Labor fails to heed the change in climate

Labor MP Joel Fitzgibbon in Canberra on Thursday. Picture: Gary Ramage

Labor has been going backwards since the day Kevin Rudd was elected prime minister in 2007.

The early days of the Rudd government were the acme of modern Labor’s political and parliamentary performance; they were also the beginning of the grand decline as Labor failed to reconcile the contradictory employment demands of its traditional blue collar workers in the regions and the global warming concerns of the inner city.

After the first flush of the ALP victory over an 11-year-old ­Coalition government, Rudd and every Labor leader since has presided over falling electoral performances, and internal debate over climate change and energy policy has been at the heart of those diminishing returns.

The iron political law of numbers makes Labor’s failure clear.

In 2007, Labor held 24 rural or ­regional seats of which eight were won on more than 50 per cent of the primary vote; in the metropolitan progressive belt, the ALP won 10 seats, including four with a primary vote of more than 40 per cent.

Compared with the election last year, Labor’s primary vote has gone down 10 per cent and it has lost nine of the regional seats and three in the progressive belt.

None of the regional seats won under Rudd was won last year with more than 50 per cent of the primary vote.

Labor has no rural or regional seats in Queensland, Western Australia or South Australia.

Despite the decline in primary vote, Labor has been able to grab three Coalition seats in rural and regional areas since 2007 and its inner-city losses went to a Greens, an independent and a Liberal.

Rudd’s failure to get a climate change policy through the Senate was the beginning of the end for his leadership; Julia Gillard’s embrace of a carbon tax destroyed Labor’s support and it never recovered; and at the last election, Bill Shorten’s huge, uncounted emissions reductions targets were instrumental in his loss, particularly in Queensland.

Joel Fitzgibbon is accused of being “out of step” with Labor supporters and the public over his demands for ALP policies that protect jobs as the economy moves to lower carbon emissions.

Yet it is Labor, in trying to please everyone, that has ended up out of step with everyone, ­losing seats in the regions and in the inner city.

These numbers say Labor’s biggest losses have been in ­regional areas, keeping the ­Coalition in government and the ALP unable to implement policies on climate change.

The numbers suggest that Labor should look to the regions and their traditional support.