tag:theconversation.com,2011:/columns/view-from-the-hill-34View from The Hill – The Conversation2017-10-30T10:52:41Ztag:theconversation.com,2011:article/865592017-10-30T10:52:41Z2017-10-30T10:52:41ZThe Nationals will be battling to protect territory and clout amid Coalition angst<p>A northern New South Wales bookmaker has got it about right on the New England byelection. “Barnaby will be a shorter price than Winx,” he told a National. “And the only one who could beat Barnaby is Winx.”</p>
<p>Not only has Tony Windsor said he won’t contest, but now One Nation – with its focus on the Queensland election – and the Shooters, Fishers and Farmers Party are also no shows.</p>
<p>So, it’s all good for a relatively clear run in the seat for the man the <a href="https://theconversation.com/high-court-knocks-barnaby-joyce-out-in-dual-citizenship-case-as-byelection-looms-in-new-england-86470">High Court ousted</a> from parliament last week. The only problem for the government is that on the way to victory Joyce will be spending more than a month roaming around his electorate in the glare of publicity when – at least at the moment – he is off the reservation, saying whatever comes into his head.</p>
<p>Such as his proposal for an omnibus referendum, which he said could be held with the next election. “You might have four or five things,” he <a href="http://www.theaustralian.com.au/national-affairs/queensland-election/joyce-blasts-liberals-wekept-you-out-of-opposition/news-story/ad947cb572e94d881506bb072ecc07b2">told The Australian</a>. He suggested it could deal with Section 44 of the Constitution, which brought him undone because of his dual citizenship, Indigenous recognition, and even the republic.</p>
<p>This can only be described as hare-brained. The chances of getting a referendum through to make things easier for politicians would be nearly nil. The Indigenous referendum process <a href="https://theconversation.com/turnbull-government-says-no-to-indigenous-voice-to-parliament-86421">has stalled</a>. As for the republic, well, maybe he was joking.</p>
<p>One can only assume the omnibus referendum was a thought-bubble driven by frustration or by liberation from cabinet discipline. Joyce’s colleague Matt Canavan, during his temporary spell on the backbench, also played on the wild side.</p>
<p>Tapping into something more serious is Joyce’s counterpunch against Liberal complaints about the Nationals causing all this trouble with their carelessness over dual citizenship. He pointed out sharply that the government’s survival in 2016 had been due to the Nationals’ good performance in holding seats and even gaining one.</p>
<p>The fallout from Friday’s High Court decision is putting considerable strains on Coalition relations, and that won’t end with the certain byelection win.</p>
<p>Apart from the Liberal blame game, there is angst in the minor Coalition partner about status, upset over losing the seat of senator Fiona Nash, who was also disqualified, and worry as to the consequences for the party’s frontbench representation.</p>
<p>Julie Bishop was appointed to act as prime minister while Malcolm Turnbull attends the Battle of Beersheba commemoration. Nationals muttered about their acting parliamentary leader Nigel Scullion not getting the gig, although in the end they agreed to Bishop – apparently for some (unknown) trade-off.</p>
<p>But what about when Turnbull is travelling in Asia for the November summit season? The Prime Minister’s Office on Monday night confirmed that Bishop will again be in place, “because there is no deputy prime minister” – that role hasn’t been filled in the temporary arrangement.</p>
<p>It will again be publicly embarrassing for the Nationals.</p>
<p>Then there is the shrinking of the Nationals partyroom and its implications. Nash’s Senate seat will go on a recount to the next candidate on the Coalition ticket in NSW: Hollie Hughes, a Liberal.</p>
<p>Earlier there were calls for Turnbull to intervene to persuade Hughes, once she got the seat, to resign so Nash could return. But even if the Liberals were willing to give up their windfall – never likely – such a course would not help Nash. Hughes could only be replaced by a Liberal under the constitutional provision that a casual vacancy is filled by someone from the same party.</p>
<p>Incidentally, <a href="http://www.dailytelegraph.com.au/news/nsw/liberal-in-line-to-replace-fiona-nash-could-be-ineligible/news-story/34e5b2c2eb241fce36c364b0c37d7c58">questions have been raised</a> about Hughes’ eligibility under another part of Section 44; the Liberals are confident she is fine but even if she wasn’t, the spot would go to another Liberal.</p>
<p>A further line of speculation suggested that NSW National senator John Williams might stand aside for Nash – not that that would help the party’s numbers. Williams said no chance. “I’m not leaving until June 30, 2019,” he says. He’s got a debt to pay off on his farm. If he pulled out early “I’d need a job, and if I left parliament for a job I would be leaving with a bad reputation – people would say ‘Wacka is as bad as the rest of them, with his snout in the trough’”.</p>
<p>The loss of a Nationals’ number translates into being one down on the frontbench. The Nationals have played tough in the past on what they are entitled to – now the boot is on the Liberal foot. They will be particularly anxious to try to retain five cabinet spots but it is hard to see how they will be able to justify this on the arithmetic.</p>
<p>The cooler heads in the Nationals are trying to keep the situation calm. They want to guard against the Liberals being able to take advantage of their weakened position, which includes their representation being two down in the cabinet during this limbo period.</p>
<p>With a reshuffle coming up some time after the byelection, the Nationals will be battling to protect territory and clout in the difficult circumstances they have brought on themselves.</p>
<iframe src="https://www.podbean.com/media/player/czuhk-79b16b?from=site&skin=1&share=1&fonts=Helvetica&auto=0&download=0" height="100" width="100%" frameborder="0" scrolling="no" data-name="pb-iframe-player"></iframe><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/86559/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
A northern New South Wales bookmaker has got it about right on the New England byelection. “Barnaby will be a shorter price than Winx,” he told a National. “And the only one who could beat Barnaby is Winx…Michelle Grattan, Professorial Fellow, University of CanberraLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/865232017-10-29T10:09:56Z2017-10-29T10:09:56ZFederal Coalition will be watching the Queensland election anxiously<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/192322/original/file-20171029-13355-18dhrar.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Any appearance in the Queensland campaign by Malcolm Turnbull can be expected to be minimal.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Joel Carrett/AAP</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>People distinguish between levels of government when casting their votes. Nevertheless, a state result can reverberate federally, whether it is sending a protest or for other reasons.</p>
<p>We only have to remember 2015 to understand that the outcome of the November 25 Queensland poll carries implications for the Turnbull government.</p>
<p>Queensland is notable for big swings. In 2015 the shock defeat of Campbell Newman, who had won in a landslide against Labor, delivered an enormous blow to the then prime minister, Tony Abbott, and was a factor in the first (“empty chair”) move against his leadership.</p>
<p>Labor Premier Annastacia Palaszczuk has announced the state election as the Turnbull government is reeling from Friday’s <a href="https://theconversation.com/high-court-knocks-barnaby-joyce-out-in-dual-citizenship-case-as-byelection-looms-in-new-england-86470">High Court judgment</a>, which knocked out of parliament Deputy Prime Minister Barnaby Joyce, now campaigning in a New England byelection, as well as Joyce’s deputy Fiona Nash, who has no immediate way back.</p>
<p>While being careful to sound respectful of the High Court – after earlier (wrongly) anticipating its decision – the Coalition is smarting from a judgment that adhered to <a href="https://theconversation.com/the-high-court-sticks-to-the-letter-of-the-law-on-the-citizenship-seven-85324">black letter law</a> rather than accepting the more creative interpretation of the Constitution’s Section 44 that the government urged.</p>
