tag:theconversation.com,2011:/africa/topics/christine-milne-2794/articlesChristine Milne – The Conversation2020-02-03T23:22:04Ztag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1311262020-02-03T23:22:04Z2020-02-03T23:22:04ZAdam Bandt elected unopposed as new Greens leader<p>The Greens’ only House of Representatives member, Adam Bandt, is the party’s new leader, elected unanimously after Richard Di Natale’s decision to leave parliament.</p>
<p>Bandt, 47, has held the inner city seat of Melbourne since 2010, and most recently served as co-deputy of the parliamentary party. He is the Greens’ spokesman on climate change.</p>
<p>Queensland senator Larissa Waters was elected co-deputy leader and Senate leader. Tasmania’s Nick McKim was elected co-deputy leader and deputy Senate leader.</p>
<p>Senators Mehreen Faruqi and Sarah Hanson-Young also ran for the co-deputy position.</p>
<p>Rachel Siewert was elected whip and Janet Rice was elected to the new position of deputy whip.</p>
<p>Bandt’s challenge will be to manage from the lower house what is essentially a Senate party – the Greens have nine senators. Previous leaders Bob Brown, Christine Milne and Di Natale were senators. </p>
<p>Given the fact the government is in a minority in the upper house, tactics are important there and the play can move quickly.</p>
<p>Bandt said before the ballot he would talk to his colleagues “about how we share leadership across the House and the Senate as we fight the climate emergency and inequality”.</p>
<p>Di Natale defeated Bandt in 2015 when the leadership last came up. </p>
<p>Bandt, a former lawyer, lives in Melbourne with wife Claudia and daughters Wren and Elke. He was the first Greens MP elected to the lower house at a general election.</p>
<p>Di Natale announced his resignation on Monday, citing family reasons.</p>
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<a href="https://theconversation.com/richard-di-natale-quits-greens-leadership-as-barnaby-joyce-seeks-a-tilt-at-michael-mccormack-131029">Richard Di Natale quits Greens leadership, as Barnaby Joyce seeks a tilt at Michael McCormack</a>
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<p>Bandt, outlining his priorities, told a news conference Australia needed “a Green New Deal”. This involved the government taking the lead to create new jobs and industries, and universal services to ensure no one was left behind. </p>
<p>He would be fighting for three things as part of a “Green New Deal” - dental health being fully included in Medicare, education to be made totally free, and a manufacturing renaissance.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/131126/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Michelle Grattan does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>The Greens’ only House of Representatives member, Adam Bandt, is the party’s new leader, elected unanimously after Richard Di Natale’s decision to leave parliament. Bandt, 47, has held the inner city seat…Michelle Grattan, Professorial Fellow, University of CanberraLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/580482016-05-10T20:20:02Z2016-05-10T20:20:02ZExperience and Di Natale position the Greens as a formidable election force<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/121822/original/image-20160510-20616-vniauw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Backed by experience and a moderate leader in Richard Di Natale, the Greens are a force to be reckoned with in this election.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">AAP/Sam Mooy</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>Late last year, federal Greens leader Richard Di Natale expressed his enthusiasm at the prospect of serving in a <a href="http://www.smh.com.au/federal-politics/political-news/richard-di-natale-eyes-cabinet-post-in-future-laborgreens-government-as-malcolm-turnbull-brings-him-in-from-the-cold-20151022-gkfq7i.html#ixzz47pBvZgJp">federal Labor-Green coalition government</a>. This suggestion has, however, been <a href="http://www.smh.com.au/federal-politics/federal-election-2016/election-2016-tell-him-hes-dreaming-bill-shorten-rules-out-laborgreens-coalition-20160509-goqdjj.html">firmly rejected</a> in recent days by Labor leader Bill Shorten. </p>
<p>But is Shorten unwise to rule out forming a coalition government with the Greens so early in the campaign?</p>
<p>There are four reasons why the Greens are shaping up to be a formidable force both during the campaign and once the outcome is eventually declared.</p>
<h2>Political ingenues no more</h2>
<p>The Greens are now well and truly part of the political furniture, with a presence at all levels in Australia politics for more than 30 years.</p>
<p>The party has 11 federal MPs, as well as an additional 23 MPs in most Australian parliaments, except Queensland and the Northern Territory.</p>
<p>This brings the Greens certain structural and institutional advantages going into this federal campaign.</p>
<ul>
<li><p>First, legislative office gives the party access to state-funded resources that are useful during an election campaign.</p></li>
<li><p>Second, it imbues the party with a measure of institutional legitimacy and standing in public debate.</p></li>
<li><p>Third, the Greens can point to a growing track record of influencing legislative outcomes, and experience in negotiating with governments.</p></li>
</ul>
<p>Importantly, the Greens’ longevity has rendered them a more familiar and less threatening presence. This may make it difficult for their opponents to sustain claims that the party is inexperienced or unpredictable.</p>
<h2>Friends with benefits</h2>
<p>The Greens have been courting new friends among segments of the union movement – something many commentators once believed to be impossible.</p>
<p>These union allies are of practical and symbolic importance for the Greens. </p>
<p>In financial terms, union donations to the Greens totalled almost <a href="http://www.theaustralian.com.au/national-affairs/industrial-relations/alp-anger-over-unions-greens-shift/news-story/70a3e88d7ca47b97d3b6d4f3f8281499?memtype=anonymous">A$600,000</a> in 2013-14. While these amounts are modest compared to union donations to the ALP, they are of critical importance to an otherwise cash-strapped party. </p>
<p>In symbolic terms, union donations can be read as a sign of the party’s growing political acceptance by more traditional social democrats. While complex reasons underpin the decision on the part of unions to donate to the Greens, it nonetheless hints to an emerging rapprochement between the old and new left. </p>
<h2>The Shorten factor</h2>
<p>Labor has been struggling to rebuild its primary vote. While its difficulties in this regard are structural and sociological, they are also aggravated by Shorten’s unpopularity. </p>
<p>Shorten is not tracking favourably in opinion polls, even if <a href="http://www.theaustralian.com.au/national-affairs/newspoll">Labor’s two-party-preferred vote</a> is promising. </p>
<p>According to <a href="http://www.essentialvision.com.au/tag/bill-shorten">Essential polling</a>, Shorten’s disapproval rating continues to rise, from 27% in 2013 to 47% in March 2016. Over this same period of time, the proportion of voters who approve of Shorten has sunk from 31% to 27%. Meanwhile, the proportion of voters who are “undecided” or “don’t know” about Shorten has declined from 43% to 26%. </p>
<p>The problem for Labor is that studies suggest that public perception of the party leader is important to the outcome of an election.</p>
<p>A decline in Labor’s primary vote often translates into Green electoral gains. It is for this reason that the Greens are quietly optimistic about their prospects in some <a href="http://www.theage.com.au/federal-politics/federal-election-2016/election-2016-the-eight-seats-richard-di-natale-plans-to-turn-green-by-2026-20160505-gomrrr.html#ixzz47pB7qAXD">Labor-held inner-metropolitan seats</a>. The Greens are targeting the Victorian electorates of Melbourne Ports, Batman and Wills. Similarly, the Western Australian seat of Fremantle and the seats of Grayndler and Sydney in New South Wales are also not entirely out of reach. </p>
<p>The Greens’ chances in these seats will be strengthened if the Liberals in Victoria and NSW proceed with plans to negotiate a “loose preference” arrangement with them. </p>
<p>While party stalwarts such as John Howard have warned against this, others, such as Victorian Liberal Party president <a href="http://www.theage.com.au/victoria/liberal-tensions-soar-over-talk-of-a-loose-arrangement-with-the-greens-20160416-go7w6m.html">Michael Kroger</a>, are supportive. Any residual opposition within the Liberals might be assuaged by a <a href="http://www.theaustralian.com.au/national-affairs/federal-election-2016-liberal-voters-support-greens-preference-deal/news-story/3c8875b6a5db2f6dd04a46f01682d44e">Newspoll survey</a> that revealed 47% of Coalition voters are “comfortable” with the Liberals directing preferences to the Greens.</p>
<h2>The Di Natale factor</h2>
<p>The fourth factor that should help the Greens is the ascension of Richard – I am not an <a href="http://www.smh.com.au/federal-politics/political-news/never-say-never-skivvyswathed-richard-di-natale-open-to-coalition-with-the-liberal-party-20160308-gne4vu.html">“ideologue”</a> – Di Natale to the leadership.</p>
<p>Di Natale casts a very different shadow from that of his predecessors. His political journey was different from that of former leaders Bob Brown and Christine Milne. </p>
<p>Di Natale appears to have been politicised by social justice issues rather than strictly environmental concerns. He also much more closely resembles an important segment of the Greens base in his style, manner, beliefs and approach. Like many Green voters, he is a well-educated, white-collar professional drawn from the caring/welfare sectors.</p>
<p>Di Natale has sought to re-position the Greens as a <a href="https://theconversation.com/new-greens-leader-wants-to-send-a-message-to-those-with-mainstream-values-41370">mainstream</a> progressive party. This is reflected in his policies, which remain true to the party’s core beliefs while widening the net to draw in other constituencies. </p>
<p>The Greens remain staunchly opposed to offshore processing, and continue to advocate for pricing carbon pollution and legalising same-sex marriage. At the same time, policies such as the <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2016/apr/27/greens-call-for-buffett-rule-to-prevent-wealthy-abusing-tax-deductions">“Buffett rule”</a>, which seek to limit the amount of deductions high-income earners can claim, are likely to offend only those who earn more than $185,000 a year. </p>
<p>Similarly, <a href="http://www.smh.com.au/federal-politics/political-news/new-plan-to-curtail-negative-gearing-would-help-the-budget-cool-property-market-20150605-ghi3if">last year’s plan</a> to seek the removal of negative gearing was grandfathered so as to not alienate voters with existing investment properties. </p>
<p>Di Natale’s open appeals to policy moderation may just be enough to motivate those voters who have toyed with voting Green to finally do so.</p>
<h2>How might this play out for the Greens?</h2>
<p>While the Greens are not contenders for government in their own right, they are important players coming into this election. </p>
<p>At best, they may be needed by Labor to form government. At worst, they should continue to hold the balance of power in the Senate.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/58048/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Narelle Miragliotta does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>The Greens are set to play a significant role in the election campaign and the new parliament. They are looking for gains in the Senate and the House of Representatives.Narelle Miragliotta, Senior Lecturer in Australian Politics, Monash UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/413632015-05-06T19:51:04Z2015-05-06T19:51:04ZGreens’ leadership shifts from Tasmania to the greenest state<p>The balance of power in Australian green politics has now shifted, with the choice of Victorian Senator Richard Di Natale as the Greens’ new parliamentary leader. And for a party renowned for its suspicion of the idea of leadership, the way that change was handled is a political lesson other parties would do well to heed.</p>
<p>Di Natale is from arguably the greenest state in Australian politics: Victoria. Victorians now has more Green parliamentarians than Tasmania – home to previous leaders Bob Brown and the now retiring Christine Milne – or that other important green wellspring state, Western Australia, birthplace of both the Nuclear Disarmament Party and the West Australian Greens.</p>
<p>In the past, the Greens were dominated by conservationists from Tasmania, who were politicised by the battle over that state’s wilderness. But increasingly it’s appealing more to urban-based social progressives – particularly those from the inner suburbs of Melbourne. (Though Di Natale has moved on from there; these days he has a farm in Victoria’s south-west.)</p>
<p>Among the inner Melbourne Greens, crucial causes include refugee rights, rights for same-sex couples, the need to battle the problem of climate change – and getting right under the skin of the Socialist Left faction of the Victorian ALP.</p>
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<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/80636/original/image-20150506-22665-1nz4usy.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/80636/original/image-20150506-22665-1nz4usy.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/80636/original/image-20150506-22665-1nz4usy.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=261&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/80636/original/image-20150506-22665-1nz4usy.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=261&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/80636/original/image-20150506-22665-1nz4usy.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=261&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/80636/original/image-20150506-22665-1nz4usy.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=328&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/80636/original/image-20150506-22665-1nz4usy.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=328&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/80636/original/image-20150506-22665-1nz4usy.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=328&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
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<span class="caption">The Brunswick Greens’ state election night party in November 2014.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/takver/15910323915/in/photolist-pSGSXi-3HH3bX-pAvpwR-8tQnc3-pXv5YK-qeTiGd-qcEqUm-pXnDC7-qeWyZz-pXnHx1-qeLtM6-pibGdH-pibJqi-7Pe2uP-oW9b7v-pAxgK7-pAviRc-oW6hKC-pSSH9K-pT1Eh3-pAvtYB-pAxiaS-pArFw6-pArPzv-pSGBic-pAucmG-oW99Hi-oW9kxV-oW9cpa-7xGorg">Takver/Flickr</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/">CC BY-SA</a></span>
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<h2>Those who missed out</h2>
<p>The Di Natale ascendancy has been accompanied by the party’s decision to have two deputy leaders, his Senate colleagues Larissa Waters from Queensland and Scott Ludlam from Western Australia.</p>
<p>Seasoned Greens-watchers will immediately note the absence from this leadership team of South Australian Sarah Hanson-Young, one of the higher profile members of the Greens Senate team by virtue of her refugee advocacy. </p>
<p>Also missing from the mix is the party’s sole lower house member, Adam Bandt, who rose to national prominence in the 2010-2013 minority Labor government years. However, his profile has fallen since the 2013 election, by virtue of the Liberal-National coalition’s subsequent dominance of the lower house.</p>
<p>Amid speculation about whether he had been “<a href="http://www.news.com.au/national/christine-milne-resigns-as-greens-leader/story-fncynjr2-1227338254396">shafted</a>” in losing the deputy leadership, Bandt posted his congratulations on social media, saying he was happy to focus on the imminent arrival of his new baby. But realistically, Bandt was never likely to become leader when the rest of his party colleagues sit in the other chamber of parliament.</p>
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<p>Hanson-Young may yet have unrequited ambition, having made an unsuccessful bid for the <a href="http://www.abc.net.au/news/2010-10-26/hanson-young-challenged-for-deputy-position/2311792">deputy leadership in 2010</a> – and in political parties, thwarted ambition can always be a potential source of destabilisation. </p>
<p>But having said that, the leadership transition from Milne to Di Natale happened quickly, and he was <a href="http://www.abc.net.au/news/2015-05-06/greens-elect-richard-di-natale-as-new-leader/6448948">unopposed</a>. Given the comparatively small number of parliamentarians, the decision was probably made by collegial consensus, in which Hanson-Young would have been involved.</p>
<h2>A lesson for other parties</h2>
<p>On reflection, <a href="https://theconversation.com/columns/view-from-the-hill-34">the speed and dexterity</a> of the change sits in complete contrast to more ham-fisted arrangements in other parties in recent years. </p>
<p>The now-defunct Australian Democrats had a protracted membership-based electoral process. The Labor Party now also has a <a href="http://www.abc.net.au/news/2013-10-13/bill-shorten-elected-labor-leader/5019116">membership ballot</a>. The Palmer United Party has a leader, but most of the party don’t want to be led by him. And even the Liberal Party has suffered protracted leadership troubles, with commentators watching the 2015 budget and its aftermath for any signs of a leadership putsch against Tony Abbott.</p>
