Piers Akerman: Gesture politics leave Albanese government out of touch with the public
Albanese is no Bob Hawke but at least he could make an effort to address the really important issues rather than waste his term appeasing rapacious pressure groups, writes Piers Akerman.
Opinion
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Parliament resumes this week but the gloss has already gone off the new Labor government. Having gone to the election with policies based on wishful thinking and little else, it finds itself unprepared for the realities of office.
Much has been made of the foreign forays Prime Minister Anthony Albanese and Foreign Minister Penny Wong have made but, in fact, little has actually been achieved.
The hug demanded of the newly huggable Albanese by Solomon Islands Prime Minister Mannaseh Sogavare didn’t disguise the fact that the Pacific Islands Forum meeting was regarded as a failure because the sprawling island of Kiribati (mispronounced by our Albo) was a no-show.
Nor did that hug stop the Chinese building a port in the Solomons.
Wong’s joyous reception in her Kota Kinabalu hometown in Sabah, Malaysia, and her ability to speak Indonesian when in Jakarta, didn’t stop her host Joko Widodo inviting the barbaric Russian dictator Vladimir Putin to the G20 meeting in Bali in November, nor dissuade him from meeting China’s President Xi Jinping in Beijing this week and becoming the first foreign leader to meet the Chinese Communist Party’s chief since the Beijing Winter Games in February.
Domestically, Labor has found itself up the same flooding creek that seemingly stranded former prime minister Scott Morrison but this time the ABC and Nine Media are not blaming the Prime Minister for the deluge.
For, despite their pre-election claims to the contrary, neither Albanese or his Energy and Climate Minister Chris Bowen can actually do anything that will change the global climate. Nor can any of the newly elected teals, whose presence in the House will remain a scathing reflection on the intelligence of their supporters in those wealthy electorates that fell for their snake oil.
Being foremost among those who claim to unswervingly believe in “the science” whether it relates to Covid or climate change, they wilfully chose to ignore the words of former chief scientist Alan Finkel, who told a senate committee in 2018 that if the world’s carbon emissions were reduced by 1.3 per cent (Australia’s contribution) the effect on the changing world climate would be “virtually nothing”.
This is not to say Dr Finkel is against us reducing emissions, far from it. Many scientists would cripple the economy, encourage more handouts for an increase in unreliable renewable energy schemes and undependable battery storage.
To meet the unrealistic 43 per cent emission reduction target Albanese wishes to mandate through the parliament, Australians will see further increases in the cost of electricity even as the supply becomes less certain with the closure of two of NSW’s coal-fired power stations. There will also have to be a considerable livestock cull, not the feral cats and dogs that will each year ravage threatened native species, but sheep and cattle, animals we eat and whose meat we export.
In Ireland there are some 6.5 million cattle and it has been estimated that 1.3 million – about 20 per cent of the herd – would be need to be culled for that country to meet its ambitious emissions reduction target.
We have a national herd of 28 million, even if we had to cull just half of Ireland’s number, we’re talking 2.8 million from a herd that is still recovering from the drought.
India has approximately 305 million cattle (the majority of which are sacred and not scared at all) but does anyone think that any will be sacrificed to placate the climate change cultists?
Dr Finkel is correct but meaningless gestures carry more weight with Labor, the Greens and the teals than reality.
Plus, Environment Minister Tanya Plibersek now wants to add to the gesture politics by locking up 30 per cent of the land mass – removing land from food production and there are the vast hectares that are being covered by short-lived and largely ineffectual solar panels. The Albanese government’s domestic agenda shows just how out of touch it is with the concerns of the public. It can’t reduce the cost of electricity as it promised.
Its determination to insert a racist clause in the Constitution without any details being provided to the public is fatally flawed and its climate policy is out of step with the rest of the world.
Australia is the only nation in the OECD which has no nuclear component in its power supply mix – and there has been no discussion on lifting the ban on including safe nuclear energy.
State and federal relations need to be sorted out urgently.
Tax reform is long overdue and industrial relations reform is essential.
Foot and mouth disease poses a major threat but no greater than the government’s own foot in mouth problem.
Albanese is no Bob Hawke but at least he could make an effort to address the really important issues rather than waste his term appeasing rapacious pressure groups who don’t have the national interest at heart.
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