Dutton’s nuclear plans provide an opportunity for a campaign Labor could win. But it won’t be won without girding for war. The need for some political alliance is greater given that neither Albanese nor his senior ministers, and the party organisation, have shown themselves up to serious political struggle on climate change.

The release of some opposition nuclear policy detail, such as it is, will define the federal election. It represents an opportunity for an unimpressive government to grab the issue, to make it what the election is about, and, having demolished the coalition’s assumptions and mathematics, to win an improbable victory. But if the coalition has its strategy and its tactics right, one can see Labor taking the bait to bore the electorate witless with niggles about detail, gotchas about costings, timetables and unknown future events, including the attitude of potential partners and climate disasters.

I fear the worst. Six weeks of exposure to the relentless – and ever so successful and persuasive – policy logic of Chris Bowen, the Napoleon Pig of Anthony Albanese’s menagerie, and the blather of Ted O’Brien making points proving that perpetual motion technology is around the corner. Peter Dutton and David Littleproud simultaneously speaking of prudence and fiscal rectitude, scorn for the uncertainty of rain, and promising that their established managerial excellence and network of cronies would produce umpteen new power plants on time and on budget, a long time away. Meanwhile old Labor warriors such as Anthony Albanese will speak with passion and horror of the struggles at the 1983 conference of the federal ALP, which irradiated most of the Left of the day.

Some nation-builders will weigh, count, measure and audit every opposition proposition in a very thin program and outline of costing. They will be able to write whole theses on false assumptions, undercounting, overcounting and double counting of inputs, and over, under and double guesstimates about outputs. Each side will produce umpteen consultants, experts, scientific bodies about to prove that black is white, if that is what suits the interests of the group paying the bill. Some will probably be right, and others will appear to be substituting hopes, belief and ideology for scientific information. Labor, in particular, will assume that voters will soon be carefully weighing up the evidence and coming down to formal judgment about the facts. Or the concerns which ought to be associated with the fact that there are atoms in those durned pieces of uranium.

In fact, most voters have already made up their minds and are unlikely to be swayed by facts, new or invented. Or economic arguments, including those made by Treasury or CSIRO, or scientists imbued with the urgent need to do something about global warming. Most particularly taken with a grain of salt will be all mathematics, tables and graphs presented by economists or engineers.

Most of the public knows enough to go straight to the point

This is not to say that the public is ignorant of, or uncaring about, the wider issues or agendas. If the proposition were merely about whether now was the moment for clean safe nuclear energy, a plebiscite might come out in favour. That might not be a judgment about the uncertainties of alternative power (or the need for a range of options given droughts, storms and difficulties on electricity grids). It might also reflect a canny view that the economics of different power fuels (including wind, suns, tides and rain) might change over time, just as they have over the years with coal and gas. It might reflect an opinion that in time, a need for more urgent actions might involve effective taxes, paid by suppliers, on carbon. All of these could be plausible views for wanting nuclear power as a possibility, especially given the ready supply of potential nuclear fuels in Australia.

But most of the population believes in firm action on climate change and see the nuclear debate as fitting in that framework. Repeated polls over the past 15 years have demonstrated that they recognise political equivocation, and prevarication on the subject. They know the broad positions of each of the parties, including of independent groupings such as the Teals and David Pocock, on the subject. Many – the 60 per cent of the electorate who were about in 2007 remember phrases such as Kevin Rudd’s about climate change being one of the great moral issues of our time. Typically, also, they have been through several iterations of Labor’s talking bravely then letting everyone down, so they are mostly not astonished, if disappointed and saddened, by fresh betrayals and cowardice. Even more does the party lose credit and moral authority out in the electorate by its craven surrender to Labor premiers who have become instruments of powerful lobbies.

So, for many voters, the issue is not a theoretical one. Nor is it a judgment, objective or subjective, about the dangers of climate change, or the way the nation’s resources ought to be spent in addressing it. If Labor lets itself get stuck in such debate, it is unlikely to be allowed to emerge to fight a much more important debate about the urgency of practical action. All the more so because Labor, and Albanese, are not well credentialled on the subject. They have made too many compromises with powerful interests to be regarded as noble in purpose, if necessarily required to be pragmatic and to move more slowly than some would like.

They are often, instead, in a duplicitous position, just as they are on banning gambling, on respecting the human rights and dignity of refugees, or in being in thrall to American defence ideology. They must do their best, including by being unsettled by clever coalition wedging and shameful pre-emptive kowtowing to deal with the political pressures upon them. But they cannot feel pure, and they are not regarded as pure. This compromises any attempt to treat nuclear power as a moral issue. Including many people who might have been inclined to follow Labor on the subject, having already shifted their political support to groups such as the Greens and the Teals. Others, including many instinctive Labor supporters, can barely conceal their disgust for the party’s leadership and lack of bottom on the subject.

