Amy Remeikis is known for her incisive political commentary and experience as a journalist at Fairfax and Guardian Australia. She is currently Chief Political Analyst at the Australia Institute.
The decline of social democrats in Europe shows how when centre-left parties slowly slide to the centre-right, they become largely irrelevant. Labor in Australia is not there yet, but that is largely because its traditional opposition has been reduced to cartoonish villains, destroyed by its own success.
Labor’s obstinance on gas tax reform reflects a broader pattern of political incrementalism, their capture by fossil fuel interests, and a desire to attract more conservative votes — a pattern that will likely come back to bite them later.
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Anthony Albanese ruling out a tax on gas companies, with a narrative adopted by the incurious that it is “not the right time” because of the “global sensitivities” is not good policy or even a smart one. It is, however, what he considers to be a safe one, helped along by a media narrative that presents keeping the status quo as the “sensible” choice.
It’s never the time to consider having the fossil fuel industry pay for itself, but it’s never not the time to have Australians pay the price.
Isn’t it peculiar that we get to this week in April and suddenly the impossible seems so inevitable that we start hearing about all the “sensible” compromises? Six months ago, any sort of talk about a gas tax was dismissed as leftie pipe dreams.
The world is on fire and still the Liberal Party has next to nothing. A policy without numbers, data, statistics, but “observations” on how the Coalition, under Angus Taylor, can continue to stoke a culture war with no answers, but plenty of harm. Rich for a party that created “Big Australia”.
Seeking to reassure the Australian public in his most recent Press Club address, Anthony Albanese borrowed from populism. “There is no security in maintaining a status quo that doesn’t work for people,” he said. However, he has so far been unable to bring himself to take the next step. Reform.
Australia is not a small nation with no agency.
Energy security is national security. And for all the posturing from conservatives about “seeing Mad Max levels around the country right now” (whatever that means, the LNP’s Phil Thompson), they did this.
So much of what passes for Australian political discourse relies on existential threats. It’s easy to make grandiose statements and take positions when the threat is some amorphous vague maybe that could possibly happen.
