On climate change, voters want clarity, not obfuscation; honesty, not slogans. At the last election, voters saw through Labor’s mixed messaging and slapped the party down accordingly.
In the last week, the leader of the opposition, Anthony Albanese, reshaped his front bench, particularly to emphasise that Labor’s policies, even about climate change, are all about jobs. Jobs, jobs and jobs, he said, parroting a 1983 slogan of Neville Wran, and perhaps seeking to convey an impression that he would never let a strong climate change policy stand in the way of any interest, any trade union, or any worker.
He has to do something, everyone seems to agree, though what that something is shares little agreement at all. For the usual suspects, that something seems to mean weakening and de-emphasising the policy to secure the grudging approval of Murdoch scrutiny. For others, retreat from weak policies to even weaker ones may be the last straw for core party members who feel their party has consistently sold out principle since the 2001 Tampa crisis.
Albanese is being told he must re-invent and re-market his policies because they are not “cutting through”. That may be because they are bad policies. Or it may be that their spokespeople are ineffective in selling them and setting the agenda, or they might need the services of an advertising agency and some low commitment/high emotional appeal slogans, images and marketing agitprop.
Just what “cutting through” might mean is not always explained. Many in Labor have persuaded themselves that they lost the 2019 election because of being too bold. I think the big political weakness of Labor’s policies on climate change is that the electorate rightly perceived that Labor was usually speaking with a forked tongue: saying one thing to, for example, inner-city advocates of urgent action on the one hand, and another to mining workers.
The mixed messaging was deliberate. It did not impress potential Labor voters, particularly those with a strong interest in the practical effects of a Labor government. Greenies feared Labor half-heartedness; those focused on the jobs mirage feared Labor treachery. It hardly needed the government or the Murdoch press to stress all the contradictions. People without strong convictions probably decided for other reasons.
On climate change, voters want clarity, not obfuscation; honesty, not slogans. And strong, not weak, policy. Link it with investment in jobs in a new economy, but don’t smother the project.
That problem has persisted since the 2019 election, not least since the self-nomination by Joel Fitzgibbon as the Labor champion of mining jobs, and the mischief against Albanese’s leadership being wrought by factional players such as Kimberley Kitching. The effect of the 2019-20 bushfires regarding the need for strong action has been allowed to dissipate or be overshadowed by the pandemic. So disorganised has Labor been that it has scarcely been able to capitalise on the poor performance on energy policy from Angus Taylor, Morrison’s attempts to stare down the climate change tide, or the host of contradictory positions the government has adopted.
Most observers have expected that the advent of Joe Biden in the US, and America’s re-joining the Paris Convention, might galvanise change by Morrison. One might have expected a Labor attack, or at least some sniping concentrated on Morrison. But Labor has been so absorbed in the politics and economics of climate change policy, or on criticising Morrison for backing the wrong horse in the US election, that it has scarcely been heard in commentary about the climate change plans of Biden and Kamala Harris.
Labor, moreover, is not yet well-positioned to take local advantage if, as seems likely, Biden’s determination goes beyond chiding a few recalcitrant nations to imposing political and economic penalties, including access to the US market. The world will quite likely implement some sort of carbon price charged at the border to those more focused on “sovereignty” than effective action. Meanwhile, Europe, the Pacific and most of the developed world are far from impressed by Australia’s performance.
Even Britain has, in Boris Johnson, a conservative prime minister enthusiastic for climate change action. Johnson has so many domestic problems, not least with his mismanagement of the pandemic and the chaos of the post-Brexit economy, that political desperation for a trade deal with Australia may overcome any push to punish exporters with high emissions.
Polls have consistently found that about two-thirds of the population want more urgent action on climate change. The sense of urgency was reinforced by the 2019-20 bushfires on the eastern coast, and by increasing recognition by the business and finance sector that the default coalition policy — of kowtowing to the hydrocarbon industry — will further damage the environment, and probably Australia’s reputation. Morrison’s pretence that his policy is a compromise between balancing the health of the economy and his desire that Australia does everything it can is a sham.
Morrison has instead mobilised voters and interests opposed to climate action, including miners and mining unions. He has skilfully nurtured electricity prices, for one, to make the issue of climate change seem a second-tier one among most ordinary voters, particularly in the outer suburbs. While they are intellectually convinced about the need for more to be done, they do not see the issue as the most important in their lives.
That’s a significant Labor marketing failure. It should be honest with the electorate, including explaining the costs of doing nothing or too little. Labor has instead focused on the noisier lobbies. Effective action and political success involve galvanising potential constituencies that otherwise not very hostile to the government. A Labor Party that abdicates this role, or that shrinks from an honest debate, is not worthy of holding power.