It is far too late to run an education or advertising campaign seeking to persuade supporters that Labor has correctly weighed the importance and significance of serious action on climate change. If it is to mobilise support on the matter against Dutton it must have a flag under which every opponent of the Dutton plan can unite. That would have to include groups – 30 per cent or more of the electorate who regard Labor policy as weak, pathetic and unprincipled. People who are not impressed by Labor’s low targets, and poor performance, and the excuses it has made for continuing with coal mining. People who wonder why Labor continues to give massive subsidies to the hydrocarbon industries, and the opening of fresh coal fields for export of pollution abroad.

The same voters are well aware of an even more dismal record by the former coalition governments, and the fact that going for nuclear power is all about burning fossil fuels for as long as possible. If anything, Dutton has promoted an approach even more retrograde than that pushed by Scott Morrison.

The public understands that the Coalition’s conversion to the need for nuclear options is a search for more delay and retreat in dealing with hydrocarbon emissions. It has been done at the behest of the hydrocarbon industry, particularly from pressure by the National Party, which generally behaves as a wholly owned subsidiary of big energy, even at a cost to farmers and regional areas.

Most voters, in short, understand well that most of the pretend arguments advanced for nuclear power stations are designed to produce delay. To do less with a pretence of planning to do more, later. The coalition have rehearsed arguments intended to obscure the desired end point, with quibbles about the unreliability of alternative power, the allegedly uncalculated costs of grid extensions to make their own case seem more compelling. But those who get sucked into and distracted by such arguments are missing the real point. Labor has to cut through to the coalition’s real agenda. It has to be frank, in admitting that its own performance has been “less than optimal” so as to invoke some sympathy or support from those ultimately on its side.

Labor needs inspiration and some leadership from its supposedly mortal enemy – the Greens

The centre of those wanting climate action is not in the Labor party, but it is Labor fighting the election. Its own underwhelming record hardly inspires people to join its crusade. Voters will see only minor differences – about the shape of determined minimal action — between Labor and the coalition. They cannot get motivated by the struggle or the fight, especially given the risk they see of Albanese himself losing spirit or commitment and walking away from serious action – as he has done over Indigenous affairs.

The need for some political alliance is greater given that neither Albanese nor his senior ministers, and the party organisation, have shown themselves up to serious political struggle on climate change. They have run away from fights. Ministers, particularly Albanese, have failed to explain to voters what Labor is doing, and why it is responding in a particular way.

It is not, as some think, merely a communications problem. It is their record in government.

Dutton’s nuclear plans provide an opportunity for a campaign Labor could win. But it won’t be won without girding for war. Labor has yet to do this, even if it is secretly trying out a few new promises and programs, as with increased access to pre-school education. Neither the backbench nor the Labor Party at large is poised for battle. They do not even know what they are fighting for. And showing none of the “flexibility” and nimbleness that a campaign already in desperate straits now badly needs. Albanese has so far failed to rev up his party.

The campaign has begun. Labor needs constituents invested in its survival. God help them 

Some circumstances are against them. Dutton’s opening artillery shots, for example, come just as the nation subsides into the Christmas break and January holidays, when most voters are not much focused on politics. That also has risks for Dutton of his attack’s fizzling out.

But Dutton can change tack, or concentrate on his exploitation of events, including events in the Middle East, and the advent of Donald Trump. He also has the electoral appeal of cultivating sentiment against migrants and exploiting national security uncertainties. He has, as Albanese has recently complained, the full support of the Murdoch media operation. (It’s a wonder why Albanese responds by then favouring it for leaks, perhaps in the hope that the tiger will eat him last.)

Albanese faces the risk of Labor’s response to Dutton going largely unheard, or of its losing its emotional pitch and getting bogged down on details. Dutton will jump enthusiastically into such arguments because they do not matter to the outcome. Perhaps Labor has a secret policy that will knock everyone out. There has been little sign it is on the way – even less that it is foolproof. There’s always an element of risk in making the Opposition Leader the issue — as Paul Keating did with John Hewson in 1993 and Morrison did with Bill Shorten in 2019. But it sometimes works, especially when there’s not much of a record to boast about. Nuclear is as good as it gets.

If Albanese cannot invest Labor’s campaign with moral fervour, he will be doing what he has all too often done over the past five years – playing the game on the opponents’ field, by its rules, on its timetable. It’s not the public’s fault that he has so little material to rally or inspire a followership.

https://johnmenadue.com/to-defeat-dutton-labor-needs-inspiration-and-leadership-from-its-mortal-enemy-the-greens/

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