Labor and Greens must put aside ‘tribalism’ or risk paving way for One Nation-Liberal partnership, Rattenbury warns

Former ACT Greens leader Shane Rattenbury has warned that Labor and the Greens must put aside their political “tribalism” or risk paving the way for a Liberal-One Nation partnership that would take the country “backwards” on climate action.

Delivering the Dr Hugh Saddler Memorial Lecture on Climate, Power and the People, Mr Rattenbury warned that economic insecurity was fuelling the rise of Pauline Hanson’s party and pushing the Liberal Party further to the right.

“Can Labor actually stop and look beyond the tribalism? Can the Greens see that they will not get everything at once but can make genuine progress?” he asked.

“Can both sides recognise that in any good partnership, you don’t always get everything you want, but you can get a lot?”

He told the audience that right-wing populist movements around the world were tapping into growing economic insecurity and frustration and were increasingly being funded by “the big end of town” who profit most from the fossil fuel industry.

“As economic insecurity grows, as the wealth gap widens, as secure employment becomes a quaint relic of the past, more and more people have a sense that the social contract they thought they were party to has been ripped up,” he said.

And that, he said, can lead voters to consider alternatives, while climate change is pushed onto the back burner.

“Our homegrown right-wing populists, One Nation, have a diabolical agenda when it comes to climate,” he said

“They believe there is insufficient evidence of man-made global warming. They want to scrap net zero, build more coal-fired plants, open exploration of offshore sites for gas and petroleum, shut the Department of Climate Change, abolish the Renewable Energy Target, and withdraw Australia from the Paris Climate Agreement.

“For a party that doesn’t have many articulated policies, that is quite a list.”

Mr Rattenbury reflected on how the ACT turned its climate ambition into action, delivering emissions reductions and becoming a national reference point for climate leadership.

The territory adopted international standards and legislated a target to cut emissions by 40 per cent by 2020, which it achieved.

“To use the old expression, we thought global and acted local,” he told the audience.

The key, he said, was making the target a matter of law, with the shift to 100 per cent renewable electricity critical to its success.

“The bottom line is that the ACT has commissioned enough renewables to cover all our electricity demand every year on a net basis,” he said.

Mr Rattenbury said those agreements enabled projects to get off the ground, generate electricity and reduce reliance on fossil fuel generation.

He credited the ACT’s broader climate success to Labor and the Greens working together to push the agenda forward but noted its current “so-called action plan does feel rather anaemic”.

He also warned governments must address the risk of inequity in the energy transition, warning those unable to afford electrification could be stuck paying increasingly expensive gas bills.

As households moved away from gas, he warned remaining customers could be left shouldering more of the cost of maintaining the network.

“Given Australia’s history, we can only assume that at some point the gas companies will demand compensation from the government, and the cost will be socialised.”

He said governments must take the lead in addressing this risk.

“The market will not solve these questions,” he told the audience.

“Whether it is through subsidies, tax policy or direct financial and practical assistance, if we are to retain the social licence for the transition, we need to ensure that all Australians are benefitting, not just those with the means to sort it themselves.”