<p>Attorney-General George Brandis on Sunday described it on Sky as “almost brutal literalism”. Well, it’s the Coalition that has always railed against judicial adventurism.</p>
<p>One question in the judgment’s wake will be whether the ministerial decisions that Joyce and Nash took are challenged. Labor’s Tony Burke suggested <a href="http://www.abc.net.au/insiders/tony-burke-joins-insiders/9097056">on the ABC</a> that “vested interests” could consider contesting, for example, decisions Joyce made in quarantine matters.</p>
<p>Surely the risk would be highest in relation to decisions taken when the pair knew the constitutional ice could break under them. That was always an argument for their standing aside, as Matt Canavan did (in the end he survived and has been restored to the cabinet).</p>
<p>To clean up untidy ends, Turnbull delayed until Sunday night his departure for Israel to attend the commemoration of the 100th anniversary of the Battle of Beersheba.</p>
<p>Deputy Liberal leader Julie Bishop is acting prime minister while he’s away, with Turnbull insisting the acting parliamentary leader of the Nationals, Nigel Scullion, was “absolutely in support of this arrangement”. That assertion followed suggestions of some tetchiness between the parties on the matter.</p>
<p>Just in case Bishop might get any inflated opinion of her situation, Turnbull pointed out that “when I’m overseas, I continue to discharge all of my duties as prime minister. All decisions that are taken by the prime minister are taken by me.</p>
<p>"The acting prime minister is a role that is really designed to cover circumstances where, for example, it was urgent for a document to be signed, with my consent, obviously, but I’m not in the country to sign it. Or, of course, in the event of some disaster occurring while I was travelling.” There will be no deputy prime minister while the New England byelection is on.</p>
<p>Turnbull has a busy schedule of international travel in coming weeks, including APEC and the East Asia summit. Any appearance in the Queensland campaign can be expected to be minimal. As Newman told Sky: “Malcolm Turnbull doesn’t go down well in Queensland”. Newman also noted Joyce would have been good there, but he is tied up south of the border.</p>
<p>No wise person would bet too heavily on the Queensland result. Insiders on both sides of politics are predicting One Nation is likely to hold the balance of power. The parliament has been hung – the ABC’s analyst Antony Green says that given Queensland is moving to fixed terms the ALP will run hard on the importance of avoiding minority government. “Stability is a big issue in Queensland,” Green says.</p>
<p>Queensland is a critical state for the federal Coalition and so for its fortunes at the next election. A serious rebuff to the Liberal National Party there would create deep alarm in the Coalition.</p>
<p>A lot of variables make the state election particularly hard to read. The parliament’s size has been increased and boundaries redrawn. Voting will be a compulsory preferential system rather than the previous optional preferential.</p>
<p>Green says: “Both sides of politics need to increase their vote to win … But both have lost first preferences since One Nation came back on the scene”.</p>
<p>One Nation is a significant player, in terms of both how many seats it could pick up and what will happen with its preferences.</p>
<p>This is Pauline Hanson’s stamping ground – though she got caught out by being overseas when Palaszczuk called the election, despite it having been much flagged beforehand.</p>
<p>Green predicts One Nation could win five or six seats but not the 11 it secured in 1998. “It can win seats off the LNP. It’s tougher for it to win them off Labor.”</p>
<p>Much will depend on what the LNP does with preferences, Green says. The LNP has ruled out any across-the-board preference deal. One Nation has said it will put sitting members last. Labor will preference against One Nation.</p>
<p>While the strength of the One Nation state vote won’t be a accurate guide to the minor party’s influence in Queensland federally, it will be a pointer to how much momentum Hanson has.</p>
<p><em>Postscript</em></p>
<p>Labor has maintained a 54-46% two party lead in the Newspoll in <a href="http://www.theaustralian.com.au/national-affairs/turnbull-sinks-as-week-of-turmoil-takes-its-toll/news-story/ebdca78cce2b18f8a925dd2f2afb7c70">Monday’s Australian</a> – the 22nd consecutive Newspoll in which the Coalition has been behind.</p>
<p>Both leaders lost ground on their net approval, although the Prime Minister took the bigger hit. Malcolm Turnbull has gone from a net satisfaction rating of minus 24 to minus 28, while Bill Shorten’s net rating has deteriorated from minus 22 in the last poll to minus 24.</p>
<p>Turnbull’s lead as better prime minister is unchanged at 41-33%.</p>
<p>The Coalition primary vote has fallen a point to 35%; Labor is steady on 37%. Greens on 10% and One Nation on 9% were unchanged.</p>
<p>The poll of 1623 was taken from Thursday to Sunday, amid controversy around Employment minister Michaelia Cash, as well as Friday’s High Court decision.</p>
<iframe src="https://www.podbean.com/media/player/g8gar-796795?from=site&skin=1&share=1&fonts=Helvetica&auto=0&download=0" height="100" width="100%" frameborder="0" scrolling="no" data-name="pb-iframe-player"></iframe><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/86523/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
People distinguish between levels of government when casting their votes. Nevertheless, a state result can reverberate federally, whether it is sending a protest or for other reasons. We only have to remember…Michelle Grattan, Professorial Fellow, University of CanberraLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/864962017-10-27T10:37:04Z2017-10-27T10:37:04ZJoyce will be safe in New England but the High Court disrupts the government<p>In more than an understatement, Malcolm Turnbull opened his news conference after the High Court’s swingeing blow to the government by saying this was “clearly not the outcome we were hoping for”.</p>
<p>And indeed, not the outcome Turnbull had so unequivocally predicted when, in August, he <a href="https://www.dropbox.com/s/1qnycxm1ga3veih/HIGH%20COURT%20WILL%20SO%20HOLD.mp4?dl=0">told parliament</a> that Deputy Prime Minister Barnaby Joyce “is qualified to sit in the house and the High Court will so hold”.</p>
<p>As the weeks have gone by the government has become less and less confident that the position of Joyce and his deputy, senator Fiona Nash, would be upheld. At the same time, the betting on the survival of the third National, Matt Canavan, firmed, as the complexities of Italian law were examined.</p>
<p>Joyce himself says he wasn’t surprised he was disqualified. “In my gut I thought this is the way it was going to go,” he told reporters on Friday. As things have turned out, Joyce’s gut was a better predictor than Turnbull’s barrister background.</p>
<p>In a not-so-subtle dig, Joyce <a href="http://www.abc.net.au/7.30/barnaby-joyce-on-his-disqualification-from/9094924">told the ABC’s 7.30</a> that tactically, it would have been better to have gone to a byelection immediately when he became aware he was a New Zealand citizen by descent, but he had deferred to the solicitor-general’s advice – which played up the prospect of a court victory.</p>
<p>Of the seven current and ex-MPs before the court in the dual citizenship cases, only Canavan and Nick Xenophon have had their eligibility upheld. Not that Xenophon is staying around in federal politics – he made his farewells on Friday and after clearing some odds and ends he will be off to create a storm in South Australian politics.</p>
<p>As well as kiboshing the two Nationals, the court knocked out One Nation’s Malcolm Roberts, who is now pitching for Queensland politics; it also rejected the eligibility of the two Greens, Larissa Waters and Scott Ludlam, who’d already resigned from the Senate.</p>
<p>The December 2 New England byelection that Joyce will now contest is a huge distraction for the government. As it battles with the states to get its energy policy in place, and deals with other issues in coming weeks, a mini judgement day is the last thing it needs.</p>
<p>The government has moved to get the byelection over as quickly as possible, with <a href="http://www.aec.gov.au/new-england/">writs issued</a> immediately.</p>
<p>In the only good news Joyce received on Friday, Tony Windsor, the one-time independent member for New England, <a href="https://twitter.com/TonyHWindsor/status/923797855097069568">announced he won’t contest</a> the byelection.</p>
