Labor's New Green Deal

 

By Nico Louw

First published in the MRC’s Watercooler newsletter. Sign up to our mailing list to receive Watercooler directly in your inbox.

Amidst the final chaotic Parliamentary sitting week of the year, the economy narrowly dodged a Labor-Greens bullet in the form of Tanya Plibersek’s Nature Positive legislation.

The Nature Positive term has only entered the lexicon of climate advocates and international summits in the last few years. Its meaning is nebulous, so the nature positive label is often applied as doublespeak for economically negative green policies that involve more regulation and costs.

In this case, Labor’s Nature Positive legislation involves establishing more green tape and bureaucracy in the form of a new Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). Environmental protection is a laudable objective, but Governments need to get the balance right between conservation and supporting reasonable projects that promote economic growth.

By all accounts, Ms Plibersek had actually sealed a deal in writing on this legislation with the Greens before the Prime Minister stepped in to stop it. This is the second time he has intervened to stop a deal on this policy with the Greens. The last time was to stop any deal to add a “climate trigger” to the Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Act.

If the Greens got their way, major housing, mining, critical minerals and energy projects could be put at risk by more regulation. The Minister would have the ability to delegate decision making to a new unaccountable EPA. Investment in the mining industry in Western Australia that helps power our economy would be put at risk.

The Prime Minister knows this is electoral poison in Western Australia, which is why he stepped in. But we shouldn’t be fooled.

Labor went to the last election promising to establish an EPA and it has been in Labor’s National Platform since 2018. Labor’s environmental wing is furious and no doubt Tanya Plibersek is too. It’s not the ending to the year she wanted after hosting the world’s first Global Nature Positive Summit in Sydney last month.

Labor will try to pass this legislation again, but next time the Greens are likely to have even more leverage. They know that, if Anthony Albanese manages to win re-election next year, it is highly likely to be as a minority Government. This will give the extremist Greens under Adam Bandt, and the green-left wing of the Labor party, enormous power.

In fact, following Albanese’s intervention, late on Thursday the Government struck a last-minute deal with the Greens to pass 27 bills, prompting Adam Bandt to proudly declare that “Green pressure works”. Part of the price was the Government agreeing to ban coal, oil and gas projects from its cornerstone Made in Australia Fund and legally prevent Export Finance Australia from financing fossil fuel projects. So Australia’s export financing agency will be banned from supporting some of our most important exports.

Following the deal, Adam Bandt declared that the Greens will now turn to “pushing for … no new coal and gas in a coming minority Parliament”. A cursory look at the Greens website gives a taste of the other policies we can expect Adam Bandt to pursue in deals with Labor. These include:

  • Implementing unachievable renewables targets

  • Lowering the voting age to 16

  • Wiping all student debt and ending the HECS system completely

  • Ending negative gearing and the Capital Gains Tax discount

  • Increasing corporate tax by $500 billion over 10 years

  • Ending horse racing

  • Undermining AUKUS and the US alliance

  • Ending offshore detention and Operation Sovereign Borders

As outlined in a recent MRC report, Australia is already home to the largest number of climate lawsuits in the world on a per capita basis and we can anticipate this environmental lawfare to be supercharged under further Greens pressure. Expect more funding for bodies like the Environmental Defenders Office, the taxpayer funded lawfare agency that was recently ordered by the courts to pay $9 million to Santos after colluding with an “expert” academic to concoct a map of Indigenous sites designed to block a gas project. This happens to be the same quantum of funding the Albanese Government gave the organisation last year, which will now presumably be topped up with yet more taxpayer dollars.

Anthony Albanese acts like he is in competition with the Greens, but large parts of the modern Labor Party agree with Greens policies. Even with a majority in Parliament, the Albanese Government hasn’t been able to deliver on its agenda and has caved to Adam Bandt’s “Green Pressure”. A Labor-Greens Government would deliver a supercharged nature positive, economically negative agenda.

At the next election, it will be vital to ensure voters aren’t fooled by Albanese’s hollow promises of no deals with the Greens and that they are informed about the risks the Greens pose to our economy.

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
Susan Nguyen