Hubris powers Labor bluster and bad optics
Arguably, Anthony Albanese was better off on Monday in parliamentary question time when Bowen’s presence was an empty spot on the frontbench than he was on Tuesday with the fire-breathing minister in person.
It is as if a confident Labor government with an overwhelming majority facing a divided opposition, which had just dumped its 2050 net-zero carbon emissions target, thought it could do anything relating to climate change and renewable energy.
If it did, and there’s plenty of evidence to suggest Labor felt it was impervious on carbon emissions, it was dead wrong.
The tag of “part-time minister” – itself a hotly contested point in parliament – has stuck.
What’s more, Bowen, in person, was asked questions he either would not or could not answer.
He was asked to specify how many overseas trips he would make, how many parliamentary sitting days he would miss and what his travel, as COP climate change “negotiating president”, would cost Australian taxpayers?
The Energy Minister was asked, based on the experience of households and businesses with rising energy costs, when power prices would come down?
There was no attempt to talk about the agenda of President Bowen for the next 12 months, just a retreat into “patriotism” and false analogies of previous short-term jobs for sitting ministers.
Of course, there cannot be any answer as to when retail power prices will come down in the foreseeable future and Bowen could only suggest there would be a drop in prices after the entire process of conversion to renewables was complete decades away.
Bowen’s bluster on batteries, rooftop solar, energy subsidies and wholesale gas prices doesn’t cut the mustard as households and businesses receive rising bills.
As well, while its early days yet, Labor’s plan to weaponise the Coalition’s “climate-denying” abandonment of the 2050 net-zero target has hit a presidential-sized Bowen roadblock.
The Prime Minister argues that the presidential appointment for the next year is not as onerous as the Glasgow COP that forced the British minister to step aside from his cabinet duties and devote all his time to the climate change agenda.
There are signs the damage and distraction arising from what was a compromise deal with Turkey is having an immediate effect – Bowen, who only signed up to a Colombian-led group to phase out all fossil fuels, will not attend the first scheduled meeting in Colombia next April.
One of 24 nations to sign up to the new group at the weekend in disgust after COP30 refused to include the “phasing out” of fossil fuels, Australia already had a conflict, with Albanese declaring support for gas and coal exports even as Bowen joined the group.
In any case, he has ruled out attending the only certain COP-related engagement for 2026 as Labor people downplay the importance of the role and the amount of work it involves.
Half the last parliamentary sitting week for 2025 has gone and been a gift for an embattled Sussan Ley as Liberal leader because Labor didn’t recognise the bad optics of a globetrotting Energy Minister seeking climate change solutions beyond 2050 as he presides over rising retail energy bills.
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Having Chris Bowen back in parliament from Brazil didn’t actually help Labor defend his appointment as a global climate change negotiator with “unlimited powers”; it certainly didn’t hinder the Liberal attack over the Energy Minister’s divided time and priorities over domestic power prices.