Via Crikey:
According to The Sydney Morning Herald, Labor leader Anthony Albanese is set to drop long-time climate and energy spokesperson Mark Butler for health spokesperson and Labor Right member Chris Bowen.
Butler, who served as Australia’s last climate change minister after that portfolio was abolished by Tony Abbott, would then take on the health portfolio. However it is unclear what will happen to Labor’s plans for setting interim 2030 or 2035 emissions targets, especially when the Morrison government has no plans to budge on their relatively-laughable 2030 target or plan for anything post-2030.
The portfolio swap has been welcomed by former resources spokesperson Joel Fitzgibbon — who, faced with the loss of his now-marginal Hunter Valley seat, has chosen public stunts over the party’s climate policies — but comes as even former opposition leader Bill Shorten warns the party cannot head to a potential early election with a “tiny” agenda.
In a wide-ranging interview with 7.30, Albanese has dismissed rumblings his leadership is under threat, defended his policy platform, and confirmed a “stronger” shadow cabinet will be unveiled this weekend.
Coincidentally, former deputy leader and mooted replacement Tanya Plibersek has outlined a vision of Labor governing post-pandemic in The Australian ($), in which she urges the party to recapture the legacy of wartime prime minister Ben Chifley and create a platform focused on full employment, high wages and a dignified retirement.
PS: Because replacing Butler with an eight year policy vacuum was bound to have consequences, The Age reports that the newly-created Climate Targets Panel puts Australia on track to break our Paris carbon emission commitments for an upper limit of 2 degrees increase; this would require a 50% cut by 2030 and net-zero emissions by 2045, while the more ambitious, wildly-more habitable goal of 1.5 degrees would require a 2030 target of 74% and net-zero emissions by 2035. See panel member and former Liberal leader John Hewson’s op-ed for more.
Tanya Plibersek is making her play for the leadership, apparently:
At the end of World War II, Australia was an exhausted country. Our military had pushed back the threat in the Pacific, but at great human cost. Many had sacrificed everything to protect Australia.
Prime minister Ben Chifley believed Australians had earned a better deal through their sacrifice. Having won the war, it was equally important to “win the peace … for the greater happiness and prosperity of all men, women and children”. Chifley was an optimist. He believed Australia’s best days lay ahead. His promise was full employment and more home ownership — and he delivered. Unemployment dropped to 2 per cent and home ownership rose by 10 per cent across the next seven years. Australia won the peace.
As Australians watched the coronavirus spread last year, overwhelming hospital systems around the world, our immediate focus was on survival. We were willing to make serious sacrifices to keep our country safe and keep our fellow citizens healthy.
…Just as Chifley promised full employment and a family home, today’s leaders should aim higher as we rebuild after the pandemic: full employment, decent wages, job security, dignity in retirement, a strong safety net; a better quality of life for all Australians.
We can expand cheaper, cleaner renewable energy to bring down power bills, boost manufacturing jobs and reduce pollution. We could employ more Australians to care for the elderly in their homes. Instead Scott Morrison is falling back on his old habits.
We can do all of these things, yes. But how is the question that Tanya doesn’t answer. Let me tell you:
- launch a massive reform and competitiveness drive for the economy including breaking up oligopolies;
- tax mining profits properly;
- scrap negative gearing;
- crash gas prices with regulation;
- actively divorce China with tariffs;
- get the AUD down to 40 cents.
- scrap the mass immigration ‘Big Australia’ policy.
Will Tanya take on the vested interests within mining and energy, banking, realty and every other over-concentrated sector of the Aussie economy all at the same time?
Or, will she just write a dishwater op-ed using totemic Labor figures to pretend she has a plan while kowtowing to China.
I report, you decide.
Meanwhile, in completely unrelated news:
Veteran rightwinger Joel Fitzgibbon says Labor needs to consider changing the rules governing the selection of federal party leaders because the current system is “very untidy” – but he says his observation isn’t connected to “media hype about current leadership issues”.
Fitzgibbon told Guardian Australia on Thursday there was a case for overhauling the rules imposed by the former prime minister Kevin Rudd in an effort to stabilise the party’s “coup” culture. He characterised the current leadership selection process as “flawed”.
“I wouldn’t want to conflate this with current speculation about leadership but I think the rules are flawed in that they have the potential to allow someone to be the leader without the majority support of the caucus, and I think that’s very untidy,” Fitzgibbon said.
I repeat: completely unrelated news.