<p>Amidst all of this, the Greens have acted with breath-taking speed and unanimity amongst the parliamentary wing. It may well be that a strong sense of collegiality is one of the consequences of being a small parliamentary party that is constantly being attacked by all sides of politics and most of the media as well. </p>
<p>For all the pillorying of them as either dangerous ideologues and/or naïve idealists by their critics, the parliamentary Greens have demonstrated significant political acumen with this latest move. </p>
<p>In a sense, Di Natale was the obvious choice as leader in that his state has become a very strong electoral base for the party. Di Natale is the most experienced of the Victorian Senators, and his re-election is probably assured. </p>
<p>The party needs a deputy leader, and Scott Ludlam, who has been in the Senate for longer than Di Natale, has had a high profile in the recent meta-data debate. The fact that he comes from a state that has been integral to the evolution of green party politics in Australia also helped make him an obvious choice. </p>
<p>By appointing Waters as a second deputy, the canny Greens circumvent the otherwise obvious criticism of its leadership being dominated by blokes. Being able to maximise the sympathy and support of the party’s core constituency will be the primary task of the new leadership team.</p>
<p>That core constituency is young, well-educated and clustered in the inner suburbs of most of the Australian capital cities. So it makes sense that the party leader should now come from the Garden State, whose capital city has become the greenest of all.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/41363/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Nick Economou does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>The balance of power in Australian green politics has shifted with the choice of Victorian Senator Richard Di Natale as Greens’ leader – and the speed of the change is a lesson for other parties.Nick Economou, Senior Lecturer, School of Political and Social Inquiry, Monash UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/413702015-05-06T10:32:24Z2015-05-06T10:32:24ZNew Greens leader wants to send a message to those with ‘mainstream values’<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/80623/original/image-20150506-22642-1kd3iev.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">The new leadership team: co-deputies Larissa Waters and Scott Ludlam flank leader Richard Di Natale.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">AAP/Lukas Coch</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>The Greens mostly like to keep their party ‘internals’ internal. The <a href="https://theconversation.com/di-natale-elected-greens-leader-after-milne-resigns-41347">leadership transition</a> from Christine Milne to Victorian senator Richard Di Natale was marked by secrecy and tightly stitched up.</p>
<p>There were no leaks that Milne, who succeeded Bob Brown in 2012, was about to pull the pin. Within two hours of her Wednesday morning announcement that she wouldn’t be contesting the next election and was quitting the leadership immediately, the party had a new team, all elected unanimously.</p>
<p>There are now two deputies, Scott Ludlam from Western Australia and Larissa Waters from Queensland, ensuring a woman is still in a leadership position.</p>
<p>Previously it had seemed likely that if Milne stepped down her deputy, Adam Bandt, who holds the seat of Melbourne and is the only lower house member in the 11-person party room, would be a strong contender to replace her. Now Bandt is no longer even deputy. To have two Victorian males as the Greens’ face would never have been on.</p>
<p>Milne and Bandt have had a partnership of convenience and apparently he only learned of her planned resignation on Wednesday morning.</p>
<p>Sources close to Bandt insist he’s not unhappy at how things have panned out. His partner is about to give birth to their first child. But whether or not he feels miffed by the process – on which neither Milne nor Di Natale would be drawn – Bandt’s not likely to cause trouble. He has a seat to hang on to and Di Natale is popular in the party.</p>
<p>The leadership change is more than a generational one – it marks the end of the Brown-Milne era, that was born out of the environmental cause and centred in Tasmania.</p>
<p>Ben Oquist, a former adviser to both Brown and Milne, says they “have been the heart and soul of Green politics for a quarter of a century. Richard represents a great ‘generation next’ for the Greens”.</p>
<p>Di Natale, age 44, is little known, and will have the challenge of establishing a public and national profile while defining directions for a party that the majors want and need to demonise.</p>
<p>He’s regarded as a good communicator – better than Milne, who has often sounded too shrill and uncompromising.</p>
<p>Like Brown, Di Natale was trained as a doctor and there’s a touch of the GP about him still. He’s the son of an Italian immigrant family, played VFA football, and lives at the foothills of the Otway Ranges on his farm, which includes an apple orchard and olive grove.</p>
<p>Di Natale told their joint news conference: “Christine and I are different people. I came at this through health. I came not from a political background. I spent a few years as a GP and a public health specialist working in places like Tennant Creek and north-east India.</p>
<p>"It became pretty clear to me that if you want to improve people’s health, you’ve got to start looking at the things that make people sick…</p>
<p>"If you want to know about my general philosophy, I’m not an ideologue. I’m not going to say we want small or big government … We want decent government that looks after people…</p>
<p>"My view is pretty straightforward. People want access to health care, to education and they want the environment looked after. They want clean air and water for their kids, pretty basic things.”</p>
<p>With their critics branding the Greens as extreme, Di Natale talks up their appeal to the mainstream. “We are the natural home of progressive, mainstream Australian voters.”</p>
<p>From a working class background and an extended family of Labor voters, he said there was a good chance that if he’d been born earlier “maybe I’d be in the Labor Party right now”.</p>
<p>But his eye is not just on picking up support from the Labor side. “I think there are a lot of people who are small-l Liberal voters who have got strong concerns about the direction of the country and I want to say to them as well that you can trust us with your vote … We do have things in common and the values that those people care about are our values too.”</p>
<p>One big question is whether the Greens will now be more amenable to negotiating with the Abbott government. Milne wanted to deny Tony Abbott “wins”. Di Natale says he will talk with the Prime Minister however doesn’t see many areas of common ground with “a deeply ideological government”.</p>
<p>But he also strikes a pragmatic note: “I’m in this business to get outcomes, I want to get stuff done.”</p>
<p>An obvious (although relatively easy) test for the Di Natale Greens will be over the reintroduction of fuel excise indexation. The government implemented this 2014 budget measure by regulation when it couldn’t get Senate support, but has to validate it by legislation later this year.</p>
<p>Di Natale said he would not make “captain’s picks” but agreed that new leadership gave the opportunity “to talk about a whole lot of things”.</p>
<p>Now it is in operation, the Greens would be crazy not to support the fuel measure. It has been their policy – Milne was much criticised for her stand against it – and there is no way to return the money collected to the motorists.</p>
<p>Milne, who is about to turn 62 and who will leave the Senate before her term ends in mid 2017, has timed her handover well.</p>
<p>There has been some concern within the Greens about her taking the party to the next election – which will be a challenge because of an eroding vote – and periodic criticism of her leadership style. Pressure on her could have increased as the election drew near.</p>
<p>As it is, she goes out at a time of her choosing, having increased the Greens parliamentary numbers from 10 to 11, and leaving her successor a sufficient period in which to establish himself before the expected time of the election. Most political leaders exit a lot less neatly.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/41370/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
The Greens mostly like to keep their party ‘internals’ internal. The leadership transition from Christine Milne to Victorian senator Richard Di Natale was marked by secrecy and tightly stitched up.Michelle Grattan, Professorial Fellow, University of CanberraLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/413532015-05-06T07:43:55Z2015-05-06T07:43:55ZMilne got results from minority pacts with both sides of politics<p>Christine Milne, who has <a href="https://theconversation.com/greens-leader-christine-milne-resigns-di-natale-elected-41347">resigned</a> as leader of the Australian Greens, held the position for three years after succeeding the party’s founding leader, Bob Brown.</p>
<p>Immediately following her resignation, the parliamentary Greens elected a new leader, Victorian Senator and former GP Richard Di Natale – the first Greens leader not to come from Tasmania.</p>
<p>Milne’s explanation was that she will not be recontesting her Senate seat at the 2016 federal election, so decided to make way for a new leadership team (now comprising co-deputies Larissa Waters and Scott Ludlam) to allow for a smooth transition and give the party time to consolidate ahead of the campaign.</p>
<p>What sort of legacy will she leave, and how successfully has she guided the party’s agenda since Brown’s departure?</p>
<h2>Electoral ups and downs</h2>
<p>Under Milne’s leadership, and following the Australian Greens’ support of the previous Labor-led minority government, the party <a href="http://www.abc.net.au/news/2013-09-29/greens-election-loss-christine-milne-labor/4987506">lost votes</a> at the last election, but nevertheless retained all of its MPs and picked up another senator.</p>
<p>In Milne’s terms, the Greens’ role is to build political capital and then, when an opportunity like supporting minority government arises, to spend that capital on achieving policy outcomes like Labor’s <a href="http://www.comlaw.gov.au/Details/C2011B00166">clean energy bill</a>, which ushered in the <a href="https://theconversation.com/au/topics/carbon-tax">carbon tax</a> in 2012.</p>
<p>This degree of influence on government policy was an impressive achievement for a farmer’s daughter, a fifth-generation Tasmanian from the state’s rural northwest, a one-time high school teacher and young mother whose life changed when she committed herself to environmental activism.</p>
<p>She was <a href="http://christine-milne.greensmps.org.au/about">arrested and jailed</a> in 1983 for blockading the flooding of the Franklin River, and then went on in the mid-1980s to unite farmers, fishers, scientists, environmentalists and community members against the billion-dollar Wesley Vale pulp mill.</p>
<p>Having risen from her self-described “humble beginnings in the rolling dairy hills of Wesley Vale”, she was elected to the Tasmanian Parliament in 1989 as member for the conservative, sprawling rural electorate of Lyons, and was party to the historic Labor-Green Accord in which five Greens supported a Labor minority government.</p>
<p>There were many environmental achievements under that Accord, including the creation of new national parks, additional world heritage and national estate forests nominations, abandoned forestry ventures and woodchip export limits. </p>
<p>Milne went on to become the Greens’ state leader – the first female leader of a political party in Tasmania. She remains the only female politician to have led a party at both state and federal levels. </p>
<p>In 1996, with Milne at the helm, the Tasmanian Greens ventured into new territory by supporting a Liberal minority government. The partnership <a href="http://www.researchgate.net/profile/Kate_Crowley/publication/264978962_Minority_Government_The_Liberal_Green_experience_in_Tasmania/links/53fa93d40cf27c365cf037d4.pdf">delivered achievements</a> such as national parks and forest reserve declarations, deferred logging, and greener state development policy .</p>
<p>Milne has <a href="http://www.themonthly.com.au/issue/2008/february/1334530750/amanda-lohrey/green-christine">reflected</a> that her political highlights of this period, from 1996-98, included the introduction of gun law reform following the Port Arthur massacre, the liberalisation of gay laws, an apology to the Indigenous stolen generation and support for an Australian republic.</p>
<h2>The legacy</h2>
<p>Milne’s legacy straddles social and environmental policy successes. Her efforts as state Greens leader helped to push Tasmania towards what she <a href="http://christine-milne.greensmps.org.au/content/news-stories/about-christine-milne">called</a> a “clean, green, clever” future, and as federal leader she embraced moves towards delivering a more sustainable, low-carbon economy. </p>
<p>When supporting the Labor minority government from 2010 to 2013, Milne advocated a successful multi-party approach to the unprecedented introduction of carbon pricing in Australia and the establishment of associated bureaucracy and processes.</p>
<p>This aspect of her legacy was removed by the Abbott government (the only government in the world to have repealed such action), but Milne claims it is “the last stand of the vanquished”, adding that “the community is now leaving behind the fossil-fool age and getting on with realising clean energy”.</p>
<p>The repeal of carbon pricing was indicative of the Abbott government’s hostility to Milne’s environmental agenda. But Milne has claimed the acrimony as a motivating factor – one that has afforded the Greens an opportunity to recover their base as recent successes have shown at state elections.</p>
<p>This viewpoint was evident in her <a href="http://greensmps.org.au/content/news-stories/christine-milne-delivers-greens-2014-budget-reply-speech">dismissal</a> of Treasurer Joe Hockey’s 2014 budget as a “vicious attack on the fabric of our society” that let big business off the hook, that widened the gap between rich and poor, and that “abandons the environment and … jeopardises our future”.</p>
<p>Her resignation leaves behind a party with <a href="http://www.abc.net.au/news/2014-09-15/greens-consider-major-reforms-amid-member-discontent-tasmania/5743158">reform challenges</a> but that has now made inroads not only in urban electorates but in some regional areas (including in the <a href="http://www.abc.net.au/news/2015-03-29/new-election-greens-say-voters-unhappy-with-major-parties/6356722">recent NSW election</a>) where Milne, as a farmer’s daughter, has helped built bridges on agricultural issues. </p>
<p>Action on climate change has been more than a political crusade for Christine Milne. And this area is where she will dedicate her efforts following her resignation. She has pledged to remain active in advocating for climate action, <a href="http://www.smh.com.au/news/environment/climate-wont-wait-mr-rudd/2008/07/19/1216163231976.html">saying</a>: “If ever our planet needed inspiring leadership, it is now.”</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/41353/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Kate Crowley does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Christine Milne has been seen as an ideological politician. But her record of working with minority governments of both stripes showed she could deliver on her agenda from outside the mainstream.Kate Crowley, Associate Professor, Public and Environmental Policy, University of TasmaniaLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/389842015-03-19T19:27:20Z2015-03-19T19:27:20ZFactCheck: is global warming intensifying cyclones in the Pacific?<blockquote>
<p>“It’s very clear global warming is intensifying cyclones in the Pacific.” – Greens Leader Chistine Milne, <a href="http://www.skynews.com.au/news/politics/national/2015/03/17/milne-links-cyclones-to-climate-change.html">comments</a> to reporters, March 17, 2015.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Christine Milne’s <a href="http://media.brisbanetimes.com.au/news/federal-politics/greens-link-cyclone-pam-and-global-warming-6358843.html">statements</a> on global warming linked the devastation wreaked by Cyclone Pam in Vanuatu last weekend with climate change.</p>
<p>But while there is very real possibility that there is a causal relationship between cyclone behaviour and anthropogenic global warming, most climate scientists and meteorologists are hesitant to attribute any single event such as an extreme intensity tropical cyclone to global warming. This is because we know that the globe has experienced such events for many thousands of years.</p>
<p>The key to understanding whether global warming is causing a change in the behaviour of tropical cyclones is to look at the trends, usually over as many years as possible.</p>
<h2>The scientific evidence</h2>
<p>When asked for evidence to support her statement, a spokesperson for Senator Milne referred to a 2013 Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) <a href="http://www.ipcc.ch/pdf/assessment-report/ar5/wg1/drafts/fgd/WGIAR5_WGI-12Doc2b_FinalDraft_Chapter14.pdf">report</a> that said that “precipitation will likely be more extreme near the centres of tropical cyclones making landfall in North and Central America, East Africa, West, East, South and Southeast Asia as well as in Australia and many Pacific islands… and the frequency of the most intense storms will more likely than not increase substantially in some basins.”</p>
