As noted here and here in comments, there’s an extremely interesting development in Queensland state politics today - Indooroopilly MP Ronan Lee has defected from the ALP to join The Greens.
Lee has been something of a maverick during his time in Parliament, causing both Peter Beattie and Anna Bligh a few headaches, and having switched factional allegiance from one right wing faction - the Old Guard (”Labor Unity”) to the other - the AWU (”Labor Forum”). He might have expected ministerial promotion, particularly if Anna Bligh had had the determination and the support to put the broom through Cabinet that is needed - rather than just talking about “renewal” - but has had to content himself with the position of Parliamentary Secretary to the Attorney-General. Lee has been a very active local member, as his website demonstrates, and a position of some independence with regard to his party (Lee’s election paraphernalia and office signage have radically downplayed his ALP affiliation) must have assisted him in retaining a very marginal seat in traditional Western Suburbs leafy Liberal heartland he first won in 2001. Lee has also been outspoken on environmental and transport issues, and recently took a swipe at Anna Bligh for not being serious about green issues.
With all the attention on the role of Brendon Grylls and the Nationals as the kingmakers in the WA election result, the improvement in the Greens’ vote has slipped under the radar somewhat. Counting subsequent to election night has seen their vote climb to almost 12% of the Legislative Assembly total according to the WAEC (which is interestingly slightly higher than the Greens’ vote in the Legislative Council).
But, if the Fin Review is to be believed, the significance of a 4% plus swing to the Greens hasn’t escaped the attention of ALP wonks. “Labor hardheads” are quoted by the paper as concerned by the vote in Fremantle, and the implications for the seats of Federal Ministers such as Lindsay Tanner, Anthony Albanese and Tanya Plibersek. “Labor strategists” are cited as concerned about a drift away among “left-leaning voters”.
This is hardly rocket science. Any modern managerialist ALP government is bound to disappoint at least some left voters after the initial euphoria of a Tory defeat has worn off. And the Greens nationally are going to have a much bigger profile with a balance of power role in the Senate and new Senators who may develop a high profile. The article, however, leaves us none the wiser as to how “Labor strategists” think their party should respond.
As well as OpenAustralia being tweaked to focus on the Senate, the folks at GreensBlog have also welcomed in the first sitting of the new Senate tomorrow with a new address and look for the blog and a new website which should facilitate greater transparency and interactivity with the Greens Senators.
John Quiggin’s blog is on a temporary hiatus, which is a pity as I’d hoped he’d reproduce his article in the Financial Review today to enable it to reach a wider audience. Gary Sauer-Thompson summarises the gist of the article and offers some analysis of his own. Quiggin suggests that “the state of the Murray-Darling system is an indication of the price of ignoring climate change”. Quiggin argues that it’s been known since the 1980s that there was an urgent need to restore flows to the river system, and that the recent proposals have both been inadequate and indeed unable to be implemented because there simply isn’t enough water. The impact of the drought is such that releasing any flows from upstream - say from Cubbie Station in Queensland - would largely be a futile exercise as it’s estimated that 80% would be lost by evaporation or absorption into the water table. What we’re left with - in the absence of any real ameliating action and non-existent or very low flows into the lower part of the Murray from 2002 onwards - is the current choice between one ecological disaster and another worse one with regard to Lake Albert and Lake Alexandrina near the mouth of the Murray River.
All this implies that the cabinet decision today to spend an additional $50 million on purchasing water rights in the northern basin is futile. It really just compensates those irrigators whose allocations were the problem in the past for the rents foregone. It also suggest The Greens are also wrong in suggesting that there is a lifeline from releasing flows which would prove to be insufficient.
Quiggin concludes:
The desparate choices now facing us with respect to the Murray-Darling basin are a small indication of what we will face if the world fails to act quickly to control emissions of carbon dioxide and slow the rate of global warming. Sooner or later the necessity for action will become undeniable, but by then the relatively easy options available now will have been forclosed.
Instead of market-friendly options like emissions trading, we will be looking at command-and-control measures like the water restrictions now prevailing in most Australian cities. As far as the environment goes, the kind of triage operations now being applied to the icon sites of the Murray will be routine. Some vital ecosystems will be saved, at the cost of abandoning others.
Given the Opposition is playing silly buggers on the emissions trading scheme, it’s important to consider the politics of the new Senate on the matter. Recall that if the Opposition votes against a bill, the government needs the votes of the Greens, Nick Xenophon, and Steve Fundies First Fielding to get something through.
“That requires a rigorous and comprehensive scheme which not only lowers Australia’s 1990 pollution levels by 40 per cent by 2020 but which also turns down the growing rate of emissions by 2015 - seven years away,” he said.
Penny Wong gave a speech at the CEDA conference the other day. In general terms she took the line that Ross Garnaut has been taking. Facing up to climate change will not be easy or cheap, but not facing up to it will be very expensive and possibly (probably?) catastrophic.
As a small example of the risk facing Australia from climate change, around 711,000 coastal addresses were at risk from future sea-level rise, Senator Wong said.
She said best estimates showed that $25 billion in assets may be at risk from sea level rise and storm surge.
Here’s another opportunity to be very mise-en-abyme and question the Q&A questioners questioning the Q&A panel while the questioning takes place! How web 3.0!
