Subject: Fwd: Tightrope politics down under - Rowley - Policy Network
From: "Michael Andrews" <[email-masked]>
To: "Devon Archer" <[email-masked]>, "Neil Callahan" <[email-masked]>, "Eric Schwerin" <[email-masked]>, "Hunter Biden" <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 17 Sep 2010 08:49:06 -0400

I know Nick Rowley and he is quite good at describing the pitfalls for  
progressive governments and thus allows that political risk for new  
government and thus policy is high.
>
> Tightrope politics down under
> Nick Rowley
> 16 September 2010
> Julia Gillard’s Labor will have to perform some supreme balancing  
> acts if Australia’s toxic climate politics are to be overcome
>
> So, after seventeen days of negotiation, briefing and cajoling in  
> the wake of the August 21 poll, Australia finally has a government.  
> Yet with Labor’s return to power dependent on the support of three  
> non-aligned Independents and a single Green, quite how the Gillard  
> government will set the political and policy agenda remains unclear.  
> The support of one Green MP is required in the House of  
> Representatives and the Greens also now hold the balance of power in  
> the Australian Senate.
>
> On the face of it, the written agreement between the Greens and the  
> Australian Labor Party (ALP) creates an impression that the deal  
> represents a major re-alignment of the progressive left. This may  
> yet happen, but given the nature of Australian politics and the  
> voters who ultimately decide elections, it remains unlikely.
>
> The government is now caught in a classic “wedge”: if it pursues  
> policies seen as “too Green”, this will only add force to the  
> argument that the best way for ALP voters to ensure the Party does  
> not forget its progressive values (on asylum seekers, climate  
> change, public investment etc.) is to continue voting Green. At the  
> same time it would allow the right to appeal to the suburban  
> property owning classes (where Australian elections are  
> traditionally won and lost), by reminding them that the government  
> is in alliance with a motley band of radical environmentalists out  
> of step with the mass of the Australian public and continuing to  
> hold economic and social views more at home in the late 1960s. This  
> is a strong argument at a time of economic stability; a potentially  
> devastating one if the economy weakens.
>
> Walking this tightrope is just one of the many balancing acts that  
> the Gillard government will have to negotiate: too Green and you  
> lose the election; too conservative and you lose the numbers keeping  
> you in power. My sense is that in practice the relationship between  
> Labor and the Greens, rather than emerging as a serious, reciprocal  
> relationship, will prove more akin to sharing a flat at college. The  
> two parties will tolerate one another in the knowledge that the  
> alternative – the shallow, right wing populism of the Abbott-led  
> Liberal/National Party – is just too awful to contemplate.
>
> In government, balancing this tension will require decisions on  
> policy rather than process. And the policy area that remains the  
> toughest is climate change. More than 80 percent of Australia’s  
> electricity comes from coal. If the country is to achieve economy- 
> wide emissions reductions it is a reliance that must change. And  
> this will require the government to impose a cost on high polluting  
> activities.
>
> The agreement with the Greens includes a shared acknowledgement that  
> achieving emissions reduction by 2020 will require a price on  
> carbon, and a “committee on climate change” will be established to  
> advise on how this could be implemented. The euphemistic phrase  
> “price on carbon” reveals there is little appetite to revisit the  
> failed Carbon Pollution Reduction Scheme (CPRS) developed by the  
> former Rudd government. It leaves open the possibility of imposing  
> an interim carbon tax: a solution advocated by the Greens, along  
> with Professor Ross Garnaut, eminent former adviser and author of a  
> government-sponsored review on climate change.
>
> As a step towards an emissions trading system, a fixed interim  
> carbon price imposed on certain sectors of the economy might make  
> some policy sense. But the politics is now bad: it would be an  
> incomparable political gift to the opposition. For since becoming  
> Opposition Leader Tony Abbott has argued that Labor and the Greens  
> would impose a “big new carbon tax on everything.” In one stroke he  
> would, in the public mind, be proved right. The Gillard government  
> must navigate this treacherous territory without allowing the  
> permanent political management challenge to sap energy from  
> developing and implementing policy in the national interest.
>
> The Roman brutality with which Prime Minister Rudd was toppled,  
> followed by the closest election result in Australian political  
> history, creates a powerful temptation to focus on the ever-changing  
> nuances of the national political soap opera. But behind this show  
> lie lessons for progressive parties regarding the dynamics  
> surrounding what people want and expect of political parties and  
> leaders committed to progressive values.
>
> Firstly, beware the pitfalls of self-proclaimed leadership on  
> climate change. In Australia, despite all the rhetoric and hubris of  
> the Rudd era, climate policy is still equated with environment  
> policy: as a “nice thing to do” rather than a core agenda or part of  
> an engaging nation-building narrative. When faced with imposing a  
> cost on the polluting activities of existing industrial interests,  
> the Rudd government chose the path of least resistance: ensuring the  
> price signal was muffled for existing polluters and then, when the  
> politics became hard, simply putting everything on hold. This might  
> work for some contentious policies, but not on climate change, and  
> certainly not after the prime minister had told the country it was  
> one of “the greatest moral, economic and environmental challenges of  
> our age”. The gap between the words and the deeds became too great,  
> and as a leader Rudd lost all political credibility.
>
> Secondly, the dynamics behind “green” politics are here to stay. In  
> Australia, whether one considers the increased likelihood of floods,  
> bushfires and drought, or the impact of decisions taken by major  
> trading partners such as Japan, China and India, climate change is  
> not going away. Furthermore, the problem cannot be addressed by a  
> few tokenistic “green” policies, but must be a strategic choice,  
> like whether or not to get married. From that choice policies need  
> to be developed around achieving measurable emissions reductions  
> through time.
>
> Failure to address climate change may prove far more than just a  
> political failure. It could have truly frightening social, economic  
> and environmental implications. But more than Al Gore’s  
> “inconvenient truth”, given that we can make choices and develop  
> serious policies designed to achieve emissions reduction, climate  
> change is also an enabling truth. So despite all the frustration  
> following the UN meeting in Copenhagen, the failure of the US to  
> pass cap-and-trade legislation, and the drama and toxicity of recent  
> Australian politics, I remain hopeful. For a progressive politics  
> that understands the climate problem and meaningfully, consistently,  
> addresses it will, over the coming century, succeed: both  
> politically and in providing a more secure and prosperous future.
>
> Nick Rowley is a director of Kinesis. For two years between 2004 and  
> 2006 he worked at 10 Downing Street as adviser on climate change and  
> sustainability to Prime Minister Tony Blair.
>
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