Albo loves fighting Greens even more than Tories

Greens leader Adam Bandt. Picture: Josh Woning

In the busy schedule of meetings and visits being undertaken by Anthony Albanese it was good to see this week he still had time to put the Greens in their place. It was a classic Albanese takedown, calling out the Greens, not the recalcitrant Coalition, for Australia’s lost decade of action on climate change.

The hit rocked the uppity Greens back on their heels. It shows you can take the lad out of Marrickville but you can’t take Marrickville out of the lad.

Bob Brown may well argue his wattle sprig deal and the “carbon tax we had to have” moment represented legislative action on climate change, but as we know from the 2013 election this was never supported by the electorate. There was no mandate from the 2010 election for such widespread action. It was the Greens’ hubris in the previous term that cost Kevin Rudd the opportunity to legislate real action on climate change that he had achieved a mandate for at the 2007 election.

The Greens’ failure to support that mandate has led to the issue being weaponised at every federal election since. Imagine how much further ahead Australia would be if we had passed legislation in 2009 towards meeting our Paris and global commitments to carbon pollution reduction.

The Greens’ hypocrisy needs to be called out. Their latest desperate attempt for political relevance by being standover merchants in the Senate needs to be stared down.

Adam Bandt does have a problem. His angry ant performance calling for Queensland miners to be bought out of their next 100 years of coal production or the crazy 75 per cent target by 2030 were not given electoral support; there was no mandate achieved by the Greens.

The Greens now have the newly minted teals competing for the vote of the post-materialists burdened with their middle-class white guilt. They have stalled as a political movement. The youthful exuberance of Brown having worked to prevent the Franklin Dam being built and standing with Labor prime minister Bob Hawke in 1983 has given way to a chardonnay-swilling, middle-age lethargy for a party that now also has its fair share of political uglies in its ranks.

Bandt’s Victorian division of the Greens has some of the worst offenders. Senator Lidia Thorpe’s angry slur to a Liberal senator that “At least I kept my legs shut” saw her keep all her privileges under Bandt’s leadership. Just as Greens councillor Anab Mohamud from Yarra Council had to explain away allegations of violent threats and homophobia. Bandt’s lack of moral authority and inability to deal with the unacceptable actions of his fellow Greens further underscores his weak leadership.

The “Greens political party”, as Albanese labelled them as he campaigned to hold his seat of Grayndler election after election, was always the refuge of the Socialist Alliance, hard left and communist dregs looking for a vehicle to push their class warfare agenda. The environment movement often was hobbled by a more sinister political agenda driven by hardened operators such as former NSW senator Lee Rhiannon, who was rightly called a watermelon – green on the outside, red on the inside.

These days the Greens party is filled with political careerists masquerading as climate, gender, human rights and forest activists. Regrettably, talented and real-world experienced Greens senators such as Peter Whish-Wilson are sidelined by the mob-rule approach of giving in to the most shouty elements in their ranks.

In this context it’s great to see the strong response of the Prime Minister to the Greens’ political blackmail attempts, meeting their shouty demands with a simple no and a reminder of what costs were incurred by the Greens the last time they tried this on.

It’s worth reciting that equally cutting remark of Gough Whitlam’s that “only the impotent are pure” when calling out the Greens’ self-destructive role in seeking the unachievable rather than settling for significant and lasting reform in the climate policy space. Like extremists everywhere, in fact like spoiled children everywhere, the Greens let the perfect be the enemy of the good.

Albanese’s path to electoral victory had plenty of small-target ambitions, but not on climate change. He won an election with a well-articulated and developed plan to achieve net zero by 2050 by first achieving a 43 per cent reduction in carbon emissions by 2030.

This was a well-crafted package delivered by spokesman and now Minister for Climate Change and Energy Chris Bowen. Bowen is one of the smartest policy minds in the Labor show. He’s not afraid to propose big ideas, following in the footsteps of his political hero, Paul Keating.

In a discussion with one of the Prime Minister’s ministerial colleagues this week it was said to me that even though Albo was noted for “fighting Tories”, it actually was his political fight against the Greens that was just as notable. “He really doesn’t like them,” said the minister.

With all the chest beating and cries for relevance coming from the Greens, it’s also great to see the new senator for the ACT, David Pocock, come out with in-principle support for the Prime Minister’s plan to get to 43 per cent as “a floor, not a ceiling”. This sensible approach no doubt was learnt representing Australia on the international stage initially as the No.7 for the Wallabies, a position whereby forward momentum is achieved as a team, not individual actions through risky moves from flashy halves.

Australia needs to take action on climate change and under the Albanese plan we will. The key difference is he took his plan to the people and they voted for it. Labor has a mandate. This is a message the overindulged and privileged Greens senators should respect. They should also learn from their own history, which resulted in a decade of missed opportunities for real action on climate change.