensive on
Labor’s negative gearing and
dividend imputation policies
on social media, with enthusiastic amplification from cooperative
conservative media outlets hungry to sharpen their own “campaign
journalism” spears, given the apparent likelihood of a Labor victory.
Frydenberg has endeared himself to colleagues for picking the tax
fight. Nobody knows if all the thrashing about and train-crash gifs will
resonate in the real world but two tangible things have been achieved.
Labor has been forced to defend its tax policies after a long period
of dormancy in the debate, and the joust has delivered a shot of
adrenalin to
the moribund Liberal base.
(As an aside, perhaps we can note that Frydenberg, with the frenzy of
activity, might also be positioning himself for whatever fate awaits the
Liberals post-election. Bit cheeky but doubtless true).
Coalition and Labor MPs report that the community backlash against
dividend imputation is now a thing – a real and palpable thing rather
than a febrile media confection – but Liberal and Labor MPs agree the
anger is felt most keenly among
Coalition supporters rather than people inclined to vote Labor.
Smart people on both sides of politics don’t yet know whether the
government can leverage the current softening in the housing market to
make negative gearing a point of serious political vulnerability for
Labor or not. As they say in the classics, only time will tell.
While the tax fight has been good for internal morale, and may yet
catch fire, smart people inside the government doubt it will be enough
to turn negative sentiment, and believe it certainly won’t be enough if
the government doesn’t try and fix its self-created disaster on climate
change.
Internal discussions are under way about what to do. Moderates are sounding out what conservatives can live with.
An obvious course correction would be a cash injection for the emissions reduction fund,
a vestige of the heavily criticised Direct Action scheme, and the environment minister
has already flagged the ERF’s remit (which is currently paying for abatement) could be broadened to include the protection of threatened species.
Liberals who favour more climate action, and pronto, also point to
the potential to increase funding for the Clean Energy Finance
Corporation and Arena (the agencies the Coalition once campaigned to
abolish), as well as providing handouts to households – a new package
supporting the uptake of renewable energy.
But even if the Coalition manages to land some kind of repositioning
without blowing the show sky-high (Hi Tony, happy new year), it’s
unclear whether voters will buy it, given the gross stupidity of the
past couple of terms, and given the Liberal party last year killed a
prime minister in plain sight at least in part because he pursued a
policy to reduce emissions in the electricity sector.
Also unclear is how any climate revamp would sit with the government’s aspiration to
have taxpayers underwrite new coal-fired power plants,
and potentially indemnify them against future carbon risk. Even if
voters are forgiving enough to look past the policy car crash and the
dumb and dumber intrigues that led to the third leadership change in two
terms – that’s a split personality that’s hard to explain.
Climate change is not only a hot-button issue on its own terms. Some
of the research suggests it has also become a proxy for political
dysfunction, which is a lethal combination when voters are, as MPs
report, viscerally angry at an incumbent government (although some
Liberals will tell you Morrison isn’t loathed, according to their focus
groups, and there’s some sentiment he should be given a chance).
At the moment, most of the political class is talking about Victoria.
This is unusual. Normally before a federal election, a collective
obsession descends about Queensland. “Whither Queensland?”. Why
Queensland? Because the state has a swag of marginals.
Queensland remains front of mind, but Victoria is also turning up
more often in dispatches. “Whither Victoria?” is on the agenda because
of recent field evidence:
the Liberals endured a rout in the state last year.
Courtesy of that result, some in Labor think it’s possible Bill Shorten
could take government with a southern states strategy, rather than
embarking on the more typical mass genuflection to Queensland.
Not everyone buys that theory. Some think the anti-Liberal swing in
the state contest won’t translate federally, for a couple of reasons.
The backlash in the Liberal heartland seen in last year’s state
election was a cost-free protest vote. Liberals lost nothing by backing
in Daniel Andrews, who had a concrete record to campaign on, and was a
known quantity.
If Liberals vote for Bill Shorten, there will be a hip-pocket cost –
the loss of negative gearing and capital gains concessions, cash rebates
from dividend imputation – in other words, Labor’s policy offering
federally puts a brake on the scale of the protest vote that might be
lodged in May.
Liberals deeply depressed about the state of play in Victoria, and to
a lesser degree in New South Wales, think Labor’s appetite to wind back
tax concessions will be an automatic stabiliser on their heartland
backlash to some degree – but they are conscious that a potent threat is
coming from “small-l” liberal independents, which will require the
diversion of scarce resources to supposedly safe seats.
Independents such as Zali Steggall and
Oliver Yates are thumping the government on climate change, both as a thing in itself and as a proxy for dysfunction within the Liberal party which is imposing costs on the citizenry.
One live litmus test of whether Labor ultimately goes for broke with a
southern states strategy – whether they think they can craft a pathway
to victory without considering the parochial and materialist
sensibilities of central Queenslanders – will be if Bill Shorten
toughens Labor’s line on Adani. He went close to doing that last year
but baulked at the last minute.
Environment groups and GetUp want Labor to stop the project, and they
offer the party valuable campaign resources, strengthening an already
formidable on-ground machine, in the event there can be a meeting of the
minds.
Thus far Shorten hasn’t shifted and is remaining focused on hearts
and minds in central Queensland, kicking off the election year
campaigning in the state.
This suggests the Labor leader and the brains trust around him aren’t
convinced – at least not currently – that writing off central
Queensland is a political risk worth taking. But this is a space to
watch.
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