An old premier’s tip from Nick Greiner: focus on economics to sell social policy

Thirty years ago, NSW premier Nick Greiner faced social and climate issues ironically similar to those we are facing today.

Former NSW premier Nick Greiner. Picture: James Croucher

Rewind, for a moment, to the year 1989. The average house price in NSW was $170,000; mobile phones were a shoebox-sized novelty. And Andrew Peacock had just deposed John Howard as federal leader of the Liberal Party.

But in NSW, debate raged in the cabinet room over deregulation of the egg industry, mandatory pool fencing to prevent children drowning, and a newly-formulated policy known as the Ozone Protection Bill, an analogue to today’s disputes over climate change.

The bill was designed to ban CFCs (chlorofluorocarbons) from being released into the atmosphere, and address a newly emerging problem known as “global warming”.

But while some in premier Nick Greiner’s cabinet supported this forward-thinking policy (they also banned mining in national parks), others feared regulating the products that rely on CFCs jarred against Liberal Party principles.

“It is illiberal, the very antithesis of deregulation, founded upon base political motives and not upon settled science,” a high-ranking official wrote to the then premier.

A penalty of $40,000 and five years in jail had been mooted for breaches of the prospective law, but following objections from Mr Greiner’s attorney-general this penalty was watered down to a $10,000 fine for individuals and $20,000 for corporations.

The need for this policy emerged a year earlier when Australia became a signatory to the Montreal Protocol on Substances which Deplete the Ozone Layer, a global agreement that aimed to reduce the production and use of CFCs by 50 per cent over 12 years.

Unlike today, global consensus on the problem was uncontroversial.

On Tuesday, Mr Greiner looked back on this period in the life of his government, saying it took a strong stance on environmental and social issues, which were not necessarily core elements of Liberal Party ideology.

To sell these policy packages to voters, they were presented as “economically rational”.

“You actually need good economic management to do environmental and social things,” Mr Greiner said.