<p>The spokesperson referred to a 2007 IPCC <a href="http://www.ipcc.ch/publications_and_data/ar4/wg1/en/ch10s10-3-6-3.html">report</a> that said “earlier studies… showed that future tropical cyclones would likely become more severe with greater wind speeds and more intense precipitation.” He also pointed to the US Union of Concerned Scientists <a href="http://www.ucsusa.org/global_warming/science_and_impacts/impacts/hurricanes-and-climate-change.html#.VQoE1WTLft5">statement</a> on hurricanes and cyclones, and the US Geophysical Fluid Dynamics Laboratory’s <a href="http://www.gfdl.noaa.gov/global-warming-and-hurricane">website</a>. </p>
<p>Recent <a href="http://www.nature.com/ngeo/journal/v3/n3/abs/ngeo779.html">studies</a> suggest that there has been an increase in the occurrence of high intensity tropical cyclones globally.</p>
<p>But this has been offset by a decrease in the number of weaker tropical cyclones. The most intense tropical cyclones <a href="http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v455/n7209/abs/nature07234.html">have increased their wind speeds</a> in all ocean basins including the Pacific. The proportion of intense tropical cyclones versus weaker ones has <a href="http://link.springer.com/article/10.1007%2Fs00382-013-1713-0">increased</a> both regionally and globally by 25% to 30% per degree Celsius of global warming over the past four to five decades.</p>
<p>As the seas warm, the ocean has more energy available to be converted to tropical cyclone wind. So with increasing sea surface temperatures we can expect to see higher tropical cyclone wind speeds. This has been the case as the wind speeds of the most intense tropical cyclones have been <a href="http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v455/n7209/abs/nature07234.html">increasing</a> in all ocean basins.</p>
<p>Not all ocean basins, however, are responding at the same rates. The North Atlantic and North and South Indian Ocean basins <a href="http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v455/n7209/abs/nature07234.html">appear to be</a> increasing at the fastest rates. The South Pacific does not show an increase except for the very strongest cyclones.</p>
<p>At the moment, though, it is difficult to definitively determine whether this increase in tropical cyclone intensities is greater than that which has occurred in the past or, in other words, has exceeded the natural variability.</p>
<p>There are a number of modelling <a href="http://www.nature.com/ngeo/journal/v3/n3/abs/ngeo779.html">studies</a> that suggest the frequency or total number of cyclones in some ocean basins, including the South Indian and South Pacific, will decrease as a function of global warming. </p>
<p>One recent <a href="http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v505/n7485/full/nature12882.html">study</a> examining the frequency of tropical cyclone activity in the Australian region showed that total seasonal cyclone activity was at its lowest level in 1500 years in Western Australia and in 500 years in north Queensland.</p>
<p>These results accord well with the modelled forecasts and especially because the most dramatic decline in seasonal cyclone activity has been occurring since approximately 1970. But, again, it is difficult to state whether this is due to anthropogenic warming or natural variability.</p>
<p><a href="http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1029/2012GL052236/abstract">Studies</a> examining the long-term history of tropical cyclones (centuries to several millennia) show that cyclone activity can be cyclic. There are periods of substantial activity and relative quiescence that can last for decades to centuries. Eastern Queensland, for example, has seen a <a href="http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/2011ClDy...37..647C">62% fall in the number of severe landfalling cyclones</a> since the late 19th century. </p>
<h2>Fact: the strongest cyclones are getting stronger</h2>
<p>The recognition of long-term cycles in cyclone activity, however, does not negate the very real possibility that there is a causal relationship between cyclone behaviour and anthropogenic global warming either now or in the future. The notion that cyclones should increase in intensity as sea surface temperatures rise is theoretically sound and the facts are that the strongest cyclones are getting stronger.</p>
<p>Whether we can directly attribute recent very intense cyclones such as Pam and its impact on Vanuatu to global warming remains to be determined.</p>
<p>Either way, the future doesn’t look good for all locations that are prone to these events. The message is clear that we need to understand that the physical risk from tropical cyclones is increasing.</p>
<h2>Verdict</h2>
<p>Senator Milne’s statement that global warming is intensifying cyclones in the Pacific cannot be verified at present but cyclones are intensifying in concert with rising sea surface temperatures.</p>
<hr>
<h2>Review</h2>
<p>This summary is consistent with our current understanding of this topic. An additional factor relevant to the damage caused by tropical cyclones is sea level rise. We are confident that sea level rise is caused by man-made global warming. Since the most damaging impact of a tropical cyclone along the coast is sea flooding, sea level rise has already increased the amount of this flooding, and will continue to do when the sea level becomes even higher in the future.– <strong>Kevin Walsh</strong></p>
<hr>
<p><div class="callout"> Have you ever seen a “fact” that doesn’t look quite right? The Conversation’s FactCheck asks academic experts to test claims and see how true they are. We then ask a second academic to review an anonymous copy of the article. You can request a check at checkit@theconversation.edu.au. Please include the statement you would like us to check, the date it was made, and a link if possible.</div></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/38984/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Jonathan Nott receives funding from the Australian Research Council (ARC).</span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Kevin Walsh receives funding from Australian government research funding agencies and overseas research funding bodies.</span></em></p>A causal relationship between cyclone behaviour and anthropogenic global warming is a very real possibility. But most climate scientists hesitate to attribute any single event to global warming.Jonathan Nott, Professor of Physical Geography, James Cook UniversityKevin Walsh, Reader, School of Earth Sciences, The University of MelbourneLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/326012014-11-04T19:29:40Z2014-11-04T19:29:40ZSo hot right now: the Middle Ages in the climate change debate<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/62483/original/6sjnyyqs-1413954873.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">As both a word and an idea, 'medieval' carries centuries of connotation of a murky and brutal pre-scientific age. </span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="http://www.public-domain-image.com/full-image/miscellaneous-public-domain-images-pictures/fire-flames-pictures/sun-sets-at-fire-continues-burning.jpg-free-stock-photo.html">US Fish & Wildlife Service/Swanson Scott</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>“Medieval” has become the accusation du jour in Australian domestic politics, used with equal conviction across the spectrum to discredit opponents’ views. One debate where this accusation has taken centre stage is over Australia’s response to <a href="https://theconversation.com/99-999-certainty-humans-are-driving-global-warming-new-study-29911">human-induced climate change</a>. </p>
<p>The government’s abolition of carbon pricing, the position of science minister and its support for renewable energy, and its attempted dismantling of the Climate Change Authority and the Clean Energy Finance Corporation, have led to its approach being described as “medieval” at least three times in parliament over the past year. </p>
<p>In each instance, Greens MP Adam Bandt, Greens leader <a href="http://greensmps.org.au/content/news-stories/christine-milne-delivers-greens-2014-budget-reply-speech">Christine Milne</a> and Labor’s then-senator <a href="http://www.openaustralia.org/senate/?gid=2014-02-11.124.1">Ursula Stephens</a> evoked an idea of the Middle Ages as anti-scientific. Bandt took this furthest by drawing a link between prime minister Tony Abbott’s “medieval” attitude to science and his revival of knights and dames. That also led to satiric portrayals of Abbott as <a href="http://media.theage.com.au/news/national-news/tony-abbott-rege-mediaevalibus-5299266.html">“Rege Mediaevalibus”</a>.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/62465/original/fnyv2vhh-1413948117.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/62465/original/fnyv2vhh-1413948117.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/62465/original/fnyv2vhh-1413948117.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=107&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/62465/original/fnyv2vhh-1413948117.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=107&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/62465/original/fnyv2vhh-1413948117.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=107&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/62465/original/fnyv2vhh-1413948117.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=134&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/62465/original/fnyv2vhh-1413948117.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=134&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/62465/original/fnyv2vhh-1413948117.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=134&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption"></span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Facebook/Adam Bandt</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>This view of the government has been reinforced in media commentary. One <a href="http://www.smh.com.au/comment/science-going-back-to-dark-ages-20140531-zrqmx.html">article</a> characterised the government as “pre-Copernican” in its “denial of both sun and science”. Under the headline “Science going back to the dark ages”, the article features a cartoon of Abbott smashing solar panels while wearing the iconic – though historically discredited) – horned helmet of the Viking raider.</p>
<h2>Inaccurate but potent rhetoric</h2>
<p>It might be tempting to point out that pre-Copernican science, Vikings and “the dark ages” are not likely to be found cheek-by-jowl in any scholarly account of the Middle Ages. Or one might feel the urge, following experts such as <a href="http://jameshannam.com/">James Hannam</a>, to correct the misconception that medieval science was a stagnant pool of flat-earth ignorance. </p>
<p>But such objections do not go to the heart of the issue, because what we’re encountering here is not an appeal to historical fact. Instead, it involves a cultural shorthand in which a fantasy of a pre-modern Other helps us affirm modernity over the past.</p>
<p>Vagueness, or even inaccuracy, is no obstacle to rhetorical potency when condemning something as “medieval”. The looseness of the term – the breadth of its compass – is the key to its magnetism. As both word and idea, “medieval” carries centuries of negative connotation that have made it synonymous with backwardness, superstition and inequality.</p>
<p>So when the word is used today, these negative meanings are mustered to secure agreement and shut down discussion. It is for this reason that it should be opened up to scrutiny. We need to understand what it means when our politicians and pundits describe one another as “medieval”, and why it matters.</p>
<p>This is not offered as a criticism of media or parliamentarians’ calls for climate action. Rather, what’s striking is that in all cases the “medieval” accusations are superfluous to the arguments against <a href="https://theconversation.com/climate-and-vaccine-deniers-are-the-same-beyond-persuasion-22258">climate change denialism</a>, which are cogent on their own terms. </p>
<p>This doesn’t mean that the medievalism is insignificant; quite the opposite. But its significance is rhetorical, mobilising the dense and often incoherent anxiety the medieval era evokes in order to appeal to a widely held fear of social regression to a state of wilful ignorance. </p>
<h2>A slur with bipartisan appeal</h2>
<p>The “medieval” accusation is not a tactic only of the Left. Medievalism has a long bipartisan pedigree in modern politics, to the extent that there are distinct <a href="http://journals.cambridge.org/action/displayAbstract?fromPage=online&aid=2469740">“Whig”</a> and <a href="http://books.google.com.au/books?id=KR36zudAQtsC&pg=PA13&lpg=PA13&dq=whigs+Tory+medievalism&source=bl&ots=g6icDErhoO&sig=R4KjqU8L4of8Y0y6CqvhBfCEcNU&hl=en&sa=X&ei=diZHVIfIFeTamAX6vICICA&ved=0CFEQ6AEwCQ#v=onepage&q=whigs%20Tory%20medievalism&f=false">“Tory”</a> traditions of it. Arguments from the other side of the climate debate are equally reliant on an idea of the Middle Ages as authoritarian and superstitious, although they deploy it to different ends.</p>
<p>In April, federal attorney-general George Brandis <a href="http://www.spiked-online.com/freespeechnow/fsn_article/the-state-should-never-be-the-arbiter-of-what-people-can-think#.VEceZouUdhM">described</a> as “medieval” the unwillingness of the “eco-correct” left to engage with climate scepticism because it opposed their “almost theological” position on climate change. Brandis contrasted this “orthodoxy” with the post-Enlightenment value of free speech, which he claimed is better protected by the political right. </p>
<p>Here, Brandis reprised a 2011 <a href="http://www.mitchfifield.com/Media/Speeches/tabid/71/articleType/ArticleView/articleId/400/Questions-without-Notice--Take-Note-of-Answers-Speech--3-March-2011.aspx">accusation</a> by senator Mitch Fifield that the then-Labor government was “medieval in its approach to [climate] debates and enquiry”. Fifield claimed that the “words of belief” (“I believe in an ETS”) used by Labor politicians were quasi-theological professions of faith rather than statements of political conviction responding to scientific evidence.</p>
<p>This idea of medieval disapproval of rational enquiry re-animates the once-cherished <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conflict_thesis">“conflict thesis”</a>. This claimed that scientific pursuits were repressed by a medieval church fearful of challenges to its authority. It is, again, tempting but ultimately beside the point to note that the conflict thesis has been debunked by numerous studies exploring the church’s patronage of the medieval revival of Aristotelian science.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/62474/original/swtrv9sx-1413952054.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/62474/original/swtrv9sx-1413952054.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=536&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/62474/original/swtrv9sx-1413952054.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=536&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/62474/original/swtrv9sx-1413952054.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=536&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/62474/original/swtrv9sx-1413952054.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=674&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/62474/original/swtrv9sx-1413952054.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=674&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/62474/original/swtrv9sx-1413952054.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=674&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">This map of medieval universities illustrates the church-sponsored spread of universities and the associated revival of science across Europe.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Map_of_Medieval_Universities.jpg">William R. Shepherd: Historical Atlas, 1923</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>What is most relevant is that these criticisms could also just as easily have been made without resorting to the medieval. But in a culture that has for centuries shown that, as insults go, “medieval” is a lay down misère, politicians of all stripes keep this effective one-word grenade in their arsenal. It’s effective because, as cultural shorthands go, it’s explosively evocative: nasty, brutish and, yes, short.</p>
<h2>A symptom of shaky ideas of progress</h2>
<p>In a <a href="https://theconversation.com/medieval-makes-a-comeback-in-modern-politics-whats-going-on-31780">recent article</a>, we showed that since September 11, use of the word “medieval” has escalated in parliamentary and media conversations on global geopolitics. This is especially so in discussions where the <a href="https://theconversation.com/islamic-states-medieval-ideology-owes-a-lot-to-revolutionary-france-31206">“medieval” theocracy</a> of militant Islamist organisations is positioned as the Other of modern Western secular democracies.</p>
<p>Now it’s clear this escalation is not limited to global politics. But all this medievalist name-calling doesn’t change the science. So why does it deserve our attention? </p>
<p>Tracing the path of the “medieval” insult exposes our politicians’ uncritical allegiance to often ill-defined and contested <a href="http://www.economist.com/node/15108593">ideas of progress</a>. It shows how our environmental future is inseparable from their ideological visions of the past they believe they’re superseding.</p>
