The Greens are right to demand that more than 100 coal and gas projects in Australia’s pipeline be binned in exchange for support for the government’s key climate policy in the Senate, former Greens leader and environmentalist Bob Brown says.
“The Albanese government is captured by the corporations and unions against public sentiment,” he told Crikey. “The Greens’ policy represents most Australians’ wishes.”
Greens Leader Adam Bandt has confirmed that his party, which holds the balance of power after the Coalition vowed to vote nay, had agreed to waive all other concerns with the controversial safeguard mechanism legislation on one condition.
“The Greens have huge concerns with other parts of the scheme, such as the rampant use of offsets and the low emissions reduction targets,” he said. “But we’re prepared to put those concerns aside and give Labor’s scheme a chance if Labor agrees to stop opening new coal and gas projects.
“Labor needs the Greens to get this through Parliament. If Labor’s scheme falls over, it will be because Labor wants to open new coal and gas mines.”
Of 76 senators, 26 are Labor, 32 are Coalition and 11 are Greens, with a seven-person crossbench made up of a One Nation duo, a Lambie Network duo, a single UAP senator, and two independents.
The hostage-taking position, which was agreed to by the Greens partyroom yesterday, came just hours before Resources Minister Madeleine King told Parliament that gas would be needed “for a number of years” as Australia mines renewable technology ingredients such as lithium and cobalt.
“We want to increase activity in renewables and we have a commitment to net zero emissions by 2050, but even as the International Energy Agency has acknowledged, we will still need to use products such as gas to make sure we can process critical minerals,” King said.
Brown said that despite boasting its climate credentials, the government is completely out of touch with voters. Almost two-thirds (63%) want to ban all new coalmines, a 2022 Lowy Insitute poll found. A third (33%) support subsiding new coal-fired power plants.
“A higher proportion [than two-thirds] wants to stop logging of native forests,” Brown added.
Is it CPRS 2.0?
Brown is no stranger to holding one’s ground on climate policy. It’s nearly 15 years since the Greens voted against Rudd-era carbon pollution reduction scheme (CPRS), which Labor claim kicked off a decade of government inaction on climate change.
In 2019, Defence Industry Minister Pat Conroy — who was then the Labor spokesman for climate change — declared the Greens’ veto a “massive error of political judgment”.
“It has had disastrous and long-lasting consequences for Australia’s ability to respond effectively to climate change,” he said.
Labor said the CPRS would have slashed 218m tonnes in cumulative additional emissions between 2010 and 2020, and lashed the Greens for voting “against a mechanism putting Australia’s emissions on a downward trajectory”.
Labor has rose-coloured glasses: expert
University of Sydney political academic Rebecca Pearse said the cap-and-trade scheme was hardly the silver bullet that Labor might like to remember it as — it would have had a “negligible impact on fossil fuel extraction, partly due to overly generous compensation arrangements for miners”.
No one was happy with CPRS, she wrote for The Conversation in 2019: environmentalists saw emission targets as too low; the industry saw the compensation as too low; the Greens along with many economists and most environmental groups opposed it. She wrote at the time that Labor sought to leverage the scheme for short-term political gain.
However, Pearse told Crikey that her initial impression is that the Greens’ parliamentary position on the safeguard mechanism is not a repeat of the party’s 2009 approach.
“One way to look at the Greens’ strategy is to see them as reminding the government to answer basic questions about the future of key fossil fuel industries any climate policy reform should be able to answer,” she continued.
“This line of questioning is democratically useful. Some clarity and certainty is important for industry and communities alike.”
Are the Greens doing the right thing? Let us know by writing to letters@crikey.com.au. Please include your full name to be considered for publication. We reserve the right to edit for length and clarity.
Yes, indeed. And their position is consistent with the IEA (International Energy Agency) that stated a few years ago all new fossil fuels developments need to cease (by 2021!) if we are serious about keeping global warming below 1.5degrees.
This government is not at all serious about really reducing emissions, more about pleasing ‘both sides’ and the mainstream press. ie. looking like they are acting on climate change while also not upsetting their fossil fuel donors and the mining industry lobby groups. But we can’t under the laws of nature ‘eat our cake and still have it all remaining’ (paraphrased).