<p>Windsor had tormented Joyce by a submission to the High Court arguing against his eligibility, and by keeping open the option of entering the race if there was a vote.</p>
<p>But, apart from any other considerations, he probably judges that his chances of taking the seat would be poor. Even though he is not a candidate, the Nationals expect he will be running interference in the campaign.</p>
<p>It is nearly unthinkable that Joyce won’t win, whomever he now faces. Labor polls poorly in the seat. A protest vote could go to the Shooters, Fishers and Farmers Party, One Nation, and independents. But recent polling, which was done assuming Windsor ran, has shown Joyce in a comfortable position.</p>
<p>The court decision leaves the cabinet something of a mess. A temporary patch-up has had to be done until after the byelection, with Turnbull taking Joyce’s ministerial duties – he was sworn into agriculture and water resources on Friday – and other ministers acting in Nash’s roles. This obviously means there will be some limbo in the affected portfolios.</p>
<p>A permanent reshuffle has to wait. When it comes the Nationals are expected to lose a frontbench position, because in a recount for Nash’s seat a Liberal is set to replace her.</p>
<p>After the dust settles the Nationals will also have to elect a new deputy.</p>
<p>With Joyce and Nash out, the Nationals’ voice will be more muted in cabinet for a time, although at least Canavan is back, returned on Friday to his resources ministry.</p>
<p>The Nationals have been preparing for this court outcome (if only they had been as diligent in checking their MPs’ constitutional eligibility). Joyce has been paying a noticeable amount of attention to his seat in recent weeks. On Friday night the Nationals were setting up their Tamworth campaign office, and people were appearing in Barney Army t-shirts.</p>
<p>Leadership arrangements were also smoothly put in place, by the Nationals’ parliamentary party and the party’s organisation. Joyce is staying overall party leader while the party’s Senate leader, Nigel Scullion, becomes the interim leader of the parliamentary party.</p>
<p>But, in a sign of the immediate disruption the High Court fallout is causing the government, Turnbull has delayed his trip to Israel – he was due to leave Saturday to join the commemoration of the 100-year anniversary of the Battle of Beersheba.</p>
<p>And late Friday, the government couldn’t say who will be acting prime minister when Turnbull undertakes the Israel trip or goes to APEC soon. While Nationals might accept that Julie Bishop would be more obvious than Scullion for that role, they were not pleased to see the Bishop name in the media. They will be wanting Turnbull to observe the niceties of proper consultation.</p>
<p>The opposition will use the coming weeks to cause what mischief it can. Joyce being disqualified means the government has lost its majority on the floor of the house, although Turnbull told the media “we have a majority of members in the House of Representatives, even in the absence of Barnaby Joyce”. This is, if you count in the casting vote of Speaker Tony Smith.</p>
<p>The government has a buffer, thanks to the crossbench and the Speaker, against any no confidence vote. But prepare for coming Labor shenanigans in parliament. It won’t try a no-confidence motion that would look bad and be lost. But it could, for example, join with crossbenchers to push for a motion for a royal commission on banking, and something on penalty rates, trying to lure Queensland National George Christensen across.</p>
<p>Labor is also questioning the ministerial decisions Joyce and Nash made. Labor deputy leader Tanya Plibersek said: “Every decision made by both Barnaby Joyce and Fiona Nash since October last year is under a legal cloud. Labor will now take some time to work carefully through the implications of the [High Court] decision.” </p>
<p>Just to complicate the situation further, there is a general anticipation of an imminent announcement of a Queensland state election, with neither side of politics confident in predicting the likely outcome but both anticipating that One Nation could hold the balance of power.</p>
<p>How the Liberal National Party polls in Queensland will have Canberra fallout, because it will be read as a pointer to the general mood there – and Queensland will be critical to the federal Coalition at the next election.</p>
<p>As for New England, while no-one anticipates Joyce will fail to retain the seat, the sort of result he gets will be important to how the government ends a difficult year.</p>
<iframe src="https://www.podbean.com/media/player/g8gar-796795?from=site&skin=1&share=1&fonts=Helvetica&auto=0&download=0" height="100" width="100%" frameborder="0" scrolling="no" data-name="pb-iframe-player"></iframe><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/86496/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
In more than an understatement, Malcolm Turnbull opened his news conference after the High Court’s swingeing blow to the government by saying this was “clearly not the outcome we were hoping for”. And…Michelle Grattan, Professorial Fellow, University of CanberraLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/862502017-10-24T11:37:36Z2017-10-24T11:37:36ZMorrison finds his productivity report is useful for Labor too<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/191618/original/file-20171024-30605-xcc2x1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Scott Morrison on Tuesday said reform was harder now than in the 1990s.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Lukas Coch/AAP</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>Just as the government hopes it is making progress on the energy conundrum, it finds itself struggling on another front of deep public disgruntlement – the NBN.</p>
<p>The rollout of what’s generally considered a second-rate model is producing a high level of complaints. Monday’s <a href="http://www.abc.net.au/4corners/whats-wrong-with-the-nbn/9077900">ABC Four Corners</a> program showed how customers in Australia are getting an inferior service compared with New Zealanders.</p>
<p>The government predictably is blaming Labor, though much of the trouble stems from scaling back to a cheaper version than the one it inherited. Malcolm Turnbull, who oversaw the NBN as communications minister, argues it’s obvious that as more houses are connected, the number of complaints rises. That logic only goes so far.</p>
<p>Faults with household and business internet services are sensitive consumer issues. The blame game only increases people’s irritation. It’s been the same for months with electricity, as the government lambasted Labor while trying to get together its own <a href="https://theconversation.com/household-savings-figures-in-turnbulls-energy-policy-look-rubbery-85844">energy policy</a>, which it released last week.</p>
<p><a href="http://www.essentialvision.com.au/category/essentialreport">Essential polling</a> released on Tuesday indicates that at this early stage people are not hostile to that policy, but many are confused.</p>
<p>More than one-third (35%) approved the proposed National Energy Guarantee, with only 18% opposed. But the “don’t know” category is 47%.</p>
<p>People divided fairly evenly when asked whether they approve the government’s decision not to include a clean energy target in the new plan – 35% approved, 32% disapproved, and 33% were “don’t knows”.</p>
<p>But many people retain their strong attachment to renewables. Asked whether they approved the government decision to phase out subsidies for these, 41% disapproved, 32% approved.</p>
<p>This result shows that in political terms, it could be sensible for Labor to accept the basic structure of the government’s scheme – and promise to improve on it. At Tuesday’s Coalition partyroom meeting, Turnbull predicted Labor would propose a higher level of renewables within the Coalition’s policy framework.</p>
<p>If so, that would provide a measure of bipartisanship, which would at least encourage investment.</p>
<p>As the government and opposition argue over the claim the new policy could bring down prices by a small amount – a proposition to be tested by the modelling the government commissioned last week – the Essential polling showed the public are healthily sceptical. Only 16% think it will; 31% believe it will increase prices.</p>
<p>The grim reality faced by the government is that it is hard to get any messages through the high level of public distrust, and this is exacerbated when the messages chop and change.</p>
