The Australian Conservation Foundation has released its initial progress scorecard of the environmental policy commitments of the ALP, the Coalition, the Greens, the Democrats and Family First.
It’s not a pretty sight for either of the major parties. The Coalition rates just 21 out of 100 whilst Labor rates 49/100. Of the minor parties, the Greens are on 93/100, the Democrats are on 90/100 and Family First are also a dud on 31/100. The detailed basis for the scorecard is here.
ACF’s scorecard will be updated every week during the election campaign to reflect new commitments from the parties.
It will be interesting to see what bilbies Messrs. Garrett and Turnbull can pull out of their respective hats in the coming weeks.
The rumour is Turnbull is pushing Howard to sign Kyoto.
Be interesting to see if the “Garrett will do a deal with the Greens to close down the coal industry” line the Nats are (shamefully) touting has any effect on chilling Labor’s policy courage.
I don’t believe the rumour.
It would be an admission that the other parties had been correct on the issue for a decade. And, if I recall correctly, it will have cost us forgone income from emissions trading over the time we refused to sign.
Mind you, if you’re seriously interested in the environment you’d probably want to look a bit more carefully at the way those ratings are constructed, as they specify a very specific policy agenda.
Hmm, the pessimist in me is now even more worried that given that FF and the ALP ‘s scores are much more “aligned” in this area, the ALP would rather deal with soft-on-environment FF than radically-ahead-of-ALP-and-likely-to-hold-feet-to-fire Greens.
sigh.
As I understand it, it is very unlikely that Labor will win enough upper house seats to get things through the Senate without the Greens.
What’s really sad is that Republican governors in the US are setting targets much more strict than the Libs and ALP – and similar to those wanted by the Greens. (The Economist 2007-06-12. As I’ve noted elsewhere, this must have Bob Brown scratching his head: " WTF?!? US republican governors agreeing with me?"
“As I understand it, it is very unlikely that Labor will win enough upper house seats to get things through the Senate without the Greens.”
‘Very unlikely’ is an understatement.
The ALP has 14 seats not up for re-election. They need to win 25 for control, that’s 4/6 in five states and 1/2 in each territory (or some permutation.) Which just isn’t going to happen. To have control without the Greens, they’ll need to win 24 seats and the have the support of Family First.
This is why the argument that “labor should cut a deal with FF so they can’t be held hostage by the Greens” is bogus. If the Coalition loses control (a pretty big if) Labor will *have* to negotiate with minor parties. The Senate question is ‘does Labor want to try and negotiate with *one* minor party or with *two* minor parties to pass legislation’. Getting more FF senators at the expense of Greens is only going to make it harder for Labor to implement their agenda.
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Getting more FF senators at the expense of Greens is only going to make it harder for Labor to implement their agenda.
Which is why, it seems to me, Labor doing another dodgy Senate preference deal with Family First would be the height of folly. And yet, they’re not ruling it out, they seem terrified by the thought of any genuine left wing opposition to conservative politics in Australia… Go Labor Right!! Go you good thing!!
Visiting KeeleyNet.com and DavidIcke.com is entirely sobering,and really shows up all the parties as lacking any insights accept the industries and scientist they will naturally support. In fact someone like the Family First leader as a qualified electrical engineer could do a lot better in all this, but lacks the intellectual rigor from selling chocolates from New Zealand for too long to befriend the Greens in problems of Chocky growing manufacture as much as all the other human and enviro problems. Tesla needs to be taken serious.
That scorecard is a joke. The Liberals aren’t great on the environment, but to give them one star for:
“Promote clean renewable energy
Legislate a target for 25% renewable energy by 2020.”
is a joke. I seem to recall they are mandating a 15% reduction by 2015 or something. That’s not bad eh?
“Set strong targets to cut greenhouse pollution
Legislate a target to cut greenhouse pollution 80-90% by 2050 and 30% cut by 2020.”
One star for Labour despite having no committment prior to 2050? While the Liberals are aiming for a 20% reduction by 2020? Yet they receive 0 stars?
It’s a slanted piece.
“Getting more FF senators at the expense of Greens is only going to make it harder for Labor to implement their agenda.”
What agenda? FF would be willing to vote for the ALP’s repeal of the IR legislation, it appears that the Greens would hold out for more drastic reversals.
Jimmy, there’s also the House of Reps to think about. The actual Fundy portion of the Fundies First vote (they also pick up a bit of “pox on both your houses” vote) probably a) follows how to vote cards fairly closely, and b) would vote for the Liberals above Labor in the Reps otherwise. FF preferencing Labor in some outer-suburban seats could be worth 1 or 2 percent – enough to get a few Labor MP’s over the line.
