Scott Morrison’s fight to douse political fire
After a devastating miscalculation, Scott Morrison’s plan is hastily devised, still evolving but still inadequate.
The Prime Minister’s framework will be difficult to deliver. Its challenges extend to environmental emergencies, economic management and federal-state co-operation and will define much of this term. The outcome will be decisive in determining whether his prime ministership succeeds.
The community felt during the bushfires that “nobody is in charge”. The public blamed Morrison, not the premiers. This has created a huge political and governance problem. The result is Morrison’s new approach — hastily devised, still evolving but still inadequate.
The pivotal argument Morrison must negate is the progressive claim that the only test of national leadership has become more ambitious climate change targets and a tougher stance against coal because the fires have been a “game changer” in public opinion.
Morrison has rejected this for sound policy and political reasons. If he had cracked on this front and succumbed to these emotional but flawed demands, his authority as Prime Minister would have been disastrously weakened.
But his critics are fused with fresh urgency and momentum, and if Morrison cannot combat this mood his leadership will be damaged permanently.
This week’s Morrison framework will be modified as events unfold. It reveals a government making climate and energy policy with lots of parts but no overall national scheme. While Morrison is a pragmatist, he will be wary of the push for Australia to embrace a net-zero carbon emissions policy by 2050, the subject of immense global pressure. The government is reviewing this option, a commitment from the Pacific Islands Forum; Morrison has not ruled it out. But he puts heavy conditions on it — he would proceed only if there were no detrimental impact on jobs and price, a difficult test.
Morrison’s approach is to improvise, prioritise technological advances over carbon taxes and work with the states where possible. If there is a unifying theme it is practical action, not economic pricing. The federal-NSW deal achieves several related goals. NSW pledges to provide gas, equivalent to nearly 50 per cent of NSW consumption, backing Morrison’s pledge there is “no credible energy transition” for Australia that does not unleash gas into the market. NSW decides whether this gas comes from the ground or imports. The selling point is clear: the deal lowers prices and emissions. It funds NSW schemes including renewable energy and emission reduction initiatives. The next deal is probably with South Australia. The point about deals with the states — which Morrison wants — is that each state is different on the coal-gas-renewables political spectrum and deals will mirror that.
The destruction caused by the fires, measured by the personal, social and economic cost in local and regional communities, is likely to be greater than many expect. Morrison’s supporters do him no good insisting there was nothing unprecedented about the fires. What is unprecedented is Morrison’s response as Prime Minister now seeking a policy framework to meet this cross-jurisdictional crisis and resurrect his own standing.
His efforts will count for little if the repair, renewal and rebuilding of communities after the fires is not seen to be effective and viable. Assuming national responsibility is a double-edged sword — you have greater scope to act but face greater risks if things go wrong. Morrison mishandled the fires; he cannot be seen to mishandle the recovery.
The aspirations and agenda Morrison sets out will be expensive. He says the government’s priority is the “human cost”, not the “fiscal cost”. Sounds good, but this has consequences. The government will not be rewarded for its humanitarianism if the May budget fails to deliver the expected surplus. If you think the surplus is unimportant, ask how easily Australia would manage the bushfires fallout if the budget were still sitting in a $50bn deficit. But the combination of the fires and the coronavirus, by threatening to shave economic growth, amount to a separate fiscal challenge.
In short, there are two traps for the Morrison plan — what he has decided against doing by rejecting more ambitious climate change targets and, in response to the greatest crisis of his political life, what he has decided to promise: an agenda cast in the language of strength that draws a direct link between environmental emergencies and national security creating a new set of expectations.
Morrison has tried to devise revised parameters for the Coalition and centre-right to meet the escalating risks from the changing climate. The core principle is that “when it comes to practical safety of people living in bushfire zones, hazard reduction is even more important than emissions reduction”. Morrison wants both. Most of his critics are unbalanced on this issue: by prioritising climate change action they play down practical preventive measures in the cause of winning an ideological argument that Australia must show superior climate change credentials to the world.
Morrison’s position is founded in common sense and practicality. It should be a saleable proposition given the reality that with only 1.3 per cent of global emissions Australia, while it has a responsibility to contribute, cannot shift the world’s greenhouse gas dial.
Does anyone believe if Kevin Rudd’s carbon pricing scheme had become law in 2009 this summer’s bushfires would have been avoided or the intensity reduced? That argument has not been made. Similarly, does anyone believe that if Morrison had announced this week an increase in our 2030 emissions reduction target beyond the 26-28 per cent policy that would limit the danger of bushfires next summer?
The Australian public correctly sees climate change as integral to the intensity of the bushfires. Given the temperature is increasing this is a no-brainer. The public wants more action on climate change but the confusing and contentious question remains: what sort of action?
Morrison says Australia faces “longer, hotter, drier summers”. He says there is no dispute Australia must act to reduce global emissions and that its actions are comparable to like-minded countries such as Japan, Canada and New Zealand.
But he also attacks his critics at their weakest point — the gross inadequacies of the Paris Agreement. The system risks failure. Most of the major nation emitters have commitments that fall far short of the Paris goal: to limit the increase in temperature to between 1.5C and 2C. Moreover, the largest emitter, China, has embarked on a major expansion of its coal-fired plants. Its expansion of coal is estimated to exceed the decline in coal in all other countries.
An estimated one-quarter of coal-fired plants being built outside China are being financed by China and under the Paris deal China pledges its emissions will peak only by 2030, a probably disastrous timeline if realised.
Morrison nailed the problem, saying: “Current frameworks and agreements globally actually endorse massive increases in emissions from some of the world’s largest and growing economies. So understandably this tests the patience of people in countries like Australia, particularly in regional areas, who ask the question why do their jobs have to be exported and their incomes exported to other countries while global emissions under those arrangements are allowed to rise for so many.