Still staggers me that Labor doesn’t seem to make any effort to embraces the Greens when they aren’t being wacky. The initial response of Bowen saying “go jump” to them on the matter of new coal and gas development is stupid. Why not reach a compromise, and work with the Greens to get a compromise that actually gets us moving. At least Plibersek vetoed a project last week which was a positive.
Are you kidding ? The ALP hates the Greens so much they’ve blackholed an entire Labor Government led by PM-she-who-must-not-be-named.
Because Labor would rather be in Opposition, than give even the impression of working with the Greens.
I think the Greens have given the ALP plenty of reason to hate them over the years.
Yes, I imagine a constant reminder of everything you claim to be & should be, but choose not to be, can get rather annoying.
100% this. Everyone in Labor with a conscience should defect to the Greens.
Agreed. Labor even pulled election funding from Ali France, deciding behind closed doors that Dutton was unbeatable. That is called sabotage of one of their own. Don’t expect a Labor change of heart to join the Greens.
Yes. Nobody like having thier hypocrisy pointed out. Or thier “progressive party” mantle challenged.
Unfortunately, both need to happen. Frequently.
The Labor power brokers have long, vindictive memories. It is plain, that the LNP imbecile brigade could be doomed to permanent irrelevance by a Labor/Greens alliance. WTF is wrong with the genius brigade in both parties, that they don’t do it?
Labor’s eternal and, apparently, unresolvable Right vs Left conflict.
According to the ABS, 40% of the electorate will be below 40 years old come the next election. Climate change inaction is causing a collapse in the Lib/Lab political cartel’s support in younger voters so how will the millennials and Gen Z treat Labor in 2026? Recall that Labor’s primary vote was just 31.9% in May last year and at least 15 Labor wins were thanks to Greens preferences; so the obvious question is: can Labor win without the Greens in 2026? And – what will the Greens demand, chiselled in concrete, before they agree to join a minority Labor government – again?
Of course, Labor’s Right could, instead of sitting down with their hated enemy, form a government of national destruction with the odious Libs. Another great Labor schism?
So Resources Minister Madeleine King we have a commitment to net zero emissions by 2050, but we will still need gas to process critical minerals. That is not true. Minerals processing can shift away from gas to electrical processes and synthetic fuel etc. Totally too, as there must be no excuse for a lingering usage of gas beyond 2050. Yet Labor has made no steps towards the replacement of gas. In particular, we need to see a calendar of milestones of use reduction all the way from now until the eradication of all gas infrastructure by 2050.
We’ve tripled gas production in the last decade, the transition has already happened, thanks to Labor, not the Greens, we missed that transition, we could have been world leaders in green tech
And the end users in our nation are being ripped off. Other major gas producers provide it to their inhabitants at. Or below, production cost. This is something that could help our inflation.
John Howard is the lunatic who set domestic gas prices at world parity. Why??? Businesses now going to the wall because of predominately foreign owned producer greed. Simple fix…dictate prices domestically at cost +. Producers can surely take a profit hit on the 4% of their exports required to supply the domestic market. It’s our stuff after all, isn’t it?
We can make as much biogas as we like by anaerobic digestion of organic wastes – food processing and agricultural wastes, and sewage sludge.
You might need to USE gas, it doesn’t mean you need to open any new mines. We do produce gas in this country, you know.
Far too many Australians are demanding an endless, cheap supply of gas. Instead, we should be demanding an endless, cheap supply of its replacements. Gas must go!
Q How would you fix a problem caused by burning fossil fuels?
A Stop burning fossil fuels.
It ain’t hard to figure out, unless you’re a cretin like Alborisson. Leave it in the effing ground, Albo. Our idiot leader.
It shouldn;t be hard to agree to no new coal of gas projects, after all ALP is strongly in favour of the Paris Accords (keep warming to <1.5 deg C), and the IEA says to (even have a chance to) keep warming to <1.5 deg C then no new coal or gas (or oil) projects is a must.