In other words, will Tony Abbott carry on like a pork chop? Will Louise Adler talk about the Bill Henson controversy? Will Warren Mundine denounce a “new ATSIC”? What sense does it make to have a panel with Bob Brown, Tony Abbott, Tanya Plibersek, Louise Adler anyway? Are they going to talk about the politics of the week, or take questions on anything? Will the questions be sharper and more policy and life-focused than the ones professional interviewers often put? Have at it!
Everyone knows the Liberals are in trouble, with the possible exception of Alexander Downer. However, looking at the discussion, both on blogs and in the MSM, this seems to be perceived to mean: They can’t win in 2010, probably not in 2013. However, the assumption seems to be that at some point the Liberals will be back (possibly merged with the Nationals). Much advice has been given based on the notion that ambitious Liberal leaders should be positioning themselves to lead in 2013 or 2016, rather than now.
I disagree. I believe that 2010 is likely to be the best chance the Liberals will ever have to get back into government. If they can’t win then, or at least give it a decent shake, there will probably never be another Liberal-led federal government in Australia.
A big call I know, but my thesis is that the Liberals are caught between two crises, both of which will likely see them whither in the long term. Every election will become harder to win, and after a while it will become difficult for them to even sustain the position of official opposition.
One thing we talked about quite a bit before the election amongst the LP collective is drawing attention to the Senate contests. I don’t think we’ve done as good a job as we could have, considering its importance.
Just to remind us why getting the Coalition out of its Senate majority, and giving the balance of power back to progressive parties, is so important, here’s some that politician-bloggers from the minor parties contending for the Senate have raised recently:
Sydney’s Walk Against Warming will kick off in The Domain at 1pm, with speakers Cate Faehrmann (executive director of the Nature Conservation Council), Bob Brown and Peter Garrett.
If you’re on facebook, you can invite your friends to Walk Against Warming on the events page.
Crossposted at LP in exile, as our comments here are still closed due to our outage issues.
Yesterday morning on Insiders, Bob Brown pointed out that neither Howard or Rudd mentioned the drought in the debate last Sunday. That may be so, but Labor has put it back on the agenda with the promise of a $1 Billion National Urban Water and Desalination Plan”. The plan, in a nutshell, is a 10% tax credit on private sector capital investment in approved new water projects - for every dollar of capital invested in the project, whomever is responsible gets 10 cents knocked off their corporate tax bill. State government-owned water corporations - who don’t pay tax - would receive a cash grant of 10% of the capital cost.
Meanwhile, on the global warming front, Labor has announced some new plans to combat climate change, of which the headline was solar panels in every school, while the Liberals have interrupted their confusion over Kyoto to announce some extra grant money for renewables research.
Particularly with Labor’s plans, it seems that there is an inverse correlation between the quality of the policy and the amount of media attention it gets, if you look into the policy detail. Continue reading ‘Power and water’
Sometimes, the only way to make sense of this election is through fiction.With Kevin Rudd’s immediate slapdown of Robert McClelland, you can almost hear in the background The West Wing’s Josh Lyman blowing his top at the message calendar being disrupted.
Any other fictional resonances for you all so far? Bob Brown had a a Tammy Metzler moment somewhere during the campaign, perhaps? And, if you were called in as scriptwriter for this campaign, what would you shamelessly rip off?
By the way, as (for instance) the Poll Bludger noted, the government gained a couple of percent in the polls. Did anybody seriously think that Labor was really going to get over 55% 2PP?
The Four Corners report on the Exclusive Brethren showed them up as rather icky, undoubtedly. But we all already knew that. However, what disturbed me most about the whole thing was what the Brethren has already been able to get from our politicians:
In 2004, the Brethren won a temporary exemption from testing their children for computer literacy, from then Education Minister Brendan Nelson.
In New South Wales and South Australia, the Brethren have won exemptions from union inspections in their workplaces, and this is mirrored in recent federal legislation.
SENATOR BOB BROWN, GREENS LEADER: Notably, they have been able to influence John Howard’s WorkChoices legislation with a special exemption for Exclusive Brethren workplaces from union presences, and without the authority of their employees because they’re given no say, the Exclusive Brethren is able to ban unions from coming into any of their work places.
In the Australian Financial Review yesterday they identified nine key issues in this election and ranked their importance as vote deciders. The rankings out of 10 were:
9 Economic management
8 Industrial relations
7 Tax, Health, Environment
5 Housing
4 National security, Education, Industry policy
In the short explanatory paragraph for education it was all about higher education and technical education/skills. General schooling doesn’t rate.
Interesting today that in addition to calling for the usual debates with the Liberals that lock out minor party participation, Labor has also called for a You Tube version of those debates.
ALP national secretary and campaign director Tim Gartrell has written to his Liberal counterpart Brian Loughnane outlining Labor’s proposal for a minimum of three leaders’ debates to be held on three Sundays during the campaign.He has demanded at least one involve live on-line participation via YouTube or a comparable format.
Greens Leader Bob Brown has echoed Labor’s calls for leadership debates during the election campaign, but says any debate should include the minor parties. Labor has called for Prime Minister John Howard and Opposition Leader Kevin Rudd to go head-to-head in at least three public debates before the election.
In a perfect political world all parties with upper and lower house representation would be included in any debates, however it looks like once again we’ll be forced to endure the usual duopolistic two horse race that our mainstream media loves.
Larvatus Prodeo is an Australian group blog which discusses politics, sociology, culture, life, religion and science from a left of centre perspective. more»
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