<p>It’s not just in the energy area where this has happened. Since the Coalition won office in 2013 it has had to alter course on many policies and much of its initial ambition.</p>
<p>The early attempts of the Abbott government at swingeing changes quickly collided with the realities of an angry public and a truculent Senate.</p>
<p>Releasing a <a href="https://www.pc.gov.au/inquiries/completed/productivity-review/report">report on Tuesday</a> from the Productivity Commission on Australia’s productivity performance, Treasurer Scott Morrison said reform was harder now than in the 1990s, when there was “a lot of low hanging fruit” and “the burning platform” of recession “focused the debate and compelled greater bipartisanship”.</p>
<p>These days, he said “reform comes more stubbornly and incrementally”.</p>
<p>“We also need to understand that many Australians are now far more sceptical of change. Whenever governments mention the word ‘reform’ or ‘productivity’, they get nervous. They’ve seen this movie before.</p>
<p>"Unlike last time when economic reform was a mystery to most, this time around Australians are more alive to the costs of change as well as the benefits.</p>
<p>"Plus, the economic and political bandwidth available for change is narrower than it once was, made more difficult by the binary way change is viewed and exploited. Who are the winners and who are the losers? Where is the conflict?” Morrison said.</p>
<p>While his argument is right, other factors were also important to achieving reform in the 1980s and early 1990s under the Hawke-Keating government. Some of the change involved trade-offs, under the accord with the trade union movement. And reform was better sold by the political leadership than today.</p>
<p>The Productivity Commission report promotes a reform agenda focused on individuals, “involving the non-market economy (mainly education and healthcare), the innovation system, using data, creating well-functioning cities, and re-building confidence in institutions”.</p>
<p>The recommendations are a mixed bag of old and new, the sensible and – as happens with the commission – the near-impossible, either politically or practically (such as automatic dispensing of medicines).</p>
<p>The report’s language is redolent of that used by Labor, notably when it says that “a key issue will be to ensure that future economic, social and environmental policies sustain inclusive growth – by no means guaranteed given current policy settings, and prospective technological and labour market pressures.</p>
<p>"Productivity growth provides a capacity for higher incomes and poverty alleviation – either directly through higher wages or indirectly by increasing the capacity for funding transfers to lower-income households.</p>
<p>"The motivation for limiting inequality extends beyond its intrinsic value to the desirability of avoiding too great a dispersion in incomes, given evidence that this can, in its own right, adversely affect productivity growth. Public support is also more likely for reforms that offer benefits to the bulk of people.”</p>
<p>Shadow Treasurer Chris Bowen said: “The Productivity Commission has pointed out that investment in our human capital is the key to economic growth. Well we agree, we agree strongly.”</p>
<p>Morrison is alert to this possible political crossover.</p>
<p>“I haven’t got up here today to talk about a new inclusion agenda”, he told a CEDA function. “I’m talking about a productivity agenda.”</p>
<p>“From a Liberal-National perspective, we’re coming at this quite differently from our political opponents. This isn’t about social justice. This is about more and better-paid jobs, because I think that’s the best justice for anyone. … This is about lifting living standards.</p>
<p>"I’m not trying to settle scores in health and education as some sort of social justice wars. I’m just trying to lift people’s wages.</p>
<p>"This is not the product of ideology, it’s the product of economics and the economics say pretty clearly that people [who] are healthier and better equipped through the education system are going to do better.”</p>
<p>Sharing ground with Labor can be uncomfortable.</p>
<iframe src="https://www.podbean.com/media/player/k27zv-7889f2?from=site&skin=1&share=1&fonts=Helvetica&auto=0&download=0" height="100" width="100%" frameborder="0" scrolling="no" data-name="pb-iframe-player"></iframe><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/86250/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
Just as the government hopes it is making progress on the energy conundrum, it finds itself struggling on another front of deep public disgruntlement – the NBN. The rollout of what’s generally considered…Michelle Grattan, Professorial Fellow, University of CanberraLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/858442017-10-17T08:50:47Z2017-10-17T08:50:47ZHousehold savings figures in Turnbull’s energy policy look rubbery<p>The big questions about Malcolm Turnbull’s energy policy will be, for consumers, what it would mean for their bills and, for business, how confident it can be that the approach would hold if Bill Shorten were elected.</p>
<p>The government needs to convince people they’ll get some price relief, but even as the Prime Minister unveiled the policy the rubbery nature of the household savings became apparent.</p>
<p>Crucially, the policy aims to give investors the certainty they have demanded, but the risk is this could be undermined if Labor, which is well ahead in the polls, indicated an ALP government would go off in yet another direction.</p>
<p>And most immediately, there is also the issue of states’ attitudes, because their co-operation is needed for the policy’s implementation. Turnbull talked to premiers after the announcement, and the plan goes to the Council of Australian Governments next month.</p>
<p>Turnbull describes the policy as “a game changer” that would deliver “affordability, reliability and responsibility [on emissions reduction]”.</p>
<p>Unsurprisingly – given it would end the subsidy for renewables, rejecting Chief Scientist Alan Finkel’s recommendation for a Clean Energy Target – the policy sailed through the Coalition party room with overwhelming support.</p>
<p>Finkel later chose to go along with it rather than be offended by the discarding of his proposal. The important thing, he said, was that “they’re effectively adopting an orderly transition” for the energy sector, which was what he had urged.</p>
<p>In the party room Tony Abbott was very much a minority voice when he criticised the plan; his desire for a discussion of the politics was effectively put down by a prime minister who had his predecessor’s measure on the day.</p>
<p>The policy - recommended by the Energy Security Board, which includes representatives of the bodies operating and regulating the national energy market - is based on a new “national energy guarantee”, with two components.</p>
<p>Energy retailers across the National Electricity Market, which covers the eastern states, would have to “deliver reliable and lower emissions generation each year”.</p>
<p>A “reliability guarantee” would be set to deliver the level of dispatchable energy - from coal, gas, pumped hydro, batteries – needed in each state. An “emissions guarantee” would also be set, to contribute to Australia’s Paris commitments.</p>
<p>According to the Energy Security Board’s analysis, “it is expected that following the guarantee could lead to a reduction in residential bills in the order of $100-115 per annum over the 2020-2030 period”. The savings would phase up during the period.</p>
<p>When probed, that estimate came to look pretty rough and ready. More modelling has to be done. In question time, Turnbull could give no additional information about the numbers, saying he only had what was in the board’s letter to the government.</p>
<p>So people shouldn’t be hanging out for the financial relief this policy would bring, although to be fair, Turnbull points to the fact it is part of a suite of measures the government is undertaking.</p>
<p>Business welcomed the policy, but made it clear it wanted more detail and – crucially – that it is looking for bipartisanship.</p>
<p>The Australian Chamber of Commerce and Industry said the policy’s detail “and its ability to win bipartisan and COAG support will be critical”. Andy Vesey, chief of AGL, tweeted that “with bipartisan support” the policy would provide investment certainty.</p>
<p>The Australian Industry Group said it was “a plausible new direction for energy policy” but “only bipartisanship on energy policy will create the conditions for long-term investment in energy generation and by big energy users.”</p>