<p>The crowning irony is that in using the medieval as a byword for irrelevance, they’ve made it more relevant than ever.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/32601/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Louise D'Arcens receives funding from the Australian Research Council.</span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Clare Monagle receives funding from the Australian Research Council.</span></em></p>“Medieval” has become the accusation du jour in Australian domestic politics, used with equal conviction across the spectrum to discredit opponents’ views. One debate where this accusation has taken centre…Louise D'Arcens, Associate Professor in English Literatures Program and Australian Research Council Future Fellow, University of WollongongClare Monagle, Senior Lecturer, School of Philosophical, Historical & International Studies, Monash UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/284012014-06-24T07:28:32Z2014-06-24T07:28:32ZGreens miss the chance of a victory on fuel policy<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/52050/original/cyvndc55-1403595062.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/52050/original/cyvndc55-1403595062.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/52050/original/cyvndc55-1403595062.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/52050/original/cyvndc55-1403595062.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/52050/original/cyvndc55-1403595062.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=502&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/52050/original/cyvndc55-1403595062.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=502&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/52050/original/cyvndc55-1403595062.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=502&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Greens leader Christine Milne has sounded unconvincing on the reasons for her party opposing the return of fuel excise indexation.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">AAP/Alan Porritt</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>In deciding to vote against the restoration of fuel excise indexation, the Greens have let the perfect be the enemy of the good. They’ve gone against their own policy, and appeared to be all over the place in the process.</p>
<p>The handling of the measure will reinforce the criticism of Christine Milne’s leadership, both inside and outside the Greens.</p>
<p>Milne had flagged initially that the Greens would support the indexation - worth about $2.2 billion over the forward estimates - although it was quickly obvious they objected to the funds all being used for road building.</p>
<p>They could have sought to knock out the hypothecation. It is surely likely that at the end of the day the government would have worn that, given significant money is involved, so many of its budget measures are under threat, and Clive Palmer is opposed (meaning there is no other dancing partner).</p>
<p>Milne sounds unconvincing about why the Greens would not have a try, saying Tony Abbott and Joe Hockey had indicated they were taking an all-or-nothing approach. Of course they would say that – it doesn’t mean it would be their final stand.</p>
<p>She also says the government would put the money into roads anyway, whatever the fate of the hypothecation provision. Perhaps, but even without the excise funds, the spending on roads may remain the same.</p>
<p>One reason Milne looked weak in her post-party meeting news conference is that the Greens have been ambivalent and divided over the issue – whether to seek a compromise or oppose outright. Milne’s initial inclination towards the measure became untenable as time passed and internal opposition firmed.</p>
<p>The party meeting debated both options but the mood was obvious.</p>
<p>The Greens are obsessively anti-Abbott at the moment, reluctant to give him anything. This may be popular with their base. But the cost is their own credibility, especially with more centrist supporters or potential supporters, who want a party that can actually deliver on something - particularly, when it gets the chance, policies it believes in.</p>
<p>Bringing back indexation on fuel is quite a big deal. It is not the substantial anti-carbon measure that Abbott tried to make out in his talks with President Obama, and certainly the motive for it was money, not climate change, as Abbott made clear in Parliament on Tuesday.</p>
<p>But it is worth having in the suite of climate policies. For the Greens to lose the chance to do something to which they were committed is to suggest they are more interested in gestures than achievements.</p>
<p>It was the same story with emissions trading. If the Greens had been willing to play ball, the Rudd government’s ETS legislation could have been passed when in 2009 dissident Liberals crossed the floor in the Senate. But the Greens stayed pure (they argue it was Rudd who wouldn’t play ball).</p>
<p>If the ETS had been legislated then, and carbon pricing established, the debate would have changed and there would have been a good chance the scheme would have remained in place.</p>
<p>The next test for the Greens will be paid parental leave. Abbott has been forced to pare his plan back; it is now close to the Greens policy. But as with fuel excise, there are internal differences, with some Greens not wanting to facilitate it for Abbott, and probably there will be pain ahead. (As with fuel, Abbott doesn’t have any other potential Senate support for PPL.)</p>
<p>Tuesday’s <a href="http://essentialvision.com.au/category/essentialreport">Essential poll</a> contained some sobering figures for the Greens.</p>
<p>Fewer than three in ten (28%) of voters believe the Greens holding the balance of power in the Senate has been good for Australia, while 37% think it has been bad.</p>
<p>It might be argued that when a small party gets in a position to do something (as the Greens were in spades during the hung parliament) it inevitably makes enemies – which is all the more reason to score runs when possible.</p>
<p>The Greens like to claim a victory in forcing Julia Gillard’s hand over carbon taxing. But this is a pyrrhic win – because it is about to be dismantled.</p>
<p>The poll also asked people their opinions of Milne (and Clive Palmer, but that’s another story). Some of the findings are a wake up call. Only 41% think she understands the problems facing Australia; just 30% say she is visionary. Nearly half (48%) think she is narrow minded; more than half (51%) believe she is out of touch with ordinary people.</p>
<p>While she is seen as (and is) intelligent and hard working, Milne is not cutting through as sufficiently strong on the nation’s needs or the people’s concerns.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/28401/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
In deciding to vote against the restoration of fuel excise indexation, the Greens have let the perfect be the enemy of the good. They’ve gone against their own policy, and appeared to be all over the place…Michelle Grattan, Professorial Fellow, University of CanberraLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/186402013-09-30T20:35:37Z2013-09-30T20:35:37ZMilne, leadership and the future of the Greens<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/32119/original/tdqg3hy7-1380501242.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Christine Milne's leadership has come under tension, with the Greens sole lower house MP Adam Bandt seen by many as her likely successor.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">AAP/Lukas Coch</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>When explaining the recent departure of <a href="http://www.canberratimes.com.au/federal-politics/political-news/greens-senators-rally-around-christine-milne-20130926-2ufye.html">six senior members</a> from her 16-strong office, Christine Milne, the parliamentary leader of the Australian Greens, dismissed this as a fairly routine occurrence.</p>
<p>However, the mass exodus of staff from the office of the leader of a party is rarely without consequence in any workplace, let alone a political office.</p>
<p>In political offices, staff churn can be caused by a number of factors and events. </p>
<p>As Milne herself has been at pains to point out, there is a higher incidence of resignations from political offices in the aftermath of an election. Long and hectic working hours, and a Canberra-based location, can take a huge toll on the personal life of political staffers.</p>
<p>Then there are other less innocuous reasons that can precipitate a rash of departures. These can be triggered by staff discontent over disagreements about a leader’s strategic focus. It might indicate rancour and distrust between the leader and certain personnel, particularly when the workforce was inherited from the previous party boss. It can also signify a growing view among staff that there are fewer opportunities for advancement because the leader’s future is uncertain.</p>
<p>Whatever their reasons for quitting, the resignation of more than a third of Milne’s staff has proven to be a public relations problem for the Greens leader. In addition to representing a substantial drain of political expertise and skills from her office, the departures have exposed Milne to speculation that moves are afoot from within the party room (supported by sections of the upper echelons of the party organisation) to <a href="http://www.smh.com.au/federal-politics/milne-survives-push-to-axe-her-as-greens-leader-20130926-2uh2c.html">unseat her from the leadership</a>.</p>
<p>While leadership uncertainty and backroom party machinations are never a good look for a party, it comes at a particularly difficult time for the Greens in light of its recent electoral performance.</p>
<p>Notwithstanding the fact that the Greens <em>potentially</em> increased its parliamentary team by one (at the time of writing Scott Ludlam’s Senate seat was <a href="http://blogs.abc.net.au/antonygreen/2013/09/update-on-the-wa-senate-count.html#more">still in doubt</a>), its share of the nationwide primary vote took a battering: swings against of 3.11% and 4.48% in the House of Representatives and the Senate respectively.</p>
<p>While the size of the swing may seem fairly modest, it takes on a more ominous appearance when it is expressed as a proportion of the Greens primary vote overall. In the House of Representatives, slightly more than a quarter (26%) of those who voted for the party in 2010 chose not to do so in 2013, while in the Senate, the Greens received a third less votes than it did at the previous election.</p>
<p>A poor electoral showing, even in spite of retaining and winning seats, holds potential dangers for the Greens, both practical and symbolic.</p>
<p>The decline in its vote will affect the Greens financial position. At the federal level, parties are entitled to A$2.48 per vote in public funding if they achieve more than 4% of the primary vote. Vote losses matter not just because it makes it difficult to win seats but because it results in less public funding. Because of its reduced primary vote, the Greens can expect to receive significantly less public funding than it did in 2010. This will have a very real impact on the administrative operations of the Greens. </p>
<p>A poor electoral outcome can also dint a party’s confidence. It can breed angst among the membership, the apparatchiks, and the party room. As recent history can well attest, an anxious party is inclined to turn in on itself with disastrous consequences.</p>
<p>Importantly, the election result places the Greens in the invidious position of having to defend itself against the charge that it is a spent political and electoral force. The changed balance of power situation in the Senate from June 2014 would appear to give force to such a view, reducing the Greens’ importance in the legislative sphere. The problem with such talk is that it can become a self-fulfilling prophesy if not properly managed.</p>
<p>Milne has indicated that she intends to conduct a <a href="http://www.smh.com.au/federal-politics/political-news/greens-begin-soulsearching-over-big-drop-in-vote-20130923-2u98t.html">review of the party’s performance</a>. The review is unlikely to produce any changes to the party’s policy frameworks, largely because Milne believes that their policy fundamentals are sound. What is much more likely to occur, however, is that there will be a renewed push for internal organisational reform. </p>
<p>Pro-centralist forces within the Greens might attempt to use the opportunity of a review, and a poor electoral performance, to push for bolstering the power and authority of the national organisation at the expense of the state branches.</p>
<p>If this were to occur then the Greens may find that in organisational terms at least they are not as different from the mainstream parties as they want to believe.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/18640/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Narelle Miragliotta does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>When explaining the recent departure of six senior members from her 16-strong office, Christine Milne, the parliamentary leader of the Australian Greens, dismissed this as a fairly routine occurrence…Narelle Miragliotta, Senior Lecturer in Australian Politics, Monash UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/175242013-09-08T20:38:08Z2013-09-08T20:38:08ZElection 2013 brings a mixed result for the Greens<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/30923/original/5dk3bt67-1378615265.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">The Greens may have suffered a uniform swing against them overall, but they managed to retain their Senate and lower house representation.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">AAP/Joe Castro</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>In the final days of the election campaign, Greens leader Christine Milne implored voters to <a href="http://christine-milne.greensmps.org.au/content/media-releases/vote-green-abbott-proof-senate">“Abbott-proof”</a> the Senate by voting Green on election day.</p>
<p>Milne’s exhortation was, in many respects, an open admission that the Greens held out little hope of making any further electoral gains in the lower house, and that it was even facing a battle to retain seats in the Senate.</p>
<p>This was the first election that the Greens had much more to lose from the outcome than they stood to gain. The Greens were defending three Senate positions (Scott Ludlam, Peter Whish-Wilson and Sarah Hanson-Young), as well as Adam Bandt’s lower house seat of Melbourne. It had also set itself the ambitious target of securing an additional senator in Victoria (Janet Rice) and the ACT (<a href="http://www.news.com.au/national-affairs/simon-sheikh-letter-admits-four-years-in-alp/story-fn59niix-1226622987451">Simon Sheikh</a>).</p>
<p>But throughout much of 2013, the polling suggested that the Greens would not perform as strongly as they had in 2010. All signs indicated that it would be the profusion of right-of-centre minor parties that would cannibalise Labor’s collapsing primary vote, not the Greens. <a href="http://www.theaustralian.com.au/national-affairs/polling">Newspoll</a> put the Greens’ share of the national vote at anywhere between 9% and 10%.</p>
<p>The electoral hopes of at least three Greens incumbents also appeared to be in doubt because of a number of unfavourable preference decisions by competitor parties. The Liberals had come good on its threat to <a href="https://theconversation.com/the-power-of-liberal-preferences-how-will-it-impact-on-the-greens-17036">preference against the Greens</a>, which represented a blow to Bandt’s prospects for re-election. </p>
<p>In Western Australia (and in New South Wales), renegade WikiLeaks Party state organisations defied the express instructions of <a href="http://www.wikileaksparty.org.au/the-wikileaks-party-announces-independent-review/">the party’s National Council</a> and preferenced right-wing parties ahead of the Greens. This decision had the potential to scupper Ludlam’s re-election chances in WA. </p>
<p>In South Australia, independent senator Nick Xenophon’s decision to <a href="http://www.news.com.au/national-affairs/state-politics/nick-xenophon-to-preference-major-parties-ahead-of-greens/story-e6frgczx-1226698060592">direct his preferences to the major parties</a> over Hanson-Young didn’t bode well for her prospects.</p>
<h2>The results</h2>
<p>In the immediate aftermath of the result, Milne stood before the party faithful and expressed disappointment at the outcome. There can be little doubt that the election result was something of a mixed bag for the Greens.</p>
<p>If the criterion for assessing a party’s success is based on it being able to either increase or consolidate its primary vote, then the result for the Greens is poor indeed. This was the first time since 1998 that the Greens share of the nationwide primary vote not only failed to grow, but that it declined.</p>
<p>There was a nationwide swing of <a href="http://vtr.aec.gov.au/HouseStateFirstPrefsByParty-17496-NAT.htm">3.34%</a> against the Greens in the House of Representatives, with their primary vote falling to 8.42%. A little over half a million voters who had supported the Greens at the previous election deserted them. </p>
<p>Swings were registered against the Greens in every state and territory. Some of the severest were recorded in Green strongholds, such as Tasmania <a href="http://vtr.aec.gov.au/HouseStateFirstPrefsByParty-17496-TAS.htm">(8.73%)</a> and the ACT <a href="http://vtr.aec.gov.au/HouseStateFirstPrefsByParty-17496-ACT.htm">(5.95%)</a>.</p>
<p>There was also little joy to be found in the Greens’ Senate vote. Across every state and territory, the Greens’ primary vote took a battering (-4.39%). In Tasmania, the Greens recorded an 8.64% swing against them, while in South Australia its primary vote was almost halved (7.07% in 2013 compared to 13.30% in 2010).</p>
