Is Labor justified in reminding the Greens about the CPRS?
Paul Lupton writes: The ALP are justified in reminding the Greens that their action in blocking the carbon reduction plan caused a lost decade of progress in reducing Australia’s pollution levels and its contribution to global warming. We are now reaping the effects, as the increased adverse climate events produce major impacts on government and individuals’ personal financial outlays.
Had the Greens not been so stubborn and negotiated instead to produce outcomes more in keeping with the Greens philosophy, then Australia’s outcomes would have been much more beneficial.
Jim Allen writes: Theory one about the CPRS defeat: the Greens made a mistake. Well, Labor would say that wouldn’t they. If CPRS was worth fighting for, why didn’t Rudd go for double dissolution? He blinked! Abbott thrived. Rudd has admitted the mistake was his.
Theory two: the Greens voted it down because it wasn’t good, let alone perfect. Ross Garnaut, Labor’s appointed star adviser on climate policy, was very critical of the CRPS once Rudd had negotiated too many loopholes. Rudd went to Turnbull for support, not to the Greens, a gamble that failed spectacularly. The media has tended to overlook that, and over the years has given Labor plenty of rope to blame the Greens.
The failure to find or restore major party bipartisanship on this issue is at the heart of the problem. The minor party that is the wrecker is the Nationals, not the Greens!
Ross Bell writes: As the article points out, those events of 2009 are beyond the political memory of most. The reason Labor got into the habit of bringing it up again and again to the point of nausea is that it began as an exercise in instant revisionism to blame the Greens when they were not at fault. Like all falsehoods repetition was, and still is, used to breathe some life into it.
The reason the Greens voted against the scheme of 2009 was that Rudd point-blank refused to negotiate with them before the piss-weak CPRS was put to the vote. How could the Greens vote for it after they were shut out of any negotiation, and the government’s own adviser, Ross Garnaut, said it was rubbish?
To this day Labor refuses to admit any of the above.
Peter Barry writes: The reflex reaction to any mention of the Greens blocking the CPRS in 2009 is to accuse the party of seeking perfection rather than the rejecting of a woefully inadequate proposal. The value of their approach was proven two years later when a new scheme to put a price on carbon proved to be highly effective even after just two years of operation. At the time, it was considered as the leading carbon reduction scheme in the world. It had a built-in mechanism to ratchet up the price steadily to make it ever more effective.
A price on carbon is the gold standard of climate policies. There are few loopholes for polluters to weasel their way out of paying appropriately for their emissions. It was killed by climate change-denying Tony Abbott.
Labor has become timorous and pusillanimous on so many issues. Who they think they are representing is a mystery. It is certainly not the voters who optimistically, but foolishly, ushered them into office in 2022.
Ross Devine writes: In 2009, the ALP and the LNP negotiated a scheme that was not fit for purpose. There was no good reason for the Greens to support it.
Had the Greens voted for it, no doubt the LNP would have campaigned against it and won power in 2010 rather than in 2013. The Greens-supported Gillard government introduced an economical and effective alternative in the carbon tax.
If the ALP wants to gain Greens support, it should produce better policies and tone down its hostility. My own thoughts are that the ALP is ambivalent about Greens support — embarrassed if they get it and angry if they don’t.
Is Labor putting WA interests ahead of the rest of the nation?
Tim Hollo writes: Bernard Keane is on the money, literally, with his analysis of Albanese’s capitulation to WA, except to the extent that he makes it about the state of Western Australia vs the rest of the country.
What’s going on here isn’t the equivalent of pork-barrelling to win votes. It’s not about the voters. It’s not even really about WA, unless that stands for “Woodside Australia”. This is state capture, pure and simple. Democracy and voters’ interests don’t come near it.
Jeff Ash writes: The GST distribution model has always been inequitable. It includes mining royalties, but not gambling revenue. WA has extremely limited access to poker machines and is the better for it. Should successive governments have sorted this out? Absolutely, the entire tax system requires an overhaul.
Ed Jordan: Why do both Labor and Liberal governments let resource giants dodge tax? All Australians should benefit from our enormous but finite resources. Something stinks…
I’m in the Carine electorate, I hope we get a “teal” candidate very soon.