<p>It’s not entirely clear whether the government would prefer a settlement or a stoush with the opposition on energy.</p>
<p>Turnbull told parliament it had arranged for the opposition to have a briefing from the board, and urged it to “get on board” with the policy.</p>
<p>But Labor homed in on his not giving a “guarantee” on price, as well as the smallness of the projected savings.</p>
<p>Climate spokesman Mark Butler said it appeared it would be “just a 50 cent [a week] saving for households in three years’ time, perhaps rising to as much as $2.00 per week in a decade.”</p>
<p>But while the opposition has gone on the attack, it is also hedging its bets, playing for time.</p>
<p>“We’ve got to have … some meat on the bones”, Butler said, “because all the Prime Minister really announced today was a bunch of bones”.</p>
<p>“We need detail to be able to sit down with stakeholders, with the energy industry, with big businesses that use lots of energy, with stakeholder groups that represent households, and obviously state and territory governments as well, and start to talk to them about the way forward in light of the announcement the government made today,” he said.</p>
<p>The initial reaction from state Labor is narky. Victorian premier Daniel Andrews said it seemed Finkel had been replaced by “professor Tony Abbott as the chief scientist”, while South Australia’s Jay Weatherill claimed Turnbull “has now delivered a coal energy target.”</p>
<p>These are early days in this argument. Federal Labor will have to decide how big an issue it wants to make energy and climate at the election. Apart from talking to stakeholders and waiting for more detail, it wants to see whether the plan flies at COAG.</p>
<p>If it does, the federal opposition could say that rather than tear up the scheme in government, it would tweak it and build on it. That way, Labor would avoid criticism it was undermining investment confidence. But if there is an impasse with the states and the plan is poorly received by the public, the “climate wars” could become hotter.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/85844/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
The big questions about Malcolm Turnbull’s energy policy will be, for consumers, what it would mean for their bills and, for business, how confident it can be that the approach would hold if Bill Shorten…Michelle Grattan, Professorial Fellow, University of CanberraLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/854962017-10-10T12:54:55Z2017-10-10T12:54:55ZGovernment’s energy plan still under wraps while Abbott shouts his from afar<p>Speaking in a light and bright <a href="https://www.nova969.com.au/kate-tim-marty/prime-minister-malcolm-turnbull-takes-kate-ritchie-quick-draw">FM radio interview</a> on Tuesday, Malcolm Turnbull said that in politics “just being chilled, calm is very important. A little bit of zen goes a long way.”</p>
<p>He was answering a question about himself. But those with a stake in energy policy might be feeling a rather desperate need to dip into their zen reserves.</p>
<p>The government hates the suggestion its policy process looks chaotic, and insists there is “a plan”.</p>
<p>“The good news is we have learned the lessons from the past, we know where we are going and we have a comprehensive plan to get there,” Energy Minister Josh Frydenberg <a href="http://www.joshfrydenberg.com.au/guest/opinionDetails.aspx?id=252">told</a> the Australian Financial Review’s energy summit.</p>
<p>But what the core feature of the plan is has yet to be revealed, and this week has added to the public confusion.</p>
<p>The AFR’s two-day forum, which seemed to have everyone who is anyone in the field, provided a stage for the latest episode in the policy saga.</p>
<p>Frydenberg’s Monday speech was widely seen as the government walking away from the clean energy target (CET) proposed by Chief Scientist Alan Finkel. The justification was the falling price of renewables, obviating the need for future subsidies.</p>
<p>No surprise perhaps, because despite some initial enthusiasm from Turnbull and Frydenberg, the crab-walk back, under the pressure of the naysayers in Coalition ranks, had been apparent for some time.</p>
<p>But here it was happening with Finkel himself in the room, as one of the conference speakers.</p>
<p>So Finkel was able to have his say immediately. He countered that the CET would still be “a useful tool” for managing the transition to reliable low-emissions energy, “even if there was an extreme rate of reduction of the price”.</p>
<p>Tony Wood, of the Grattan Institute, also a conference participant, <a href="https://theconversation.com/despite-the-charged-atmosphere-frydenberg-and-finkel-have-the-same-goal-for-electricity-85454">has argued</a> that the positions of the minister and Finkel are not as far apart as they appear.</p>
<p>But to many in the energy sector and business more widely the message was that the government had just piled on more uncertainty.</p>
<p>The Business Council of Australia pointed out that it had backed Finkel’s CET as a way to get a long term signal for investment - if the government didn’t want to embrace Finkel, what did it propose?</p>
<p>The answer to that is, one might say, still blowing in the wind.</p>
<p>Meanwhile half a world away, literally, Tony Abbott was being his old pre-prime ministerial self, with a full-on <a href="https://www.thegwpf.org/tony-abbott-daring-to-doubt/">speech to a climate sceptics group</a>.</p>
<p>No longer inhibited by the trammels of power, but also deeply motivated by having been stripped of that power, Abbott was attention-seeking, polemical - and sharply policy-focused.</p>
<p>He told his sympathetic audience: “There’s a veneer of rational calculation to emissions reduction but underneath it’s about ‘doing the right thing’.</p>
<p>"Environmentalism has managed to combine a post-socialist instinct for big government with a post-Christian nostalgia for making sacrifices in a good cause.</p>
<p>"Primitive people once killed goats to appease the volcano gods. We’re more sophisticated now but are still sacrificing our industries and our living standards to the climate gods to little more effect”.</p>
<p>He provocatively claimed: “At least so far, it’s climate change policy that’s doing harm; climate change itself is probably doing good; or at least, more good than harm”.</p>
<p>He pointed to higher concentrations of carbon dioxide “greening the planet” and helping lift agricultural yields. In most countries “far more people die in cold snaps than in heat waves, so a gradual lift in global temperatures, especially if it’s accompanied by more prosperity and more capacity to adapt to change, might even be beneficial”.</p>
<p>For Australia “the only rational choice is to put Australian jobs and Australia’s standard of living first, to get emissions down but only as far as we can without putting prices up”.</p>
<p>Just as Turnbull talks of the short, medium and long term in energy policy, so does Abbott.</p>
<p>In the short term, “we have to get mothballed or under-utilised gas back into the system”.</p>
<p>In the medium term, there must be no subsidies for renewables, and a freeze on the present RET; the government must build a coal-fired power station; the gas bans must go. Also “the ban on nuclear power must go too”.</p>
<p>In the longer term, “we need less theology and more common sense about emissions reduction. It matters but not more than everything else”.</p>
<p>Abbott gestured to what seems to be happening in government policy – but then set the bar higher.</p>
<p>“The government is now suggesting that there might not be a new clean energy target after all. There must not be – and we still need to deal with what’s yet to come under the existing target”.</p>
<p>Abbott’s harangue might be, as those in the government are putting it, “off the reservation”.</p>
<p>But it also highlighted how the Coalition hardliners, who extend in number well beyond the tiny Abbott clique, have constrained Turnbull in this fraught policy area.</p>
<p>As they chafe at the march of renewables, the hardliners are also determined to maximise the gulf between government and Labor on energy policy.</p>
<p>But business, with a longer perspective, is desperate for a position that minimises partisanship.</p>
<p>Turnbull knows that in policy terms, the latter is the superior way to go. But he is being driven towards the former by his troops and by the need for a battle ground on which to fight Labor.</p>