<p>But while the Greens’ primary vote floundered, there were some spectacular successes for the party. Bandt accomplished the herculean task of retaining the <a href="http://mirror-vtr.aec.gov.au/HouseDivisionFirstPrefs-17496-228.htm">seat of Melbourne</a>. Bandt recorded a 7.82% swing towards him in his primary vote, winning 43.41% of first preferences and 55.05% on a two-party preferred basis.</p>
<p>Similarly, at the time of writing, it <a href="http://www.abc.net.au/news/federal-election-2013/results/senate/">appears</a> that Whish-Wilson in Tasmania and Ludlam in WA will be re-elected without too much fuss, while Hanson-Young will likely be returned to the Senate. The Greens are poised to claim an additional Senate spot in Victoria, with the lead Senate candidate Janet Rice coming in just short of a full quota (0.7791) on primary votes. </p>
<p>It would seem that in spite of the collapse in Greens’ support in the Senate, the primary vote is sufficiently robust for the party to maintain a significant parliamentary presence.</p>
<h2>The challenges ahead</h2>
<p>Although the Greens are tipped to grow their parliamentary representation in the Senate, this is unlikely to translate into increased influence for the party in the upper house.</p>
<p>The most reliable estimates for the new Senate is that the balance of power will shift to various right-of-centre minor parties and independents. It has been reported that some of their numbers, <a href="http://www.abc.net.au/news/2013-09-06/senate-balance-of-power-may-fall-to-xenophon-bloc/4941858">led by Xenophon</a>, have commenced preliminary discussions to combine in the Senate in order to make more effective use of their balance of power status. There will be few if any opportunities for the Greens to exert influence over the government’s proposed legislation.</p>
<p>It isn’t simply that the Greens are at risk of being sidelined in the Senate, but that the Coalition government may move against those that oppose them. An Abbott Coalition, impatient for the 30 June 2014 Senate changeover, might pursue the option of a <a href="http://www.aph.gov.au/About_Parliament/House_of_Representatives/Powers_practice_and_procedure/00_-_Infosheets/Infosheet_18_-_Double_dissolution">double dissolution election</a> if the Greens (or Labor) block the Coalition’s plans to repeal the mining and carbon taxes. </p>
<p>If Milne <a href="http://www.themercury.com.au/news/special-features/labor-punished-wilkies-vote-surges-as-greens-support-slumps/story-fnji1hk4-1226714492641">is correct</a> and the electorate has taken a conservative turn, then it might be a disaster for the Greens to face the polls in the wake of an insurgent Liberal Party.</p>
<p>The other major challenge for the Greens will be to return its primary vote to double digits. This will be no easy feat for the party. In part, this is because most Australian voters have established partisan allegiances. Without a major realignment of the party system, it will be difficult for the Greens to diversify their base of support beyond their natural “post-materialist” constituency (estimated by some scholars to be around 10% of the electorate).</p>
<p>The Greens vote, it seems, may have reached its natural plateau. While this should not be interpreted as a sign that the Greens will go the way of the Democrats, it is a reminder of the fragile existence of minor parties in the Australian party system.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/17524/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Narelle Miragliotta is presently a visiting research associate in the Department of Political Science and International Relations at UWA. </span></em></p>In the final days of the election campaign, Greens leader Christine Milne implored voters to “Abbott-proof” the Senate by voting Green on election day. Milne’s exhortation was, in many respects, an open…Narelle Miragliotta, Senior Lecturer in Australian Politics, Monash UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/175332013-09-06T00:48:48Z2013-09-06T00:48:48ZFactCheck: does Australia have a gas supply crisis?<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/30660/original/ybrm9vms-1378265468.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">The Greens' leader Christine Milne speaking at the National Press Club, 4 September.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">AAP Image/Penny Bradfield</span></span></figcaption></figure><blockquote>
<p><strong>“I’ve yet to see any evidence that we have a [gas] supply crisis in Australia at all.” – Australian Greens’ leader Christine Milne, <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=pn7c78sVF7k">Fairfax Google+ hangout</a>, 26 August.</strong></p>
</blockquote>
<p>The Greens’ leader Christine Milne says there isn’t any evidence that we have a gas supply crisis in Australia. Her argument goes that without a supply crisis there’s no need to look into “unconventional” gas extraction options, such as <a href="https://theconversation.com/explainer-coal-seam-gas-shale-gas-and-fracking-in-australia-2585">coal seam gas (CSG)</a> or shale gas. </p>
<p>But it isn’t quite true to say there is no gas supply crisis in Australia. While most of our states have secured their gas energy supplies for the next decade, there is one with a looming supply problem – New South Wales.</p>
<p>Australia’s “proven and probable” reserves are estimated to be <a href="http://grattan.edu.au/static/files/assets/ba24a4e0/189_getting_gas_right_report.pdf">around 140,000 petajoules</a> - more than two-thirds of which is from “conventional” gas reservoirs, with the remainder from “unconventional” coal seam gas reserves on the east coast. </p>
<p>That total is enough to meet <a href="http://grattan.edu.au/static/files/assets/ba24a4e0/189_getting_gas_right_report.pdf">more than 70 years of gas demand</a> at current rates of production. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/30721/original/gtn2mrcz-1378339728.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/30721/original/gtn2mrcz-1378339728.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/30721/original/gtn2mrcz-1378339728.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=547&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/30721/original/gtn2mrcz-1378339728.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=547&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/30721/original/gtn2mrcz-1378339728.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=547&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/30721/original/gtn2mrcz-1378339728.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=687&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/30721/original/gtn2mrcz-1378339728.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=687&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/30721/original/gtn2mrcz-1378339728.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=687&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Australia’s gas pipelines and remaining resources, measured in petajoules (PJ)</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Geoscience Australia http://www.ga.gov.au/webtemp/image_cache/GA21116.pdf</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>With booming global demand for gas, Australia is ramping up its <a href="http://grattan.edu.au/static/files/assets/ba24a4e0/189_getting_gas_right_report.pdf">liquid natural gas (LNG)</a> exports - meaning much of our gas is destined to be shipped overseas. But what is good news for exporters is not necessarily good for all local consumers of gas, especially in NSW.</p>
<p>As the above map illustrates, NSW does not have any significant resources of “conventional” natural gas - that is, gas that can be extracted using traditional methods. Instead, its largest resources are of “unconventional” coal seam gas. (See explainer below on different types of gas.) </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/30835/original/46rwgmhb-1378425753.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/30835/original/46rwgmhb-1378425753.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/30835/original/46rwgmhb-1378425753.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=375&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/30835/original/46rwgmhb-1378425753.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=375&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/30835/original/46rwgmhb-1378425753.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=375&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/30835/original/46rwgmhb-1378425753.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=472&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/30835/original/46rwgmhb-1378425753.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=472&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/30835/original/46rwgmhb-1378425753.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=472&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Conventional vs non-conventional gas.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">The Grattan Institute, Getting Gas Right, June 2013.</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>So far, the NSW Government has been cautiously looking into the “unconventional” coal seam gas industry. Under intense pressure from environmental and community interest groups, NSW has the most stringent state regulatory controls in one of the most regulated countries in the world.</p>
<p>That has left NSW facing a contracted supply problem over the next few years, or possibly decades. </p>
<p>By 2017, gas from Queensland and Western Australian could create the world’s biggest gas export industry, worth a projected $53 billion a year to Australia. </p>
<p>In the meantime, long-term gas supply contracts in NSW will expire within three years, reducing to about 10% of current demand. In NSW, industry leaders, including Santos, Origin, AGL and the leading industry body, the <a href="http://www.appea.com.au/">Australian Petroleum Production and Exploration Association</a>, have all used submissions to the recently released government’s inquiry into coal seam gas to point out the looming crisis.</p>
<p>In this scenario of increasing demand in eastern Australia, unless NSW quickly secures future supplies, homes and businesses will suffer significant energy price increases. </p>
<p>Future supplies can be secured either through new but expensive contracts, or through ensuring local supply through development of its own state reserves. The second alternative is also relatively expensive in the short-term, but the long-term prospects of stabilising energy prices are much better. However, the current regulatory process in NSW is likely to extend the length of time for project approval from three to five years, meaning that no gas from new projects will be available in NSW until about 2020.</p>
<p>Ultimately, if gas is seen as the “cleaner alternative” transition energy to coal, the need for gas security in Australia will be a necessity for least half a century. In this scenario, the NSW crisis cannot be solved by securing gas energy from interstate through intermittent, increasingly expensive contracts.</p>
<h2>Verdict</h2>
<p>Christine Milne is partly right, in that Australia as a whole does not have a gas supply crisis, because we have abundant reserves. Yet it isn’t entirely true to say there is no gas supply crisis in Australia: our most populous state, NSW, does have a looming crisis as it has not secured its gas energy supply at a time of high global demand. The problem will be ongoing, potentially extending over decades, unless NSW overcomes the present coal seam gas impasse.</p>
<hr>
<h2>Review</h2>
<p>I broadly agree with this article, which raises a valid point regarding Australia’s natural gas prospects, rightly warning about the looming gas crisis in NSW. Moreover, it raises an important issue for Australia - that of domestic energy security - which is often overlooked in the political debate. This is unsurprising given that there is bipartisan support for an “exports first” policy. <strong>- Vlado Vivoda</strong></p>
<p><div class="callout">The Conversation is fact checking political statements in the lead-up to this year’s federal election. Statements are checked by an academic with expertise in the area. A second academic expert reviews an anonymous copy of the article.</div></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/17533/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Professor Bill Collins is Director of the NSW Institute for Frontiers Geoscience at the University of Newcastle. It is not funded by the CSG industry, nor has any research funding with companies affiliated with the industry. Prof Collins does not work for, consult to, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article. Professor Collins receives funding from the Australian Research Council</span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Vlado Vivoda receives funding from the ARC.</span></em></p>“I’ve yet to see any evidence that we have a [gas] supply crisis in Australia at all.” – Australian Greens’ leader Christine Milne, Fairfax Google+ hangout, 26 August. The Greens’ leader Christine Milne…Bill Collins, Director of the NSW Institute for Frontier Geoscience, University of NewcastleLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/123782013-02-25T19:41:51Z2013-02-25T19:41:51ZThe end of the ALP/Green alliance is all sound and fury<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/20559/original/7vyzbjvy-1361747716.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Australian Greens leader Senator Christine Milne called for an end to the ALP and Greens alliance during a National Press Club speech.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Alan Porritt/AAP</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>The termination of the ALP/Green alliance has been characterised by some sections of the <a href="http://www.theaustralian.com.au/national-affairs/a-divorce-to-be-celebrated/story-fn59niix-1226581468395">media</a> and the <a href="http://blogs.news.com.au/heraldsun/andrewbolt/index.php/heraldsun/comments/greens_drop_dying_labor/">commentariat</a> as a “divorce”. The language is interesting because it implies that there was genuine affection and closeness between the two parties at one time. The use of the word further conjures the notion that the Greens and the ALP, in signing the agreement, had intended to forge a permanent relationship.</p>
<p>However, the Greens and the ALP were only ever sober roommates. The two parties tolerated one another because circumstances dictated they must.</p>
<p>It is worth remembering that they were not formal coalition partners. The prosaically titled <a href="http://greens.org.au/sites/greens.org.au/files/Final%20Agreement%20_ALP_GRNS.pdf">The Australian Greens & The Australian Labor Party (ʹThe Partiesʹ) – Agreement</a> (Agreement) was only a temporary pact that would expire upon cessation of the 43rd Parliament.</p>
<p>Nor did the agreement alter the essential relationship between the two parties; they were and remain wholly separate organisations.</p>
<p>With the election date announced, the tearing up of the agreement was inevitable.</p>
<p>For all the mock indignation feigned by both camps, the ALP and the Greens needed to shake off the perception they were a conjoined entity.</p>
<p>Both parties, not to forget the independents, have been (somewhat absurdly) criticised for displaying partisanship over the past 125 weeks.</p>
<p>It seems that a significant proportion of the public has been unimpressed with the experiment in minority government. </p>
<p>This was borne out in the findings of a <a href="http://resources.news.com.au/files/2012/12/19/1226540/732194-121220-newspoll.pdf">Newspoll</a> survey conducted in late 2012. Only 13% of those surveyed thought that minority government had delivered “good government”. This compared to 47% of respondents who believed it had produced “worse” government, even if most of those who held a negative view identified as Coalition supporters.</p>
<p>Under these conditions, the voiding of the agreement allows both parties to distance themselves both from their highly pragmatic pact but, importantly, from one another. The end of this pact will actually be liberating for both parties.</p>
<p>The photo opportunity created by the announcement has provided the Greens with much needed oxygen at a time when its fortunes are flagging. To the extent that the polls are a reliable indicator of voting intentions, the most recent <a href="http://essentialvision.com.au/senate-voting-intention">Essential Poll</a> of Senate voting intentions in four states suggests that the Greens’ primary vote is, at best, stagnating.</p>
<p>It also allows the Greens to underline differences between their party and that of the ALP. In declaring Labor “<a href="http://christine-milne.greensmps.org.au/content/video/christine-milne-addresses-national-press-club">has walked away from its agreement with the Greens and into the arms of the big miners</a>”, Milne signalled to her supporters that the Greens have not been de-radicalised as a consequence of their pact with Labor.</p>
<p>Yet the Greens are not the only ones to benefit by walking away from the agreement. Milne’s sudden epiphany that Labor could not be trusted has reaped a pleasant harvest for the ALP.</p>
<p>This is especially true for Gillard. The media feeding frenzy that the announcement generated served to distract, even if only momentarily, any further speculation about a possible Rudd coup.</p>
<p>It has also allowed Labor MPs, such as <a href="http://www.abc.net.au/pm/content/2013/s3693853.htm">Anthony Albanese</a>, to go to war against the Greens without fear of compromising the stability of government.</p>
<p>One should get too carried away by the spectre of a political break-up. For better or for worse, the fate of both parties is intertwined.</p>
