The Senate today passed a Greens motion demanding that the Government require Treasury to model the 40% cuts below 1990 levels that we know are necessary.
But, within an hour, Minister Wong had thumbed her nose at the Senate and the planet, telling CE Daily that the Government “had already undertaken the largest economic modelling exercise in Australian history. Given that fact, the Government does not intend to undertake further modelling, and believes it is now time to get on with the huge job of reducing Australia’s emissions.”
What is with this Government’s studied ignorance? Why do they consistently refuse to even model 40% cuts, which the Greens have asked for repeatedly over many months? What are they afraid of?
We can be guaranteed that the Government will not consider moving to 40% cuts if they haven’t modelled the economic impact. So of course they will continue to refuse to do that modelling.
But how can the Government expect the Senate to be willing to pass their deeply flawed CPRS if they thumb their nose at the Senate’s request for this modelling?
2 Comments
There are plenty of issues that come up in politics that can be used ‘tacticly’ by governments and oppositions; i.e using the issue as part of a broader strategy in the great political game.
I wish that on just this one issue, given its enourmous importance (which is true whether or not you ‘belive in the science’) that the worst excesses of politics could be put aside, and something constructive done. To the contrary, both the government and opposition have squeezed the maxium political milleage out of this. It’s a sad state of affairs. Leave the tactics and strategy to utes, emails and alco-pops!
Still, Copehagen is the main game (and probably the Last Chance) and if the planets align and a meaningful deal is made there, surely the politics can be reset somewhat to get something through. The mechanism to reach whatever target that may be set will still need to be debated, but hopefully the path here will be assisted by any global framework that comes out of Copenhagen. I fear that you would have to be pretty optmistic to expect that to occur though.
Our government is no longer a reality based system when it comes to climate change and, for all our sophistication, we are in no better shape that the last of the Easter islanders. Will building big statistical edifices to the GDP save guarantee plenty? We had better hope so, but the historical record is not reassuring.