<p>But the thought that this could be superior territory for the Coalition could be deeply flawed.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/85496/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
Speaking in a light and bright FM radio interview on Tuesday, Malcolm Turnbull said that in politics “just being chilled, calm is very important. A little bit of zen goes a long way.” He was answering…Michelle Grattan, Professorial Fellow, University of CanberraLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/853382017-10-06T08:28:27Z2017-10-06T08:28:27ZNick Xenophon set to go back to where he came from<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/189142/original/file-20171006-25745-or4t25.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Nick Xenophon is a tough dealmaker who demands concessions in return for his crucial numbers.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">AAP/David Mariuz</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>Nick Xenophon, the master of the stunt, is about to indulge in one more before he leaves the Senate for a run at ruling the South Australian roost from its crossbench.</p>
<p>After his shock announcement that he’s about to quit federal parliament, Xenophon is off to the US where, early on Monday morning Australian time, he’ll appear with Australian Ugg boot manufacturer Eddie Oygur to protest outside Deckers Outdoor Corporation headquarters in Santa Barbara.</p>
<p>The small business of “Aussie battler” Oygur is being sued for an alleged breach of trademark of the word “Ugg” and the boot’s patent design.</p>
<p>They’ll have with them, according to the pre-publicity screed from Xenophon’s office, “a flock of sheep”. It’s all about pulling wool over consumers’ eyes and fleecing Eddie, you see.</p>
<p>It’s typical Xenophon, an extraordinarily popular and populist politician who specialises in the corny as well as the canny.</p>
<p>Xenophon insists his resignation is not influenced by the cloud over his parliamentary eligibility – the High Court next week considers his, and other MPs’, dual citizenship. If that went badly for him, he’d be out of the Senate anyway.</p>
<p>We can accept his word. Not only do colleagues say he’s been chewing over the possible change for months – although the actual decision is recent – but a source within the government ruefully admits there were hints that weren’t picked up at the time.</p>
<p>Regardless of the court outcome, the Nick Xenophon Team (NXT) numbers are safe. If he loses the case, Xenophon’s Senate spot would be filled by the next person on the 2016 election ticket – Tim Storer, who runs a trade consultancy. If his position is upheld his party will choose his replacement.</p>
<p>At last year’s election Xenophon went from a one-man band to having a team of three senators and one lower house member. NXT Senate support is needed to pass government legislation that is opposed by Labor and the Greens.</p>
<p>With a government that wants to get measures through, the NXT – like Pauline Hanson’s One Nation, with four Senate votes – is in an enormously powerful position. The difference between Xenophon and Hanson is that he usually extracts a price.</p>
<p>He’s a tough dealmaker, who demands concessions in return for his crucial numbers.</p>
<p>Government negotiators sometimes can’t quite believe what they are having to give him. Most recently he received a package worth more than A$60 million for backing the media reform bill. </p>
<p>Earlier, as part of a deal to pass company tax cuts, he secured a one-off payment to help with high power prices for people on aged and disability pensions or the parenting payment, costing the budget some $260 million.</p>
<p>Leading his SA-BEST party for the March election, Xenophon wants to extend that power to state politics – where he started, elected in 1997 on an anti-pokies crusade.</p>
<p>“With SA-BEST and NXT holding the balance of power in both the state parliament and the federal Senate, we will work together as a united team under my leadership to drive real change to improve the lives of all South Australians,” he said in his statement announcing his resignation, which will wait until after the High Court decision.</p>
<p>All the signs are SA-BEST will do well, harvesting people’s discontent with the major parties. Xenophon himself will contest the marginal Liberal seat of Hartley, where he lives.</p>
<p>His personal entry into the SA contest will give much more heft to SA-BEST – already with a strong vote in private polls – and strike more alarm into both Liberals and Labor. He is keeping his counsel on which side he would support in a hung parliament, so maximising uncertainty. The party will not issue preferences.</p>
<p>ABC analyst Antony Green predicts Xenophon’s party “will poll well enough to finish first or second in enough seats to make it very unlikely either side can win a majority in its own right”.</p>
<p>There will be a dozen electorates in which SA-BEST will be very competitive, according to Green. He says Xenophon’s entry will be better for the Labor Party than the Liberal Party, because “he’ll be more of a challenge in Liberal seats”.</p>
<p>Xenophon’s departure leaves his Canberra team with considerable uncertainty. While its numbers are preserved, it has no experienced person to step into Xenophon’s shoes.</p>
<p>And from what Xenophon said on Friday, he wants to keep his own feet in those shoes a good deal. “I will still be heavily involved in federal decisions,” he said. “I won’t be micromanaging but I will have a good idea of what is going on and I will be part of key decisions, particularly insofar as they affect South Australia.”</p>
<p>That might sound all right in theory. In practice it would be complicated, especially when there is complex legislation and difficult negotiations.</p>
<p>Even over the last year, there have been a few suggestions of differences between Xenophon and members of his team. The more time passes, the greater the chance of Xenophon losing touch with the federal nitty-gritty and the federal team resenting input from afar.</p>
<p>The leadership within parliament would have to go to one of the two other current senators: Stirling Griff (most likely) or Skye Kakoschke-Moore.</p>
<p>There is some uncertainty about whether Xenophon would remain overall leader of the party, as well as the state leader. His comment, quoted above, referring to “under my leadership”, suggests he would. And Griff says “we still consider him the leader of the federal party” as well as of the state party.</p>
<p>Immediate future arrangements will be discussed when the NXT meets on parliament’s resumption the week after next.</p>
<p>The longer-term questions will remain. Among them will be the name of the party for the next federal election, and whether Xenophon – even if he stays overlord of the federal party – can retain as much of a national profile when his focus becomes South Australian politics.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/85338/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
Nick Xenophon, the master of the stunt, is about to indulge in one more before he leaves the Senate for a run at ruling the South Australian roost from its crossbench. After his shock announcement that…Michelle Grattan, Professorial Fellow, University of CanberraLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/847192017-09-26T11:46:32Z2017-09-26T11:46:32ZYes case’s SMS campaign was not invasive<p>Like millions of others, I received an SMS at the weekend from the “Yes” campaign for the marriage ballot. It said:</p>
<p>The Marriage Equality Survey forms have arrived! Help make history and vote YES for a fairer Australia.</p>
<p>These SMSs, which were properly authorised <a href="http://www.yes.org.au/">on a site</a> to which the message was linked, have become an issue in themselves, but the outrage that’s been generated is surely faux.</p>
<p>Acting Special Minister of State Mathias Cormann on Tuesday said his advice from the electoral commissioner was that text messages circulated so far had been consistent with the electoral requirements.</p>
<p>The Yes message itself could hardly have been more inoffensive. But critics say it’s unacceptable that it came on one’s mobile. </p>
<p>Well, mobile phones are not rare and special these days. And is it different from receiving a call to one’s landline?</p>
<p>In fact an SMS is less intrusive than a robocall or a call from a canvasser, which one has to answer. Let alone someone arriving at the door to campaign on this or any other issue.</p>