<p>The Greens are well aware that only the ALP is inclined to do deals with them. The Liberals appear to be seriously contemplating preferencing Labor ahead of the Greens, which will stymie the latter’s already slim hopes of winning any marginal Labor held seats, not to mention retaining Bandt’s seat of Melbourne.</p>
<p>Moreover, an Abbott coalition government will not look kindly upon the Greens in parliament. If Abbott is true to his word, he will happily trigger a <a href="http://www.theaustralian.com.au/national-affairs/tony-abbott-says-hell-call-double-dissolution-if-carbon-tax-isnt-repealed/story-fn59niix-1226309463036">double dissolution</a> election to avoid getting bogged down in negotiations with the Greens in the Senate.</p>
<p>A double dissolution election, even with the advantages of its much lower electoral quota, would not necessarily be desirable for the Greens. The Greens could very well be squeezed electorally by an Abbott government basking in the after glow of a likely honeymoon period, not to mention a resurgent ALP.</p>
<p>But Labor needs the Greens in equal measure. The collapse in Labor’s primary vote will mean they will be desperate for Green voter preferences. While Green voters are more independently minded in respect to the allocation of their preferences than most major party voters, it is still the case that Labor would be disadvantaged if the Greens issued an open how-to-vote card recommendation.</p>
<p>Given the Greens have pledged to continue to vote against no confidence motions and for supply bills in order for the parliament to continue until election day, the announcement that the agreement is terminated is nothing more than a circuit breaker for both parties. It simply allows declared enemies to resume hostilities without appearing two-faced.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/12378/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Narelle Miragliotta does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>The termination of the ALP/Green alliance has been characterised by some sections of the media and the commentariat as a “divorce”. The language is interesting because it implies that there was genuine…Narelle Miragliotta, Senior Lecturer in Australian Politics, Monash UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/122792013-02-20T19:36:10Z2013-02-20T19:36:10ZOrwellian climate double-speak dominating discussion<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/20442/original/qy2f4wb3-1361328584.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Newspeak and thoughtcrime have taken over the way we discuss climate change.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">tim rich and lesley katon</span></span></figcaption></figure><blockquote>
<p>In a time of universal deceit, telling the truth becomes a revolutionary act - George Orwell</p>
</blockquote>
<p>In George Orwell’s novel 1984, the term “<a href="http://www.newspeakdictionary.com/ns-prin.html">Newspeak</a>” conveys changes not only to the language but to the nature of thought itself, where “… the purpose of Newspeak was … to make all other modes of thought impossible … a heretical thought … should be literally unthinkable”.</p>
<p>Thought control is irreconcilable with the <a href="http://teacher.nsrl.rochester.edu/phy_labs/appendixe/appendixe.html">scientific method</a>. Since the 17th century, this method has hinged on the identification of empirical natural and human realities, using systematic observation, measurement, experiment, formulation and testing of hypotheses in an endeavour to construct an accurate representation of the world.</p>
<p>Inherently, the scientific method – which along with humanism forms the basis for the enlightenment, the <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Age_of_Enlightenment">age of reason</a> – poses a challenge to attempts at <a href="http://www.netcharles.com/orwell/articles/col-thoughtcrime.htm">thought control</a>.</p>
<p>In an Orwellian world, science itself would be deemed to constitute a “thoughtcrime”.</p>
<p>Currently much of the world is either denying, or not acting on, the ultimate warning science has issued to humanity. To spell out the warning: any major interference with the atmosphere-ocean-land carbon cycle threatens to erode the very <a href="http://www.reuters.com/article/2009/09/28/us-climate-science-idUSTRE58R3UI20090928">life support systems of the planet</a>.</p>
<p>Before the Neolithic and the development of Great River Valley <a href="http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/180468/ancient-Egypt#toc22283">civilisations</a> some 10,000 years ago, erratic climate severely hindered cultivation of crops. This meant our ancestors had to rely on hunting and gathering. Since 1750, humans have released some 560 billion tons of carbon (GtC) at the unprecedented <a href="http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v451/n7176/full/nature06588.html">rate of 2ppm/year</a>. More than 40% of this accumulates in the atmosphere, which signals the termination of stable climate. We have seen this manifested in a spate of <a href="http://www.nature.com/nclimate/journal/v2/n7/full/nclimate1452.html">extreme weather events</a>.</p>
<p>CO<sub>2</sub>‘s atmospheric residence times is <a href="http://geosci.uchicago.edu/%7Earcher/reprints/eby.2009.long_tail.pdf">1000 to 10,000 years</a>: current emissions are <a href="http://www.forbes.com/sites/michaeltobias/2013/01/16/the-ehrlich-factor-a-brief-history-of-the-fate-of-humanity-with-dr-paul-r-ehrlich/">condemning future generations</a> to impossible climate conditions.</p>
<p>The powers that be, bent on business as usual, have developed an Orwellian double-speak that attempts to circumvent the scientific message. Thus, while paying lip service to climate change they in fact allow and promote carbon emissions from coal, coal seam gas, oil shale and tar sands.</p>
<p>This has been highlighted by Christine Milne’s recent statements. Speaking at the <a href="http://greensmps.org.au/content/news-stories/christine-milne-addresses-national-press-club">National Press Club this week</a>, Senator Milne ended her party’s agreement with the Labor Party, at least in part because of their <a href="http://www.orwelltoday.com/dblspkthennow.shtml">double-speak</a> on climate change.</p>
<p>She pointed to the ALP’s cognitive dissonance by highlighting that:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>refusing to acknowledge the link between the intensity of .. extreme weather events and climate change; and the link between subsidising the mining and export of these fossil fuels and a four degree global temperature trajectory is studied ignorance.</p>
<p>Labor cannot have it both ways. They cannot argue that they take the climate science seriously and at the same time subsidise massive mining and export of fossil fuels to the tune of $10 billion knowing that they are condemning our children and their grandchildren to a world of conflict, scarcity and climate disaster.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>These developments echo <a href="https://theconversation.com/an-orwellian-climate-3243">an article</a> I wrote in September 2011, detailing political representatives using “Newspeak” to ignore the shift in state of the terrestrial atmosphere and its threat to future generations and to nature.</p>
<p>Recent policies and statements continue to ignore the reality indicated by climate science. For example:</p>
<ul>
<li><p>The carbon price, aiming at a 5% reduction in carbon emissions, has become a major political issue, but the infrastructure is built for annual export of over 1 billion tons of coal in the next few decades. In 2010, Australia became the world’s <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coal_in_Australia">fourth-largest coal producer</a>, after China, the United States, and India, exporting roughly 70% of coal production.</p></li>
<li><p>The notion of “sustainable growth”, implying open-ended growth on a finite planet with a thin vulnerable atmosphere, has acquired almost religious overtones among economists and politicians, who rarely consider social and economic realities in a world that is 4°C warmer. To date no government appears to have the courage to call for a reversal of this trend.</p></li>
<li><p>Rarely do political projections take global heating into account. For example the White Paper “<a href="http://asiancentury.dpmc.gov.au/white-paper/chapter-8">The Asian Century</a>” includes very few references to climate and how it will affect our interactions with Asia; nor what we will do about it. Nor does the <a href="http://www.betterschools.gov.au/review">Gonski report</a>, concerned with the future of children, contain too many references to what <a href="https://theconversation.com/future-under-threat-climate-change-and-childrens-health-9750">children will face</a> under a different climate.</p></li>
<li><p>Between 1988 and 2011 the world spent between $1 trillion and $1.6 trillion annually on the military (see Figure 1), and <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_military_expenditures">$1562 billion in 2012</a>, mostly on remote conflicts. Apart from the prodigious CO<sub>2</sub> emission by military hardware, such astronomical amounts of money are required for the defence of humans and species under a 4°C rise.</p></li>
</ul>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/20412/original/tpw3zj57-1361313316.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/20412/original/tpw3zj57-1361313316.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/20412/original/tpw3zj57-1361313316.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=542&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/20412/original/tpw3zj57-1361313316.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=542&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/20412/original/tpw3zj57-1361313316.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=542&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/20412/original/tpw3zj57-1361313316.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=681&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/20412/original/tpw3zj57-1361313316.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=681&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/20412/original/tpw3zj57-1361313316.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=681&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption"></span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">globalissues.org</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Attempts at either <a href="http://www.brisbanetimes.com.au/queensland/environment-ministers-climate-science-doubts-refreshing-20120605-1zthu.html">denying the science</a> or <a href="http://reneweconomy.com.au/2012/newman-takes-aim-at-climate-and-renewables-95574">belittling the consequences</a> of carbon emissions are <a href="http://www.brisbanetimes.com.au/queensland/climate-propaganda-on-lnp-summit-hit-list-20120712-21ygz.html">common</a>. Some call for politically-based <a href="http://www.abc.net.au/news/2011-08-15/liberal-climate-change-commission-ludicrous/2840070">inquiries</a> into climate science – unprecedented since Galileo.</p>
<p>Only rarely are the <a href="http://www.businessdictionary.com/definition/insurance-principle.html">precautionary and risk management principles</a> mentioned. Thankfully, there are those who see through the Newspeak. Ian Dunlop, former international oil, gas and coal industry executive <a href="http://www.aph.gov.au/Parliamentary_Business/Committees/Senate_Committees?url=ec_ctte/extreme_weather/submissions.htm">states in his submission to a Senate Committee on extreme weather</a>:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>Scenarios abound, setting out the implications of differing assumptions for the future of our children and grandchildren. All of which would be laudable were it not for the fact that the critical scenario, of accelerating climate change and resource scarcity, is deliberately ignored – apparently too scary for “political realism” to contemplate. Which is a nonsense, for the whole idea of scenarios is to prepare for the real, and increasingly likely, risks and opportunities which we face.</p>
</blockquote>
<p><a href="https://theconversation.com/milne-dumps-gillard-in-preparation-for-an-abbott-government-12305">Commentators</a> and <a href="http://www.abc.net.au/lateline/content/2013/s3694065.htm">politicians</a> are now discussing the politics of Christine Milne’s split from Labor. Isn’t it time they focussed on the more important issues she spoke of? Climate change is real, it is a serious threat, and it is time we talked honestly about what it will take to guard against it.</p>
<p>The criminal dimension of the current <a href="http://www.monbiot.com/2013/02/18/secrets-of-the-rich/">campaign to negate climate science</a> and <a href="http://www.climatedepot.com/a/19759/NASAs-James-Hansen-a-muse-to-EcoTerroristsWatch-Now-Morano-on-Fox-News-NASAs-resident-excon-James-Hansen-is-inspiring--these-people-to-potential-acts-of-eco-terrorism">defame climate scientists</a> will only be fully comprehended by our children and grandchildren, when it may be too late.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/12279/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Andrew Glikson does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>In a time of universal deceit, telling the truth becomes a revolutionary act - George Orwell In George Orwell’s novel 1984, the term “Newspeak” conveys changes not only to the language but to the nature…Andrew Glikson, Earth and paleo-climate scientist, Australian National UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/123052013-02-19T05:02:39Z2013-02-19T05:02:39ZMilne dumps Gillard in preparation for an Abbott government<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/20383/original/ynrr6qjh-1361241847.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Greens leader Christine Milne is focused on saving seats in the senate.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">AAP/Alan Porritt</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>The Labor caucus is still thinking about leadership, but Christine Milne and the Greens have given up spectacularly on Labor and Julia Gillard.</p>
<p>In her shock <a href="http://christine-milne.greensmps.org.au/content/news-stories/christine-milne-addresses-national-press-club">tearing up of the Greens’ alliance</a> with the government, Milne said bluntly, “the Australian community is saying they will support an Abbott government.”</p>
<p>Milne is now totally focused on trying to retain the Greens’ grip on the Senate balance of power, under threat if there is a strong vote for the conservatives at the election.</p>
<p>Like Labor, the Greens, in their own much smaller sphere, are under acute stress. There is a feeling they may have peaked, and that Milne will not have the same vote-pulling power as their former leader Bob Brown, the radical uncle of Australian politics.</p>
<p>The Greens won’t do anything to bring down the government - Milne affirmed they would guarantee supply and would not support a no-confidence motion. But they are competing hard with Labor for the voters on the left, with a stinging attack on the government’s alleged pandering to the miners. </p>
<p>“Labor, Liberal and Nationals have made their choice,” Milne declared. “It is for the big miners and the green light to environmental destruction.”</p>
<p>She reinforced recent attacks made by critics ranging from Kevin Rudd to the opposition on the 2010 Gillard-Swan deal with the big miners.</p>
<p>Fanning suspicions of dirty pool, she said: </p>
<blockquote>
<p>What is going on, when a prime minister and a treasurer get in the back room with three mining companies and stitch up a deal and … say that the elected representatives of that country can’t amend that deal, because it is a private deal in a back room … Even treasury have said they didn’t know what was stitched up in that back room.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>What difference will the stand by Milne and the Greens make for Gillard?</p>
<p>It adds to the feeling of instability abroad in Labor, just when Gillard needs some order. The first statement from her office was minimal. “This is a matter for Christine Milne and the Greens”, a spokesman said. “We will always be the party that puts jobs, growth and work first”.</p>
<p>Treasurer Wayne Swan said Labor and the Greens are “cut from a different cloth”. </p>
<p>“Labor doesn’t pander to special interests on our left or on our right,” he said. </p>
<p>This just undermined the original justification for the alliance in the first place.</p>
<p>The government has long worn the flak of being too close to the Greens. Some in Labor, including Kevin Rudd, believe the government should never have become formally entwined with the Greens.</p>
<p>But, as the relationship ends, Gillard is not the one in control. It’s Milne who ended the agreement, while squarely heaping the blame for the fracture on the government. </p>
<p>“What has become manifestly clear is that Labor by its actions has walked away from its agreement with the Greens and into the arms of the big miners,” she said.</p>
<p>“By choosing the big miners, the Labor government is making it clear to all that it no longer has the courage or the will to work with the Greens on a shared agenda in the national interest.”</p>
<p>Milne told the prime minister only shortly before publicly serving the divorce papers. Just to rub in the point, she declared “my door is open” to negotiations on pieces of legislation. The minor player was talking as though she was the dominant partner.</p>
