Finally a workable climate policy but can the Coalition sell it?

Bill Shorten should be under real pressure from Malcolm Turnbull’s new energy plan to cut household electricity bills but is showing no sign of sudden panic while running a typically successful retail political response.

Labor can allow state colleagues — particularly in South Australia — to do the heavy confrontation on policy implementation while belittling the expert “prediction” that the Coalition’s plan will deliver a $115 cut to household electricity prices between 2020 and 2030.

Labor can claim that a 50c-a-week cut in electricity bills in three years — which is not “guaranteed” — is a “lousy” offer that may not even be delivered. At the same time the Opposition leader accuses the Prime Minister of constantly changing his position and giving in to the extreme right of his party over climate change.

For the first time in the life of the Turnbull government there is a policy that attempts to exploit the structural flaws and contradictions of Labor’s extravagant, uncosted and impractical commitment to renewable and emission reduction targets. Turnbull, finally, has a climate change policy that melds practicality and philosophy successfully enough to get through the Coalition partyroom, look reassuring to consumers and still hold to a cut in greenhouse gas emissions.

There is also, finally, a political strategy that should be able to take advantage of Labor’s emphasis on cutting carbon emissions rather than power prices and promoting unreliable renewable energy.

But Shorten and his Labor colleagues have not dropped their bundle as finally as the government would like to think.

There is no doubt that in the long term, if the Coalition can focus and deliver a coherent political message to consumers, the ALP will be forced to choose between cutting emissions and cutting prices.

Turnbull yesterday exploited Shorten’s contradiction that renewable energy was becoming “cheaper” than coal but still needed huge subsidies that help push up power bills.

It is a fundamental contradiction in Labor’s policy that ignores the damage done to the electricity grid through over-reliance on renewable energy that can’t deliver on demand and cuts greenhouse gas emissions at the cost of consumers. South Australia is Turnbull’s exhibit A for the prosecution.

Yet, as Turnbull uses energy “experts” as human shields to avoid guaranteeing any price cut at any time in the future, Shorten is able to use Labor premiers as the first line of attack to confront Turnbull and potentially sink the deal before Labor has to take a stand.