<p>Indeed I’m rather glad I got the SMS rather than mine being among the more than 100,000 doors that Yes campaigners knocked on last weekend. I don’t dispute anybody’s right to come on a mission of persuasion, but such visitors can be a pain on a Sunday morning.</p>
<p>The weekend Yes canvassers, incidentally, reported that most people said they’d already voted.</p>
<p>The claim that the SMS messages were an invasion of privacy is a huge and unwarranted stretch. The mobile numbers were generated through some random system, not obtained from a data base. If a few highly confidential numbers were by chance reached, it’s hard to see what harm was done.</p>
<p>Critics claim to worry about under-age people getting messages. The father of a 16-year-old was quoted as objecting. “My concern is he was only 16,” the man was <a href="http://www.theaustralian.com.au/news/privacy-concerns-over-yes-votes-bulk-sms/news-story/3747b7e7d88724136f64f594c4f65ce1">reported as saying</a>. Really? It was only the other week that some 16-year-olds were clamouring for the right to vote in the ballot. </p>
<p>As for young children: it was a pretty harmless text – kids are seeing and hearing a lot worse on many issues.</p>
<p>So let’s call the complaints for what they often were – a bit of exaggerated hyperbole, pushed to generate publicity. In a campaign that is seeing some shocker claims and incidents on both sides, the SMS message blitz was certainly not one among them.</p>
<p>Anyway the Yes side is unlikely to be too concerned. Campaign director of the The Equality Campaign, Tim Gartrell – one-time ALP national secretary – says 20,000 people signed up to volunteer as a result of the SMS effort.</p>
<p>All due caution has to be applied in speculating on how this ballot is going, given its voluntary nature. But the Yes side would have to be encouraged by Tuesday’s <a href="http://www.essentialvision.com.au/category/essentialreport">Essential poll</a>.</p>
<p>After a dip last week, to 55%, in the support for a change in the law – and a fall in this week’s <a href="http://www.theaustralian.com.au/national-affairs/samesex-yes-vote-losing-ground-in-newspoll/news-story/1d21b1dbe415c8a678f39a311f9d6d9c">Newspoll</a> – Essential’s figure is now on 58%, with 33% (down one point) opposed.</p>
<p>More than one-third (36%) had already voted when the poll was taken in the second half of last week; 72% of those support same-sex marriage while 28% oppose.</p>
<p>The No case is making much of the dangers to religious freedom if the law changes. Asked “how concerned are you that allowing same-sex marriage may impact on religious freedoms?” Essential found 20% were “very concerned” and 15% “concerned”; 16% were “not very concerned”, while 42% were “not at all concerned”.</p>
<p>People were also asked whether over the last couple of weeks their concerns about the impact on religious freedoms had increased or decreased or stayed about the same. More than six in ten (61%) said their concerns had stayed the same; 24% said they had increased.</p>
<p>When we look back on this rather extraordinary campaign, it will be remembered in part for its ongoing episodes of The Abbott Family.</p>
<p>Tony Abbott and sister Christine are megastars for the No and Yes sides respectively. Abbott is constantly in the news. There was <a href="http://www.smh.com.au/federal-politics/political-news/man-charged-over-tony-abbott-headbutt-20170922-gymv7l.html">blanket coverage</a> after he was headbutted last Thursday by a man with a “Yes” badge, who later said the marriage issue did not figure in his motives.</p>
<p>Christine lets her brother get away with nothing; she is quick out of the blocks with tweets to respond to his various comments.</p>
<p>Now another Abbott is on the stage. A <a href="https://twitter.com/AMEquality/status/912527205443411968">powerful video</a> has been released with Abbott’s daughter Frances promoting the Yes case.</p>
<p>After Frances posted a <a href="https://www.instagram.com/p/BZCUYAsFmz6/?hl=en&taken-by=notanotherfitnessblogger">picture of herself</a> in a “vote yes” T-shirt, the Yes campaign, which is specialising in “human stories” and closely monitors social media for leads, reached out to her to become more involved.</p>
<p>She was keen to do the video, in which she says she wants to see “Aunty Chris” able to get married. Frances’ story was soon running on <a href="http://www.bbc.com/news/world-australia-41382612">BBC News</a>.</p>
<iframe src="https://www.podbean.com/media/player/4vmna-742f96?from=site&skin=1&share=1&fonts=Helvetica&auto=0&download=0" height="100" width="100%" frameborder="0" scrolling="no" data-name="pb-iframe-player"></iframe><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/84719/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
Like millions of others, I received an SMS at the weekend from the “Yes” campaign for the marriage ballot. It said: The Marriage Equality Survey forms have arrived! Help make history and vote YES for a…Michelle Grattan, Professorial Fellow, University of CanberraLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/843962017-09-20T12:27:12Z2017-09-20T12:27:12ZAbbott seeks to own Coalition energy policy, both past and future<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/186818/original/file-20170920-16403-1lwa2gd.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Tony Abbott has reportedly threatened to cross the floor if there is any attempt to legislate a clean energy target.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Mick Tsikas/AAP</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>Even in today’s often bizarre political environment, Tuesday night’s encounter between Tony Abbott, Peter Credlin and Alan Jones on Sky News was surreal.</p>
<p>Credlin, Abbott’s former chief of staff, now works for Sky, where she more often than not is a sharp critic of the Turnbull government. Jones, a highly opinionated voice on 2GB who has a weekly Sky program, spruiks for the former prime minister’s return to the leadership. Abbott is running a jihad against renewables, increasing the pressure on Malcolm Turnbull as the government struggles to bring together an energy policy.</p>
<p>It was a cosy threesome, and the off-air chit chat would have been gold.</p>
<p>Among the on-air gems was Credlin asking Abbott whether he trusted Turnbull, because “you know and I know what happened in 2009.” What they both knew, according to Credlin, was that Turnbull ordered one line to be taken in negotiations over an emissions trading scheme while “telling the party room something completely different”.</p>
<p>Credlin wondered: “Do you trust the Prime Minister is going to do the right thing or is he going to sign you up to a Clean Energy Target without proper debate?”</p>
<p>Abbott said the important thing was that the decision would have to go through the party room where there are “extremely serious reservations about this Clean Energy Target”.</p>
<p>Abbott has poked and prodded at Turnbull on a range of fronts for two years, steadily raising the heat in recent months.</p>
<p>Now his disruption has reached a new level – so much so that one wonders how it can go on without coming to a blow up.</p>
<p>Constantly out in the public arena, Abbott currently is upping the ante over energy policy, and campaigning hard for a “No” vote in the same-sex marriage postal ballot.</p>
<p>On the latter Turnbull, a strong “Yes” advocate but leading a government split on the question, is in the hands of those who chose to vote in the voluntary “survey”. On the former, he’s ultimately in the party room’s hands. On both issues, these are uncomfortable and risky places to be.</p>
<p>Abbott’s onslaught against renewables is more than just disgruntlement from a man deposed. It’s a well-honed attack. Just like the one he and others mounted against Turnbull in 2009 over carbon pricing, which triggered Turnbull’s fall as leader and Abbott’s (unexpected) ascension.</p>
<p>Liberals still don’t think Abbott could recapture the prime ministership. But his power to harm an embattled Turnbull is enormous.</p>
<p>He is working on fertile ground in the energy area. A sizeable section of the Coalition is deeply antipathetic to renewables.</p>
<p>The Nationals’ federal conference <a href="https://theconversation.com/government-leans-on-agl-over-liddell-ahead-of-meeting-83778">recently called</a> for the renewables’ subsidies to be phased out.</p>
<p>Turnbull initially seemed enthusiastic about Chief Scientist Alan Finkel’s Clean Energy Target although he always made it clear a policy based on it must include clean coal.</p>
<p>But he has stepped further and further towards playing up the role of coal, to the point of his face-off with AGL over its determination to close its Liddell power station.</p>
