Garnaut hits at failure on climate change policy

PROMINENT adviser to the Labor government Ross Garnaut has attacked both Kevin Rudd and Julia Gillard.

PROMINENT adviser to the Labor government Ross Garnaut has attacked both Kevin Rudd and Julia Gillard.

He has accused them of a failure of leadership in tackling climate change.

In his 2010 Hamer Oration last night, Professor Garnaut attacked Mr Rudd for an abdication of leadership, and warned that the current Prime Minister had repeated her predecessor's blunder with her own climate change retreat.

Professor Garnaut made a point of criticising political advisers who gave priority to "short-term politics".

Australia's position on climate change "is weak only because of an extraordinary failure of leadership", he said.

Referring to Mr Rudd's advisers, he said: "They ignored the crucial respect for and role of leadership in the democratic process. In accepting their advice, Kevin Rudd abdicated the leadership of Australia and set the scene for the destruction of his prime ministership.

"More curious, given the Rudd experience, is the acceptance of similar advice from the same advisers by the new and current Prime Minister, Julia Gillard. The (Gillard) statement on climate change policy on Friday, July 23, has precipitated a collapse of political support that is reminiscent of the Rudd abdication."

Speaking at the University of Melbourne, Professor Garnaut said these collective failures represented "the nadir of the early 21st-century political culture, in which short-term politics and accession to sectional pressures has held sway over leadership and analysis of the national interest".

He said the paradox in these decisions was the majority public support in Australia for climate change action. This should have opened the way to effective political leadership.

The reality, however, was that Australia was conspicuous "for the weakness of its unconditional commitments" on targets.

"Worst of all, neither of the major political parties has committed itself to policies that can get us anywhere near even the unconditional commitment to 5 per cent reduction from 2000 levels by 2020," he said.

He said the necessary policy had two elements: an adequate price on carbon and devoting much of the revenue from selling emissions permits to support new low-carbon technologies.

"Leadership is an essential missing ingredient in contemporary public policy," he said. "Omitted, all the voyage of our lives is bound in shallows and miseries."