On climate and Indigenous voice to parliament, stop playing games and start prioritising policy

On issues such as climate and the voice, too much of our national debate takes on the tone of game-playing when the issues are deadly serious.

Climate and Energy Minister Chris Bowen laughed in parliament about the political prospects of denouncing nuclear energy, writes Chris Kenny. Picture: NCA NewsWire / Gary Ramage

Every now and then you look up from the daily battlefield of ideas and controversies to consider what is preoccupying the political/media class and compare it to what are the most pressing challenges. Such stocktaking is often dispiriting.

This past week demonstrates that we are in a low period. After starting to pen this piece I bumped into a couple of the most widely respected press gallery veterans in parliament house, and they volunteered a similar reflection. The nation is overwhelmed by serious dilemmas and complex historical challenges but the debate around them is about as deep as MasterChef. Without the charm.

Take the refocusing of our aid program with a $1.7bn increase in funding and a commitment that 80 per cent of programs will have elements addressing climate or gender issues. Pacific Minister Pat Conroy boasted about this, saying: “Climate change is the No.1 threat to the Pacific.”

This is the triumph of spin and virtue signalling over hard-nosed national interest and foreign policy. Our own national security is in large part dependent upon the security and prosperity of our region, yet we trash our heavy responsibilities with gestures that have more in common with university politics than real world priorities.

Pacific nations will always need to deal with natural disasters in the form of fires, floods, and cyclones. But while global warming is often cited as the Pacific’s most pressing threat – most likely because it provides good leverage to demand more assistance from wealthy nations – many of these nations need to find ways of providing employment for their people, as well as education, healthcare and community security.

You need only check the parliamentary library to read reports about the crushing social problems that threaten the future of burgeoning young populations in Pacific nations. They include unemployment, poverty, poor education, fragile social services, chronic health problems and risks of social unrest. Then there are the geo-strategic threats involving China. And look, if you insisted on a nod to political fashion, you might suggest that in the long term some of these issues might be exacerbated by climate change – or not.

Even the ABC has reported scientific analysis showing that despite rising sea levels, atolls and islands are increasing in area.

Foreign aid policy is just one of many areas where climate catastrophism is diverting attention and resources from more pressing problems.

Our politicians ought to acquaint themselves with the serenity prayer about acceptance of what they cannot change, courage to change what they can, and the wisdom to know the difference. Too often they are attracted to impossible dreams rather than the hard yakka of achievable practical reform.

Fashionable preoccupations like climate alarmism and gender sensibility win domestic and diplomatic plaudits but distract from the real challenges that are more mundane or difficult.

Economic development is fundamental – including through reliable and affordable energy – to underpin health, education, and security.

This week, when the ABC was exposed for misleading and unethical behaviour in cahoots with extreme climate activists against a Woodside executive, its own Media Watch program seemed to dismiss its responsibilities on truth, privacy, and civil behaviour in favour of its climate crusade. Extreme behaviour was warranted, according to Paul Barry, because “Antarctic ice is melting fast” and “parts of the planet are on fire”.

This is the national broadcaster defending its misbehaviour in the terms of an anarchical, climate doomsday cult. Apparently, none of them stop to consider their journalistic obligations or Australia’s economic future, not to mention the energy requirements of customer nations.

Just why millions of dollars of taxpayers’ money should fund Barry and his team to produce ideological propaganda, completely in breach of the ABC charter, is one of the mysteries of the modern world. Maybe nobody in management, or on the board, cares.

With the nation focused on the Matildas’ world cup campaign, the Prime Minister suggested this week that he would negotiate an official national public holiday in the event the home team wins the title. Never mind the pressure this puts on the team, or the obviously pre-planned attempt to match Bob Hawke’s 1983 jocular spontaneity, what about the economic cost for businesses, large and small?

It is extraordinary that Canberra would impose the cost of an additional public holiday just when businesses face a productivity crunch as they recover from the pandemic, deal with tightening monetary policy, and struggle to get workers back into the office, even for two days a week. Hawke’s America’s Cup joke had more awareness; he insisted workers would have to make up for any lost time.

More encouragingly, this week the Coalition launched a significant push towards a viable energy policy, outlining a potential coal-to-nuclear strategy. This country has been finding ways to reject nuclear energy since the 1950s, so better late than never.

If we want to reduce emissions, nuclear energy is the reliable, affordable and practical option, especially in places such as the Hunter and La Trobe valleys, where workforces, industrial land, water and crucial transmission infrastructure are all available. This is a no-brainer, especially if you want climate action.

And what do we get from the government? Climate and Energy Minister Chris Bowen laughed in parliament about the political prospects of denouncing nuclear energy. “We look forward to the costings and the locations of the nuclear power stations when (the Coalition) releases them,” Bowen told parliament, calling nuclear the most expensive form of energy. This is not the behaviour of a serious person helping to run a substantial country. In the UK, France, South Korea, China, Finland, Sweden and elsewhere the drift away from nuclear energy is being replaced by a renewed enthusiasm – the world simply cannot get close to net zero without substantially more nuclear energy.

Bowen is overseeing a trillion-dollar transformation to an unproven renewables-plus-storage model that will cover vast tracts of the nation with wind farms, solar panels and transmission lines. On current projections, it will continue to increase costs, with all those investments needing to provide returns to investors, but will not succeed in delivering reliable power. It is national self-harm, as underlined in Tasmania this week where the so-called “battery of the nation” faces an energy crisis.

Yet Bowen mocks proven, reliable, emissions-free nuclear power. Renewables zealots might just be the flat-earthers of the 21st century.

Given this absence of rationalism, I suppose we should not even be surprised that after more than 50 years of embarrassingly frail attempts by government of all stripes to develop a national low-level radioactive waste repository, the Albanese government scrapped one this week. The Eyre Peninsula town of Kimba in South Australia had accepted the project, to be built on a long-time wheat farm, but a last-minute objection by an Indigenous group prompted the Federal Court to block the project.

Instead of appealing the decision or passing legislation to override the obscure objections, Labor has abandoned it. After more than five decades of government failure, Labor goes back to square one.

This is a level of spinelessness not seen since the Ediacaran period. It seems clear Labor has rolled over on this 50-year project of national importance because it does not want to endure the political friction of attempting to overrule an Indigenous objection during the voice referendum campaign. Such cowardice will only increase community doubts about the voice.

And speaking of the voice, it is another debate that is being debased. Through this issue, the nation is grappling with its past and its future, and considering a reform aimed at closing the gap between Indigenous and non-Indigenous people in health, education, and even life expectancy. The very essence of reconciliation is at stake, not to mention, according to the No camp, the ability for the national government to function.

Yet, still, look at how it played out this week. The Coalition ran a wild conspiracy claim about the Albanese government covertly committing to a secret longer version of the Uluru Statement.

It was a phantasmagorical and conspiratorial claim, embarrassingly undone by the fact the one-page Uluru Statement was presented to a Coalition government six years ago, the background documents have no official status, are not part of the statement and have been publicly available in reports and online all along.

Both sides should stick to the substance of the debate. But that seems a forlorn hope.

Too much of our national debate takes on the tone of game-playing when the issues are deadly serious. We might still be a lucky country, but we are pushing our luck.