<p>Any advantage that Gillard might reap from the new distance is countered by the fact that she is the dumped party. It’s another example of events running out of her control.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/12305/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Michelle Grattan does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>The Labor caucus is still thinking about leadership, but Christine Milne and the Greens have given up spectacularly on Labor and Julia Gillard. In her shock tearing up of the Greens’ alliance with the…Michelle Grattan, Professorial Fellow, University of CanberraLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/88542012-08-22T20:16:41Z2012-08-22T20:16:41ZChristine Milne: the economy must serve people and nature, not vice-versa<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/14287/original/w29s9nhz-1345011980.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption"></span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Greens MPs/Flickr</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>Christine Milne, Senator for Tasmania and leader of the Australian Greens, was a crucial part of the Multiparty Climate Change Committee that designed Australia’s Clean Energy Future package. Since taking over from long-time leader Bob Brown earlier this year, Senator Milne has focused on business and on rural and regional communities - not the Greens’ traditional strong points.</p>
<p>David Bowman, Professor of Environmental Change Biology at the University of Tasmania, spoke with Senator Milne about climate change, the triple bottom line, a new economy and whether there is really any point to the Greens.</p>
<p></p><hr>
<strong>David Bowman</strong> In two years time, the concentration of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere will be about 400 ppm. According to the Greens’ policy documents, the world should have an atmosphere with 350ppm. Many scientists think that we now probably have crossed very major thresholds which will have all sorts of unforseen and possibly unforseeable consequences. So really the question for a politician is, how do you prosecute your case if your opponents don’t believe in that?<p></p>
<p><strong>Christine Milne</strong> Well, we continue to do so, but it is extremely frustrating to know what you do know and to take the science seriously and to have people say to you that it’s wildly exaggerated, it’s not true, and so on, when they haven’t even tried to read the science. They’ve made a decision to reject or ignore the science because it suits their world view. </p>
<p>Denialism has much more to do about values and world view than it has to do with actually understanding the science. So we should have been using the social sciences a lot sooner than we have been to work out ways of talking to people’s value systems rather than to their intellectual capacity. </p>
<p>I went through a period where I became deeply despondent about the consequences of what’s going on with global warming, and my rational mind said to me, it’s too late, that we’re on a trajectory for four to six degrees of warming. But 350ppm is much better than 450; we argued the point through the Multiparty Climate Committee, because the $23 price is based on a 550ppm trajectory. If we’d gone with 450, the price would have been over $50, and they wouldn’t even countenance the idea of doing any Treasury modelling around what a price would need to be to deliver 350. </p>
<p>So I went through a very bleak phase of thinking we’re just not going to make it as a planet - well, the planet will make it, but how humans survive and how ecosystems survive is another thing. And I’ve gotten through that by just simply taking the view that one has to keep arguing for it and doing everything we can, because it will be better than it otherwise would have been. Your optimism has to be there. Maybe we will gain momentum if enough people get to that point. </p>
<p><strong>David Bowman</strong> How do you articulate a vision when, as far as I can tell, everything at the moment is about the fear of debt, the fear of costs, and - because it’s rained - it seems in Australia that climate change has just disappeared? You’re trying to take on two almost impossibly difficult arguments at once. One is to convince people of the seriousness of the global change problem. [The other is] an alternative economic model which just doesn’t seem to have any political support from anybody out there.</p>
<p><strong>Christine Milne</strong> In terms of the new economy, the problem in Australia is that it’s almost impossible to bring about a change in the order of things when the vested interests fight like partisans to keep their vested interests in place. Those who believe in the new order are only lukewarm in their support of the new order. [As Machiavelli says], humankind doesn’t believe in new things until they’re actually delivered. </p>
<p>When I took over the leadership, one thing I wanted to do was to build a constituency in progressive business. For the first time in Australia we now have a critical mass of businesses - most of them small and medium-scale businesses but nevertheless a critical mass - which depend collectively on embracing a low-to-zero carbon economy: everything from architects designing green buildings, new building product, town planners, energy efficiency, the renewables space to environmental health. </p>
<p>But they are terrified to speak out. They’re all terrified that if they speak out, and there is a change of government, that they will be punished accordingly, and that they will fail to gain access. That the government programs which benefit them - for example, the renewable energy target or the like - will be significantly changed to their detriment. </p>
<p><strong>David Bowman</strong> A lot of people talk about - disparagingly - green tape, as being a barrier to investment and possibly a barrier to innovation. How can the Greens deal with those tensions of a mixed economy, of the state knowing best, versus the fact that the market is able to find novel solutions?</p>
<p><strong>Christine Milne</strong> It’s going to be a mixture always. Where we’ve gone wrong - the global financial crisis - it occurred not because of over-regulation but because of deregulation. There is a place for regulation and there is a place for the market, and the Greens have argued that strongly. That’s why I support emissions trading and don’t support Tony Abbott’s direct action plan - it just won’t deliver.</p>
<p>I am totally opposed to this nonsense of green tape. That is just a clever use of words to imply that environmental regulation is somehow hindering the ability to do business. Environmental regulation is actually protecting what is a public asset in the interests of the community. And what you’ve got business now doing, where they’re trying to get rid of environmental regulation, it’s because they want to do things which clearly are unsustainable.</p>
<p>We will be campaigning strongly coming into the Federal election to maintain levels of environmental protection that are consistent with the challenge of the century: sustainability. It is about slowing down the extraction of non-renewable resources and making the use of those non-renewable resources more efficient by pricing them more effectively.</p>
<p><strong>David Bowman</strong>: Are Green parties logical? Wouldn’t it be ultimately better not to have a Greens party but just to have very strong environmental principles in all political parties? Do you see the Greens as just a transitional stage, rather than really a significant new development politically?</p>
<p><strong>Christine Milne</strong> We have said for years that if the others became serious environmentalists then there would be less appeal as far as a Greens party is concerned. </p>
<p>But actually I think it’s become a fundamental difference. The Liberal and Labor parties in the Australian context - but it’s pretty much similar globally - emerged at a period when the Earth was free. There was a view in both sides of politics that the planet had an infinite capacity to give up resources, and an infinite capacity to absorb waste. </p>
<p>The politics emerged out of who should maximise the benefit from the transition of those free resources and dumping into atmosphere and ocean. Conservative parties took the view that those who owned the capital - the capacity to transform - had more of a right to the profits. And the workers became organised on the basis that they had a reasonable right to a share in the profits. But they are both taking the view that the Earth is free and infinite. </p>
<p>The Greens emerged in the 1970s, when there was beginning to be strong recognition that the Earth was not infinite in its capacity to give up resources or absorb waste. Out of that came the Brundtland Report. They came out of [the Brundtland process] basically saying there are only two real things - people and nature - and it is the interaction of those two that have to be sustainable. Economic tools have to better guarantee a sustainable relationship between the two. </p>
<p>How did we end up with economics suddenly having equivalence with people and nature? Brundtland went to the World Bank, and when it came out of the World Bank it came out as a triangle. Then you always had society and economy trading off against environment. And that has been the politics out of the whole sustainability debate for the last 20 years of the last century and the first decade of this one.</p>
<p>For the Greens, the sustainability of the planet as a home for us is central. You protect your environment as the basis for a sustainable society, one that is just and peaceful and so on. For both the Republicans and the Democrats in the US, for the Coalition and Labor in Australia and the same in the UK, the environment is just an add-on, they don’t get it as a central, absolutely underpinning feature. </p>
<p>The other parties do not have the same philosophical view or even <em>a</em> philosophical view about the environment underpinning everything else. They’re never going to be able to approach these issues with the integrity the Greens do and that’s why the Greens are growing this century.</p>
<p><strong>David Bowman</strong> What is the balance between aspiration and ideology versus the pragmatics of politics? Do you think the Greens really want to be in these balance of power situations? Isn’t it a much more ideologically pure state to just be outside and having visions of how the world could be, rather than the grubby mechanics of how the world is?</p>
<p><strong>Christine Milne</strong> Getting balance of power is much more important because you can actually deliver outcomes. The only reason we’ve got a clean energy package implemented in Australia is because the Greens got balance of power in both houses in the Federal Parliament last election. Both major parties went into that election saying they were not going to price carbon in this period of government, and it was only because of the agreement with the Greens that the Multiparty Climate Committee was set up and that we got the outcome that we did. </p>
<p>This is the first time in Australian politics where we’ve actually implemented what I would call an ecological financial arrangement. We are pricing pollution at $23 a tonne. People who had a $6000 tax-free-threshold, now it’s $18,200. Now there’ll be an awful lot of students around Australia and a lot of people working part time who probably didn’t earn more than 30-odd thousand or maybe 35 working part time, they will now get $18,000 of that tax free. So what a good outcome for the planet! We start getting pollution down and we start getting the pressure taken off people who are trying to make a different contribution. </p>
<p>The periods outside balance of power are when you do the work on the policy detail so that the minute you are in a position to implement it you actually know what to do.</p>
<p><strong>David Bowman</strong> Tony Abbott seems to be staking his political credibility on the fact that he wants to abolish the carbon tax. So isn’t that a high-risk - because what would be the global significance of that, if these achievements are actually ultimately turn out to be reversed?</p>
<p><strong>Christine Milne</strong> Well, it would be a terrible setback for a transition to a low-carbon, zero-carbon economy if the whole clean energy package was reversed, not only in Australia but yes I think there would be a significant flow-on effect - people around the world would throw up their hands. But you see I don’t think it’s going to happen.</p>
<p>The trouble for the Coalition is, where are they going to get the money? They say they are committed to a 5% reduction in emissions and they say they’re going to do it with their direct action plan. Now they’ve already said they’re not going to pursue the mining tax, so that’s going, and they’re not going to charge polluters for the pollution. So where is Tony Abbott getting the money from to pay the polluters? </p>
<p>The latest poll is saying people are going, “what was all that [the carbon tax uproar] about then? It hasn’t affected me at all, much”. Abbott has changed his position in the last couple of weeks and the focus is now not so much on carbon pricing, it’s gone back to “can you trust the government?”. So it’s gone back to integrity issues rather than carbon pricing because he’s not making way on carbon pricing. So I don’t think you’re going to see the Coalition going into next year without having significantly changed its position.</p>
<p>I think that many of the reforms we’ve achieved in this period of government - things like the Parliamentary Budget Office - those kinds of reforms will stay, and they’re there because of the Greens.</p>
<p><strong>David Bowman</strong> So almost in conclusion, you’re arguing that the Greens are a reformist party rather than a revolutionary party?</p>
<p><strong>Christine Milne</strong> Absolutely, we’re a reformist party. We’re going back to basics in terms of what is real on the planet. People and nature are real, the rest are constructs. Those constructs can be changed, and economic tools have to be changed in order for people and ecosystems to survive.</p>
<p><em>The full transcript of David and Christine’s interview is available <a href="https://theconversation.com/christine-milne-in-conversation-full-transcript-8847">here</a>. In addition to what you’ve read, they discuss: genetically modified crops; land grabs in the developing world; how locally based agriculture can provide food security; uranium mining and nuclear waste disposal; how Tasmania could have (and maybe still can) provided a model for a post-resource Australia based on brains and high-quality products; how the tax arrangements from the clean energy bills are funding green buildings; the Coalition’s quiet backdown on the NBN; and how convening a panel of experts can help a government change its mind while saving face.</em></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/8854/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>David Bowman receives research funding from the ARC, TERN, NASA and NERP.</span></em></p>Christine Milne, Senator for Tasmania and leader of the Australian Greens, was a crucial part of the Multiparty Climate Change Committee that designed Australia’s Clean Energy Future package. Since taking…David Bowman, Professor, Environmental Change Biology, University of TasmaniaLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/88472012-08-22T20:16:33Z2012-08-22T20:16:33ZChristine Milne In Conversation: full transcript<p><strong>David Bowman</strong> What I wanted to ask you is, in two years time, the concentration of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere will be about 400 ppm. According to the Greens’ policy documents, the world should have an atmosphere with 350ppm. Many scientists think that we now probably have crossed - or are in the process of crossing - very major thresholds which will have all sorts of unforseen and possibly unforseeable consequences. So really the question for a politician is, how do you prosecute your case if your opponents don’t believe in that?</p>
<p><strong>Christine Milne</strong> Well, we continue to do so, but it is extremely frustrating to know what you do know and to take the science seriously and to have people say to you that it’s wildly exaggerated, it’s not true, and so on, when they haven’t even tried to read the science, they’ve made a decision to reject or ignore the science because it suits their world view. And it’s not about the science anymore, and I think all climate scientists have realised that too, and I think we in the environment movement and the broader science community realised it too late, that denialism has much more to do about values and world view than it has to do with actually understanding the science. So we should have been using the social sciences a lot sooner than we have been to work out ways of talking to people’s value systems rather than to their intellectual capacity. So we’re just coming to that now. <a href="https://theconversation.com/profiles/graeme-pearman-4465">Graeme Pearman</a> was the first of the leading scientists around Australia that I had contact with that started to recognise we need to get involved with the social sciences, and he’s been doing a lot in that regard.</p>