Much as I deeply detest Fundies First, and intensely loathe the thought of Labor doing preferencing deals Labor, the fact is that it may make electoral sense.
Calvin, I’m not with ACF so I can’t explain their scoring for you but the Coalition 15% target adds zero new renewable energy to the mix, it just packages up (and replaces) existing state targets. Actually it goes backwards as some non-renewable sources could potentially sneak in. Hence no points.
Can you point me to where the Coalition emissions cut target of 20% by 2020 is spelled out? I’ve certainly not heard that before.
I know I am not mathematically that astute,but can anyone explain to me how so many Agricultural graduates from University,numbered at 127000,can actually service approximately 130,000 farms in Australia on matters specifically to do with climate change!? The figure of needed graduates is in the SMH wed. night, tonight,and the130,000 was mentioned last week or before on the ABC radio re losing farmers because of present conditions.Am I the only one suffering from depression and disbelief about nearly everything that is coming out of Australian Universities lately!?And will these bastards learn that others have been contributing to agriculture without nary a payment cent,or Kudo, and because farmers government and bureaus are not always thinking clearly or at all find these Academics amusing in the extreme. I would even accept my Telstra bill being paid for the rest of the year, as I have wasted too much of my time,on matters bloody farm, whilst they suck it up somewhere and never a bloody thank you. Whilst the academics ride in like all knowing beings with their educated angels.All for one and one for all,pay your hecs fees by replacing the farm labor as is now.I am getting tired again in a way that means I will haveto not listen to radio, read bloody newspapers,and switch this fucking thing off.My memories are catching up on me on how many times I have volunteered,whilst some arsehole took advantage off it,and even the local newspaper man knows this is beyond now any level of being accepted by me as just this is how our system works.The wimps at the AEC,need to do some voluntary work,also.
Just looking at the 2004 Federal election results and I noticed that the Family First preferences flowed to the Coalition about 60% of the time (compared with 30% of the time to the ALP). However, about 80% of the Greens preferences go to Labor. The rub is that the Greens got 600,000 more primary votes.
The thing is if I was an election strategist for the ALP I would have difficulty imagining that the vast majority of people voting Green will preference the Liberals over Labor even if the ALP did a deal with Family First. What’s more is that if the sitting ALP members reckon they can more easily deal with Family First than the Greens in the Senate then I bet a preference deal must look fairly tempting.
Calvin Yen said:
The Liberals “clean energy target” is actually a joke. Not only does it package existing State targets – it includes coal. So it is not an MRET at all – it is just puffery. And they have not committed to any emission reductions target, only meaningless “aspiratation goals”.
Chumpai, analysis of 2006 State election results in Victoria indicate that Family First cannot effectively direct their voters preferences – most ignore their HTV. 20.8% of family first voters followed the FF ticket. On the other hand 31% of Greens followed the HTV, and they got many more votes. See table 24 in this VEC report [link] (PDF)
Jacinta Collins may have no problem about cosying up to fundamentalist Family First as they are birds of a feather, but I think most progressive Labor members would find them too far to the right. Fielding voted against Workchoices because Howard had the numbers without him. He voted for VSU. Ahem.
I think current Labor noises about dancing with Family First are deliberate leaks trying to strenghten their negoating position against the Greens. Either that or the hatred of the Labor Right for the Greens has won out and they really have lost the plot. Either way, it won’t wash too well with a majority of Labor voters who will be better informed this time. They could have given Family First the balance of power in 2004. It was only Joyce that stopped this occuring.
Fielding is still demanding that the price of petrol be reduced – in spite of the arrival of peak oil and the fact the burning excessive cheap petrol for transport is a major contributor to climate change. Maybe that suits Labor too? I would hope not.
Peterc – I’m not a fan of FF but to be fair their position on WorkChoices is very strong and not just because they didn’t have BoP. Fielding raised IR issues as the centrepiece of his maiden speech, and a lot of FF materials have IR issues prominently featured. They are worried about both parties, but esp. Libs with WorkChoices, supporting an IR system that fractures family time. Fielding raises what sounds to me like a pretty reasonable question – “are families to serve the economy or is the economy to serve families?”
They also support a more humane asylum seeker policy.
I hear you on VSU and petrol prices though! (and all the sex stuff)
Calvin,
Yesterday in his meet the press speech Bob Brown specifically said they wouldnt block any labour repeal of IR laws.
Aspirational targets are a joke, perhaps thats the reason for the low score.