“Emissions do not have accents. The only thing that matters is the cumulative impact of all countries’ emissions.”
Morrison said target setting was not the answer to cutting emissions in large developing countries — think China and India — because their priority was economic growth and tackling poverty. The key, therefore, was decoupling economic growth from emissions in the developing world and Morrison said the key here was technology breakthroughs.
Morrison’s approach is technology, not taxation, but he needs to show this works. “I’m not going to sell out Australians,” he said, explicitly rejecting calls for higher taxes, carbon pricing, pushing up electricity prices or telling people “that they’re just collateral damage of a global movement”.
This reveals Morrison’s conservative instinct — still strong in the Coalition parties — to turn on his opponents and run a campaign based on the price impact from their higher emission pledges. Yet the ground is shifting. State Liberal governments have signed up to the 2050 net-zero carbon emissions plan, which has a degree of cross-party support at home since it is virtually certain to be embraced by Labor under Anthony Albanese. As a pragmatist Morrison will judge over the coming year how much political ground he can defend and how much he needs to concede. He rejects the notion of the bushfires as a public opinion “game changer” but the test of how much opinion has turned will be better read later in the year.
Pivotal in this calculation is whether Australia faces another “perfect storm” of climate change demands similar to the mood in 2007 and 2008 that saw Rudd sweep away the Howard government.
Central to technology is exploiting the fall in the renewables cost curve. Morrison needs to purge the image of the Liberals as an anti-renewables party, a claim that is electoral death and makes no sense anyway given the advance of renewables since 2013, an advance now coming to a major slowdown because of policy uncertainty.
The post-bushfires climate debate has a long way yet to run. Morrison had no option this week but to stand behind his existing 26-28 per cent policy. His own side of politics is not ready to change and higher emissions targets now would have been a strong political negative for the Prime Minister. When it comes, revision of Australia’s targets will be tied to an assessment date beyond 2030.
While business and industry leaders are campaigning for the 2050 zero emissions goal, this would constitute an epic reversal for Morrison and his government. It would open the door to bipartisanship on emissions — a major step towards a coherent energy policy — but it is difficult to see how Morrison would embrace such a reversal without shattering his own voting base.
The idea that Morrison would put a carbon price back on the agenda runs counter to everything he said this week. Indeed, he rejected the idea outright. It would dishonour his election pledges and constitute a breach of faith with the people.
Morrison remains pledged to electricity price reductions and this is a priority in deals with the states. The point about country pledges to achieve net-zero emissions at 2050 — as the UN documents repeatedly point out — is that virtually no country that has made the pledge has a matching policy agenda to achieve it.
Morrison’s policy is geared heavily to government intervention and facilitation. The conundrum is: if there is no price signal, how do you bring new technology into the system? Claims by critics the government is doing little or nothing on climate change — and that Morrison is a denier — are worse than useless because they merely feed the polarisation on the left and right that undermines better policy. In his speech Morrison tried to shift the test of whether Australia is doing enough. He said, in effect, this test must take into account our fossil fuel comparative advantage, population density, economic growth and role as an energy supplier to Asia.
The truth is Canada and New Zealand are the nations where comparisons with Australia should be made, not countries with very different economies. Morrison said Australia would meet its 2030 targets and signalled that “carry-over credits” might not be necessary.
It was, therefore, pertinent to read the lunch interview conducted by Ed Luce from the Financial Times with Canada’s Deputy Prime Minister, Chrystia Freeland, an advocate for climate change action, and tipped as Justin Trudeau’s successor.
She said: “At the same time we also need a strong economy and we understand the reality that fossil fuels are part of the Canadian economy and the world economy.
“Even if all Canadians ceased emitting carbon we wouldn’t move the dial. A big part of our task needs to be leading the multilateral challenge.”
Morrison also raised expectations in this speech by defining new and difficult benchmarks. He cast his resilience and adaptation measures in the context of national security.
He wants an upgraded national accountability framework with targets to ensure action is taken on fire prevention measures. This impinges directly on state government law, administration, hazard reduction, management of national parks and firefighting resources.
The certainty is Morrison will now be judged by the extent of fires next summer and the summer after that — he invites this judgment because he put prevention on a national security basis. But how much real policy authority will Morrison possess in what is, by nature, a state government responsibility? There are many difficult issues involved in this project.
Morrison’s pledge means he cannot sit back and tolerate the accumulation of fuel loads across the states and in national parks. He needs a far broader strategy to encompass Australia’s national estate and its protection. He needs to review the system of volunteer firefighting. It is invaluable and must be strengthened as far as possible. Yet the principle of a permanent firefighting and prevention force should also be assessed to address both resilience and firefighting.
Have no doubt, Morrison is caught in an unresolved political/governance conflict by his necessary assumption of national responsibility during the fire crisis. This is what the public and media demanded. Morrison now has the responsibility but not the relevant powers — this needs to be sorted with the states via the Council of Australian Governments. So does Morrison’s request for a legal or constitutional understanding with the states to deploy the Australian Defence Force during an emergency at the Prime Minister’s discretion.
Public feedback on the ADF’s role has been positive. But this is a new dimension for the defence force in the way it is presented by Morrison. He says it has implications for the defence force structure, capability, command and deployment and training. “I don’t put this forward lightly,” he said. This constitutes an organisational and cultural challenge to the ADF that demands extensive assessment that not all ADF people will necessarily embrace.
After a summer of devastating political miscalculation and leadership failure Scott Morrison has launched his effort to regain control of the agenda, seeking a comprehensive approach to bushfire crises, repudiation of his climate change critics and an acceptance of greater national government responsibilities.