John Waterford AM, better known as Jack Waterford, is an Australian journalist and commentator.
Comments
8 responses to “Labor’s dissembling and ducking won’t win climate votes”
“So disorganised has Labor been that it has scarcely been able to capitalise on the poor performance on energy policy from Angus Taylor, Morrison’s attempts to stare down the climate change tide, or the host of
contradictory positions the government has adopted” is all the more reason for Albanese to stand aside.
Thanks Jack, and as I stated in another publication some time ago, Albanese is way to distracted by other personal issues, that of his separation from his wife Carmel Tebbut, which was only very recent in 2019.
Given his recent MV accident and the concomitant shocks that accompany both, he does not have the capacity or the focus to do the job that’s required of him at this time; the cabinet reshuffle is proof of that, (reaction rather than response) and it’s his refusal to acknowledge as much that will cause further disruptions and poor judgement all round, which is something that cannot be allowed to continue.
IMHO Albanese would do himself, his family, the country and the ALP a far better service to stand down, rather than to hang on and become even further frayed by long train events.
Hello Heather : For me, private lives of public people should remain private. Since 2007 three prime ministers (Rudd, Gillard, Turnbull), and two leaders of the opposition (Turnbull and Shorten), and by the end of the year a third (Albanese or Tanya or the drover’s dog) have all been politically destroyed
by climate change. Rudd because he is too grammatically correct, Gillard because she had a boyfriend decades ago, Turnbull because he is a harbour-mansions banker. I don’t know about the drover’s dog. But of course, should the oilmen, gasmen and coalmen puff up the daggy dog for PM image we, the
Australian people, would vote for the drover’s dog even if he does nothing for climate change.
Hello Fosco, I can’t agree more about private lives, however, when you step into public life it’s the MSM and the politicisation of private lives (gossip) that is grist for the mill, especially where Murdoch and Climate Change are concerned, as you have highlighted.
The whole debate over the miniscule argument of what CO2 levels and some arbitrary future date is acceptable is a joke when you consider the very ground that life is built upon, the very thing that allows the human race to exist, is extremely fragile, but hey, don’t confuse that with semantics and the profit drive of Murdoch, Mining, Oil and Gas, or the Koch Brothers or Wall Street.
Maybe it’s time for the body politic to upend Politics as it’s currently known and do a Game Shop en masse, not hard by the yards as it has been.
Bit hard to play by the Marquise of Queensbury rules when the other mob are using gruella tactics.
Brilliant!
Hello Jack: do I detect the old “attack Labor from the left” trick? “On climate change, voters want clarity, not obfuscation; honesty, not slogans. And strong, not weak, policy. Link it with investment in jobs in a new economy, but don’t smother the project”. Are you saying that’s what the Coalition has been doing? Really?? Labor took strong climate change policies to the last five elections, losing four. For about fifteen years I was a “kitchen duties” volunteer for Friends of the Earth. For years I helped with public information stalls all over Melbourne. It was an encounter with the great wall of indifference. We, the Australian People have been voting to do nothing on climate change!!! And, at the next election we will again vote for vested interests. Morrison’s lump of coal was a symbol of who really “owns” parliament, and who really controls the media including the ABC. The Age is a joke!
An enormous amount of negative messaging is coming out of Joel Fitzgibbon’s mouth. He needs to have a good look at what the good people in his electorate are actually doing. Contrary to his posture as the great black hope to keep the coal mines churning, the electorate at large are well aware of the impact of renewable energy and what it means to them. They are getting on with designing their future, and Fitzgibbon, being the trogodolyte that he is, would appear to be barking up the wrong gum tree as it were.
This article in the ABC examines what is happening in the coal rich Hunter Valley and what the locals are actually thinking. It is refreshing to see that they are getting on with it, and not waiting for Fitzgibbon to catch up.
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2021-02-02/coal-transition-climate-change-hunter-region/13109642
As far as Fitzgibbon and the Morrison government is concerned, Government cannot stop the future, and it is happening right under their noses.
Thanks Jack. At the last election I was so incredibly frustrated with Labour’s completely hopeless messaging on climate. They tried to be all things to all people and failed accordingly. They need to pick a position (strong action on climate change) and stick with it. With Biden’s position on climate, at least labour will appear to be in step with the rest of the world.
Still totally mixed messaging. Timid Albanese is all for Net Zero, none for Mark Butler. Morrison will probably make a glib “commitment” to Net Zero, leak it to Lord Hartcher first of all, and get away with it.
Why can’t Labor counter with a structural adjustment program to move communities and workers out of coal? Because they’re more interested in global social justice and urban identity politics.