<p>In his comments, Abbott notes the Prime Minister’s greater emphasis on coal, saying – with a tough of condescension - that he thinks Turnbull has “got the message” which is to his “credit”.</p>
<p>But Abbott has put the bar as high as possible. It’s not just a matter of allowing coal into the Clean Energy Target - a CET mustn’t be countenanced. “It would be unconscionable – I underline that word - unconscionable for a government that was originally elected promising to abolish the carbon tax and to end Labor’s climate obsessions to go further down this renewable path”.</p>
<p>In that one sentence Abbott seeks to own energy policy, both past and future.</p>
<p>The Australian <a href="http://www.theaustralian.com.au/national-affairs/tony-abbott-to-cross-floor-on-energy/news-story/2ec69bd45d1b4324bed3e700796dcbb5">on Wednesday reported</a> that Abbott has threatened to cross the floor if there is any attempt to legislate a CET, and would likely be followed by others. He says that “the Liberal and National backbench might need to save the government from itself”.</p>
<p>He is inciting the followers to constrain their leader before or, at the extreme, after the decisions on energy policy are made. Usually, the decision-making flows downward, from the Prime Minister and the cabinet to a backbench that is consulted but basically told what will be done.</p>
<p>It’s nearly impossible for Turnbull and ministers to handle the rampaging backbencher. They try to dodge and weave. “I don’t think a former prime minister is going to move to put a Labor government into power”, Deputy Prime Minister Barnaby Joyce said on Wednesday.</p>
<p>It’s counterproductive for them to get into a slanging match with Abbott, not least because the policy formulation still seems to be in shifting sands and also because they don’t want to agitate an already touchy backbench.</p>
<p>If Turnbull and the government embrace a CET the danger is that Abbott might indeed be able to foment a revolt which, depending on the outcome, could be humiliating, or a lot worse, for the Prime Minister.</p>
<p>To the extent that Turnbull is forced to gesture to the Abbott line in the decisions made, Abbott will claim the credit.</p>
<p>But the more Abbott’s anti-renewables position can get traction, the worse the policy problem for the government. Turnbull may ensure coal has some prominence in the long-term policy mix but if the government were perceived to be turning against renewables, a growing industry would be set back, causing further investment chaos.</p>
<iframe src="https://www.podbean.com/media/player/gfk6g-73d100?from=site&skin=1&share=1&fonts=Helvetica&auto=0&download=0" height="100" width="100%" frameborder="0" scrolling="no" data-name="pb-iframe-player"></iframe><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/84396/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
Liberals still don’t think Abbott could recapture the prime ministership. But his power to harm an embattled Turnbull is enormous.Michelle Grattan, Professorial Fellow, University of CanberraLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/841302017-09-15T06:44:59Z2017-09-15T06:44:59ZTurnbull would need to prevent ‘protections’ fight delaying legislation after a Yes vote<p>In the same-sex marriage battle, Malcolm Turnbull finds himself fighting two former Liberal prime ministers, while somewhat uncomfortably aligned with an aspiring Labor one.</p>
<p>Just as in the republic referendum, it is John Howard and Tony Abbott urging a No vote, with Turnbull on the progressive side.</p>
<p>If the polls are a guide this time the result should be a happier one for Turnbull, but given the nature of this voluntary postal ballot chickens aren’t being counted.</p>
<p>Meanwhile Howard, a canny campaigner, struck out this week, with a statement going to what is perhaps the most vulnerable point for the Yes campaigners – that they haven’t spelled out just how the legislation would be cast in terms of protecting religious freedoms and rights.</p>
<p>While there were arguments for keeping the issue as simple as possible and leaving the detail for later, this certainly has given the No side more room to raise doubts and scares.</p>
<p>Howard called for the government to lay out the safeguards “in advance of the vote”.</p>
<p>It should say “what steps it will take to protect parental rights, freedom of speech, and religious freedom” if same sex-marriage is legalised.</p>
<p>He raised the spectre of bad consequences if it did not. “The case for these protections is compelling, given the experience of other countries, such as the UK, US and Canada, in the wake of those countries changing their marriage laws.”</p>
<p>Arguing the issue must be addressed before the ballot was completed, Howard claimed that “leaving it as something to be taken up only in the event of a Yes vote prevailing is the equivalent of saying that it does not matter”.</p>
<p>He said that so far the government had washed its hands of responsibility “merely stating that it will facilitate a private member’s bill”.</p>
<p>While Howard has hit a weak spot he also must know it is one the government could not deal with at this point, even if it had a change of heart.</p>
<p>For one thing, the voting is now underway. It would be an odd time to produce such detail. More importantly, members of the government are divided on the question being put to the people. They would hardly be in a position to agree – with the campaign running – on the protections.</p>
<p>Turnbull has replied to Howard’s call with some canniness of his own.</p>
<p>Noting that earlier in the process there had been an exposure draft bill, considered by a Senate inquiry, he said: “We will welcome John Howard’s contribution to the fine-tuning of that exposure draft bill, and its improvement [after a Yes result].</p>
<p>"I’m sure John can make an enormous contribution. He didn’t make a submission to the Senate committee but with his experience and expertise I look forward to him doing that.”</p>
<p>The comment was double-edged – appearing to be open to Howard’s later input, while noting a previous opportunity for him to make a contribution had not been taken.</p>
<p>Turnbull pointed out that when the private member’s bill to implement a Yes result came forward in parliament, there would be a free vote.</p>
<p>“It’ll have to go through the Senate so there will be the opportunity for every member of parliament to make a contribution and for Australians like John Howard with a passion about the detail here to really be of enormous assistance,” Turnbull said.</p>
<p>Howard argues that if there is a Yes vote “there will be overwhelming pressure to ‘move on’, legislate as quickly as possible”, with “scant opportunity” to consider broad protections seriously.</p>
<p>He’s right to the extent that the government would want the issue done and dusted by Christmas and there are only two parliamentary weeks after the vote is announced.</p>
<p>But in the event of a Yes vote it could be Turnbull on the spot, rather than the losers, in this period.</p>
<p>Turnbull says: “I think people will see parliament at its best if the postal survey returns a Yes majority”.</p>
<p>Let’s hope so, but there is another possible scenario.</p>
<p>It’s likely the losers would make a last-ditch stand – and that would be around “protections”. Some conservative Liberals could put forward their own private member’s bill, leaving the government with a choice of which bill to facilitate. There could be a call for an inquiry into whatever bill had the government tick, as it went through parliament.</p>
<p>With an already tight timetable running into Christmas it would not be hard for things to slip.</p>
<p>At every point the opponents of change have used the tactic of delay. If Turnbull secures a Yes result, he will then have to make sure they don’t manage to do that again.</p>
<iframe src="https://www.podbean.com/media/player/fr3g9-72ed6d?from=site&skin=1&share=1&fonts=Helvetica&auto=0&download=0" height="100" width="100%" frameborder="0" scrolling="no" data-name="pb-iframe-player"></iframe><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/84130/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
In the same-sex marriage battle, Malcolm Turnbull finds himself fighting two former Liberal prime ministers, while somewhat uncomfortably aligned with an aspiring Labor one. Just as in the republic referendum…Michelle Grattan, Professorial Fellow, University of CanberraLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.