Labor’s climate promises under scrutiny in second term

Dr Alex Vickery-Howe hopes the 48th Parliament of Australia works hard to address impending environmental collapse and close the wealth gap.

HE WON.

Easily.

We cheered.

And then he approved a gas plant.

Running up to the recent election, I was all in for Prime Minister Anthony Albanese. Well, alright, I voted for the Greens... but Albo got my preferences. I like him very much. There’s just one tiny blot on his record.

Okay, a big blot.

A smudge.

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The environment is still suffering. Has the Albanese Government fulfilled a core election promise from last time and prioritised renewables over fossil fuel lobbyists? Not if their own MPs are to be believed, and not at all judging by the 28 new coal and gas projects approved by Labor since taking office. Did I say 28? Sorry, make that 30. This is the sort of hypocrisy that wears down a voter base.

Australian author Tim Winton recently had this to say:

Having acknowledged our extinction crisis and the climate emergency, Anthony Albanese promised to introduce more effective nature laws. His government hasn’t delivered on that promise. A policy failure this monumental isn’t just politically embarrassing — in the real world of blood and fur and feathers, it’s calamitous. Because without positive action, precious things and places will die. That’s not tragic — it’s shameful.

Winton is the “roll up your sleeves and get back to nature” type and he has directly witnessed the environmental decay evident in Australian waters; I’m the “wear a long coat and brood over coffee” type but I have visited Australia’s Great Barrier Reef and seen the coral-bleaching our government – the Right and the Left – has allowed. It is indeed shameful.

Before we lie to ourselves and suggest the Greens have been effective on this front, let’s remember that it was the Greens who rejected a carbon pricing scheme in 2009 and demonstrated Voltaire’s adage that the perfect is the enemy of the good. Australia would, in fact, have stronger climate policy in 2025 were it not for the leftist idealism of 2009. That irony is not lost on me. It demonstrates the complexity of party politics.

Disappointment won’t stop me from casting a vote for the Greens in the future, especially if the loss of Adam Bandt marks a return to the policies and approach of founding Greens leader and former Senator Bob Brown. I do think they have some internal work to do, though. Branding Albanese a “Nazi” was inexcusable.

If one genuinely cares about our planet’s future, reality dictates introspection. The Teal Independents are now best positioned to progress the climate cause. A cluster of centre-right and “centre-centre” politicians, the Teals are a growing force in Australia. They stood as the most credible bulwark against a possible power grab from ex-cop and arch-conservative former Leader of the Opposition Peter Dutton, a man often compared by his critics and by Australian journalists to Harry Potter’s nemesis and tormentor, Lord Voldemort. Unfairly, I say. Voldemort had charisma.

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A Dutton triumph would have been tough to watch and a reductive swerve for the country. I haven’t lost my mind and I’d sooner grow an extra head myself than vote for any fundamentalist, anti-environment, anti-immigration, pro-MAGA, pro-nuclear, ultra-right Coalition head kicker. What I will do in the aftermath of the Coalition’s crushing – but no doubt temporary – defeat is acknowledge political and ideological complexity.

The idealist in me will keep voting for the Greens; the realist in me will be watching the Teals pull the Death Eaters to the centre.

What about working-class people, the traditional leftist base? Are they happy? No. Not close. The outrageous cost of living in Australia (good luck buying a house if you’re under 60 and not related to King Charles) is one obvious reason for widespread discontent, but I think the rot runs deeper than hip pockets.

Thomas Chatterton Williams, writing for The Atlantic, asked the difficult question that underpins the global swing to the Far-Right:

‘After a decade and a half of progressive dominance over America’s agenda-setting institutions – corporations, universities, media, museums – during which everyone was on the lookout for the scantest evidence of racism, sexism, xenophobia, transphobia, and every other interpersonal and systemic ill, it is not at all frivolous to ask what has been achieved. What, to put it bluntly, was all that cancel culture for?’

It is this question, stark in its stink of failed promise, that has led to a sharp rise in cynicism among many of those in Australia who face tangible economic and social disadvantage, some of whom are excluded from the conversation the Left enjoys with its own, disillusioned with grandstanding, or downright discriminated against. In a rush to prosecute “microaggressions”, we, the Left, have, rather conveniently, forgotten to take an honest look at authentic class dynamics and the cruelty that clings to them. That negligence is on us.

Maybe that’s another blot. Another smudge. We’re still leaving people behind.

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Williams outlines the hope and the promise of ‘a kinder, friendlier, more inclusive and equitable world for all (often paradoxically by means of shaming, coercion, and intimidation)’. I agree that it is precisely this paradox, coupled with an almost medieval thirst for public shame; a failure to incorporate class as a marker of identity and cultural perspective; the pursuit of personal power in the name of “caring”; an insincere approach to “empathy”’ and “openness”; veiled ambition; selective compassion; and lashings of good, old-fashioned snobbery that led to the “anti-woke” backlash in the U.S. and sent a convicted felon all the way back to his newly gilded White House.

I see that same trend reflected in my home country. So, unfortunately, did Peter Dutton.

Comfortable leftists floating in bubbles didn’t stop Dutton’s Coalition from seizing power in Australia. Labor’s win was in the centre, where we have a lot of class mending to do. It is in this way that global events have underpinned the election campaign and the lessons from these events must be adopted by left and centre-left parties. Even as a Greenie, I see that there are resentments still boiling. There will be another Dutton — and the next one may have a personality.

Our Prime Minister – and I’m bloody glad it’s Albo – must acknowledge the widening gap between not only rich and poor, but housed and homeless. They must also acknowledge that the noise of the so-called “culture wars” has become a handy weapon for right-wing orators to wield, while alienating the working class (you know, the base the Left was founded to support). Somehow, the conversation has to return to material disadvantage. People are struggling to pay their bills. People can’t afford to eat.

Do you know why Dutton’s advertisements about the price of everything were so galling for many working-class voters? Because those are the exact ads Labor would’ve run in the ‘80s and ‘90s. Nobody cared that they featured “paid actors” (they’re ads, not documentaries), but they care that someone is talking about the plight of working people. Economic hardship should be at the heart of leftist rhetoric. It’s sad that it no longer is.

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Don’t get me wrong. I don’t want the Coalition back.

A Coalition win is a win for live exports and I don’t want to see another ship full of emaciated sheep sent off to die. A Coalition win is a win for a nuclear power station in Australia and my Japanese friends have plenty to say on that topic.

A Coalition win, more insidiously, is a win for the global spread of the Far-Right that has seen U.S. President Donald Trump disrespect the memory of those who died defending democracy on 6 January, the annexation of Canada somehow evolve from a despot’s fever dream to a serious Republican policy and U.S. Vice-President JD Vance openly support the far-right Alternative for Germany Party – the actual Nazis – without mainstream America condemning him. Not to mention the recent invasion of Los Angeles.

Dutton’s pandering to Trumpism didn’t win through, and now the Centre-Left will get a chance to return to power and prove that it’s a movement that still cares about the environment, housing, families, protecting the Reef and supporting working people. All my fingers and toes are crossed that the political capital won’t be squandered in Australia as it was in the U.S. Many of us thought the Far-Right died the morning President Biden was elected. We were idiots.

I remain a committed leftist and a Greenie, even if I’m aware of my bubble and its limitations. I remain cautiously optimistic that every new parliament is a new opportunity. I welcome Prime Minister Albanese’s return to office.

But I still believe Labor as a party and Australia as a nation can do a hell of a lot better.