If one of your kids wants to go to the beach for summer holidays and the other wants to go bushwalking would a mountain biking holiday be proof that you got the balance right? Welcome to the topsy-turvy land of Labor logic, where legislation that disappoints everyone must be a step in the right direction.
Like a donut, there is nothing in the centre of Australian politics. The fact that the Greens want to stop native forest logging and the Nationals want to speed up land clearing by farmers is not proof that any legislation Labor drafts must fit in the “sensible centre.”
Back when Tanya Plibersek was an optimistic new Environment Minister in the Albanese Government’s first term she was full of big promises. When she launched her Threatened Species Action Plan she stated:
“The Action Plan has ambitious targets, which include preventing any new extinctions of plants and animals.”
And went on to declare:
“I will not shy away from difficult problems or accept environmental decline and extinction as inevitable.”
But while we will never know for sure if Plibersek was serious at the time, we do know for certain that her Cabinet and her Prime Minister had net-zero interest in putting the protection of endangered species ahead of the profits of polluters.
1 Comment
I reckon you're wrong about there being nothing in the centre of Australian politics. The Greens are smack bang in the centre of politics, with Labor at the right and the Coalition sharing the far right with the other bonkers parties.
What we don't have is a left wing of Australian politics. The socialists (who I vote for) are lucky if they get a few hundred votes in my local federal elections.
I lay the blame firmly with the billionaire controlled mass media and the starved and abused ABC that considers "balance" to be more important than truth. The current government seems to be doing absolutely nothing to improve this diabolical situation. Do they really want Australian politics to devolve into a Trumpian swamp?