<p>I first came across this back in 2002, when I went to a global biodiversity meeting in the Cook Islands. And I was chairing a session on global warming, and a couple of scientists got up and talked about likely impacts on coral reefs, likely impacts on sea level rise, saltwater incursion into freshwater lenses, you know all the issues facing the Pacific essentially. And then the local person who was the environmental campaigner on global warming got up to speak and he just said, look the problem here is that the community here in the Cook Islands are extremely religious. They’ve inherited their views from the London missionary society, and they go to church every Sunday, and they are told that this is the beginning of the Second Coming, that there’s extreme weather events, that all these changes are consistent with the Biblical interpretation of the Second Coming, and therefore when you say to them we have to do all these things to stave off global warming, they go, “ah, no, bring it on, we’re on our way to Paradise”. I thought, I don’t know how to deal with this - I don’t know how to respond to people if they’re going to respond to me like that. So I came back to Australia and I talked to people then in the World Council of Churches, saying that this is a values system, it’s a values argument, it’s not to do with the science. So we need the churches to return with an alternative, which is the stewardship story, and that is essentially the Gospel story of we are charged with stewardship of the Earth and if we fail in that, we’re all not going to heaven. Because if we’re going to have a contested view about whether we’re going to heaven or not, you have to talk about it in the same context.</p>
<p>So coming back to the politics, I went through a period where I became deeply despondent about the consequences of what’s going on with global warming, and my rational mind said to me, it’s too late, that we’re on a trajectory for four to six degrees of warming, and this is the critical decade, the scientists were all saying, global emissions have to peak by 2015 and start coming down or we’ve got no hope. 350ppm is much better than 450; we argued the point through the Climate Committee, the multiparty Climate Committee, because the $23 price is based on a 450 - sorry, a 550ppm trajectory, if we’d gone with the 450, the price would have been over $50, and they wouldn’t even countenance the idea of doing any Treasury modelling around what a price would need to be to deliver 350. So I went through a very bleak phase of thinking we’re just not going to make it as a planet - well, the planet will make it, but how humans survive and how ecosystems survive is another thing.</p>
<p>And I’ve gotten through that by just simply taking the view that one has to keep arguing for it and doing everything we can, because it will be better than it otherwise would have been. So I just take the view that anything you can do is better than it otherwise would have been, and you have to hope. Your optimism, if you like, has to be there. That in the course of doing that, just maybe we will gain momentum if enough people get to that point. </p>
<p>But your rational mind tells you it’s pretty frustrating, and I look at the others and I think, how can they face their children and their grandchildren, knowing full well if they actually embraced the science… I get really angry with people like <a href="https://theconversation.com/climate-change-and-the-soothing-message-of-luke-warmism-8445">Bjorn Lomberg</a> and others who profit from denialism, and just change their story every five years or so to stay close enough to a rational position to be able to continue to make money out of it, when he’s been in my view just like the tobacco industry. Knows full well from the beginning what the story is but there is a view that needs to be prosecuted by the vested interests, and their associates in the media, and they will find people like him and in the Australian context like Bob Carter and others, who they’ll give equal column inches space to as they do to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change.</p>
<p><strong>David Bowman</strong> But one of the questions which sort of feed from that is how do you build a constituency of interest without terrifying people into catatonia? But also, how do you articulate a vision when, as far as I can tell, everything at the moment is about the fear of debt, the fear of costs, and - because it’s rained - it seems in Australia that climate change has just disappeared. So as a politician, how do you - it seems to me you’re almost involved in some sort of asymmetrical warfare, where you’re trying to take on two almost impossibly difficult arguments at once. One is to convince people of the seriousness, the magnitude of the global change problem, and also the fact that you’re trying to articulate an alternative economic model which just doesn’t seem to be - doesn’t really seem to have any political support from anybody out there much, as far as I can tell.</p>
<p><strong>Christine Milne</strong> Yes, fair enough, and it’s a huge challenge for us, of course it’s a huge challenge for us. On the first one, I think the mistake that the broad environment/climate community made was to think we can’t keep talking about the real impacts of global warming because that will frighten people and then they will go into a state of inaction and retreat to their backyard makeover because that’s something they can do. They can grow some of their own vegetables in their backyard and feel like they’re in control of the situation - they don’t have to face the big picture. </p>
<p>So a lot of people went to that, and a lot of the environment groups, and they’ve just gone out there with the positive story. A positive story about we can do 100% renewable energy, or we can do a particular activity in a particular place. A positive message, but not directly related to the climate message. I’ve always argued that that is a mistake, because you have to link it to - this is the problem and this is the solution, because otherwise the problem just gets disconnected. But that is what’s happened, and a lot of the groups have gone out and done that, and so that connection has been lost.</p>
<p>In terms of the new economy, the problem in Australia is that it’s the Machiavelli problem (you know, he identified in the 15th century and it’s just as true today) and that is that, it’s almost impossible to bring about a change in the order of things when the vested interests fight like partisans to keep their vested interests in place. Whereas those who believe in the new order are only lukewarm in their support of the new order, because - he says “mankind” - humankind doesn’t believe in new things until they’re actually delivered. And I think that’s true and one of the things - that’s why I said when I took over the leadership that one thing I wanted to do was to build a constituency in progressive business, because for the first time in Australia we now have a critical mass of businesses - most of them small and medium-scale businesses but nevertheless a critical mass - which depend collectively on embracing a low-to-zero carbon economy, and accelerating our changed behaviour in terms of sustainability. So there’s a whole range of them, in everything from architects designing green buildings, new building product, town planners, energy efficiency, the renewables space, environmental health, all kinds of areas now all depend on this. </p>
<p>But, they are terrified to speak out, and I’ve spoken to them all recently, things like Sustainable Business Australia, last week I spoke - opened a solar conference. And there were hundreds - I don’t know, probably nearly a thousand people - at the Clean Energy Week over the week, all need this. All terrified that if Abbott gets in, he might dismantle this, because it’s essential for their business. So I say to them, why aren’t you out there ringing up the radio stations, writing letters, putting out press releases, saying, we need this and Tony Abbott is undermining so many jobs in my energy efficiency business or my green architecture business or my whatever. And it’s because they’re afraid, and this is part of the culture of Australian politics, that if they speak out, and there is a change of government, that they will be punished accordingly, and that they will fail to gain access. That the government programs which benefit them - for example, the renewable energy target or the like - will be significantly changed to their detriment. </p>
<p>So there is a real lack of, I would say, political courage, from the new and progressive business sector, for all sorts of reasons, but I understand those reasons - they are real reasons for them, it’s not imaginary. But that’s our job. There is a critical mass of people across the community who want to make changes, and there’s a critical mass of business, but it’s now about them having the political courage to get organised.</p>
<p><strong>David Bowman</strong> So what you’re speaking about is the confluence of industry and government, which is sort of a mixed economy. So how do you think the Greens are able to negotiate the fact that - the tension between top-down regulation and the capacity of market to innovate? A lot of people talk about - disparagingly - green tape, as being a barrier to investment and possibly a barrier to innovation. And parenthetically, if you look at the Green policies, one of the tensions I suspect which will emerge is that there are some technologies which are challenging, which may in fact be critical for the survival of civilisation, such as GMOs. They may in fact be the thing that’s going to put food on the table for nine billion people. So how can the Greens deal with those tensions of a mixed economy, of the state knowing best, versus the fact that the market’s able to find novel solutions?</p>
<p><strong>Christine Milne</strong> It’s going to be a mixture always, and where we’ve gone wrong, the global financial crisis, occurred not because of over-regulation but because of deregulation. So if you go back and see what happened, it was essentially that decision to take away the separation between investment banking and the rest, and to let them all merge together, that led to a lot of the problems that we got with the whole global financial system. </p>
<p>So there is a place for regulation and there is a place for the market, and the Greens have argued that strongly. That’s why I support emissions trading and don’t support Tony Abbott’s direct action plan that he’s got in place - it just won’t deliver. So there’s room for both. </p>
<p>I am totally opposed to this nonsense of green tape. That is just a clever use of words to imply that environmental regulation is somehow hindering the ability to do business. Environmental regulation is actually protecting what is a public asset in the interests of the community as a result of a long time of campaigning and work by people to get decent environmental regulation in place. And what you’ve got business now doing, where they’re trying to get rid of environmental regulation, it’s because they want to do things which clearly are unsustainable, and that’s why you’ve got a massive push from the resource based industries, particularly in Queensland, to build this huge port development up the Queensland coast, and you’ve got all that push to undermine the World Heritage protection framework to dump spoil into the reef and the rest of it. So we will be campaigning strongly, I can tell you, in the next 12 months coming into the Federal election to maintain levels of environmental protection that are consistent with the challenges of the century, and the challenge of the century is sustainability, and that is about slowing down the extraction of non-renewable resources and making the use of those non-renewable resources more efficient by pricing them more effectively. That goes in terms of the use of the resource and indeed the pollution as an offshoot of that resource.</p>
<p>In terms of the technologies that you have suggested may or may not be part of the solution, GMOs have not demonstrated to date that the claims that they’ve made have in any way come to fruition. So we’ve already had the claims of golden rice and solving the world’s hunger through GMOs, and all we’ve got is Monsanto and the like pushing very strongly to get rid of regulation, particularly in terms of labelling. And they’re trying to do that currently through the Transpacific Partnership Agreement, to overturn any kinds of regulation and labelling in the Australian context if that gets up. And what they’ve done is of course exchange one set of costs - input costs to farmers - with another. So they go to GMOs but then they have a whole range of chemicals that they happen to produce that they will then require to use in the same context. And then you go to the terminator gene and all the other problems associated with it.</p>
<p>The latest report from the Food and Agriculture Organisation, The World Bank, that came out in 2008, basically saying that if you’re serious about sustainability in an age of climate change, accelerating global warming, then we need to make sure there’s local resilience in food production systems, and that the increase in productivity has to come from the global South and not from the global North. That means maintaining local control over the capacity to produce food, and local ecosystems and the like. And that’s why I’ve got such a - take such a strong position on the land grabs that are going on around the planet, and seeing countries like China and the Saudis, the Qataris etc, moving in massively into Africa, buying up large tracts of land from often corrupt governments or militias who’ve displaced local people and then they sell their land before the people can even come back, and we’re going to end up with local people displaced from their land unable to grow their own food. </p>
<p>So I think we’ve almost seen the pendulum swing to the extreme on some of those technologies and we’re going to see it come back now where people are recognising that more biologically consistent systems in agriculture are going to be cheaper and more resilient in the face of global warming and that’s what we have to be doing. And our role in that in Australia is not just in producing food for global markets. Our role is also capacity building in many of those global south countries where we can use the expertise we’ve developed through CSIRO and other organisations to assist them to maximise local productions and maintain their own genetic diversity and not end up with just broadscale agriculture as we’ve practised it.</p>
<p><strong>David Bowman</strong> So you could argue that the emissions trading scheme is actually just globally symbolic because we’re not going to be able to detect a change in the concentration of CO2. So can you imagine the Greens embracing more heterodox - I guess the question which I think is going to confront environmentalists is that because the world is very rapidly changing and we’re going to have to innovate, we’re going to have to open our minds to alternatives, and maybe make opportunities to make global statements. </p>
<p>One of the things that bothers me is that Australia has been an exporter of uranium. We are ideally situated to take that waste back and many industries have a cradle-to-grave perspective. Do you think the Greens could ever alter their perspective on our relationship with the nuclear industry, even if we don’t have a nuclear energy capacity, but to actually take responsibility for the nuclear waste which we’ve created over the last 30 years?</p>
<p><strong>Christine Milne</strong> Well my view is we shouldn’t be exporting uranium in the first place, therefore we oughtn’t be taking back the waste. We oppose the Muckaty waste dump, as you know, for that reason.</p>
<p><strong>David Bowman</strong> But there’s 30 years of waste.</p>
<p><strong>Christine Milne</strong> That’s right. And there should have been the consultation and so on that was promised in relation to finding a solution - well, there’ll never be a solution as such, but - to resolve the issue of storage. But from our point of view the best thing to do with uranium is leave it in the ground. And in my view in terms of fossil fuels the same thing applies. </p>
<p>I read some figures recently where we’ve got less than 600 gigatonnes of carbon dioxide to atmosphere left if we’re going to meet the carbon budget (that even gets us supposedly under two degrees, though there’s some debate about that). But if you look at the reserves of fossil fuels in terms of coal, oil and gas, it’s over 2000 gigatonnes. So on that basis, if we’re to save ourselves, then 80% of the reserves that are currently in the share price of the fossil fuel companies have to be written off. Something like $20-30 trillion dollars worth of asset value to be written off. So I mean they’re the kind of realities we have to face up to.</p>
<p>But in terms of uranium, there’s absolutely no need for us to be exporting it. We’ve opposed the new mines, we continue to oppose the new mines, and we’re not going to countenance that. But we’ve opposed Muckaty because there was never a proper process, that was just imposed on those people.</p>
<p><strong>David Bowman</strong> So just one of the questions which has been topical - if we take a very global view as we’ve been taking - the Greens party also necessarily has a whole lot of social policies. And you could argue that in fact, are Green parties logical? Wouldn’t it be better to have mainstream political parties which are dealing with the vexatious philosophical issues of social organisation which always will remain? They’re possibly intractable and something humans have to grapple with because they are ultimately value based: wouldn’t it be ultimately better not to have a Greens party but just to have very strong environmental principles in all political parties? So do you see the Greens as just a transitional stage, rather than really a significant new development politically?</p>
<p><strong>Christine Milne</strong> Well we have said for years that if the others became serious environmentalists then there would be less appeal as far as a Greens party is concerned. But actually I think it’s become a fundamental difference, and the reason is this: that the Liberal and Labor parties in the Australian context - but it’s pretty much similar globally - both emerged at a period when the Earth was free. There was a view in both sides of politics that the planet had an infinite capacity to give up resources, and an infinite capacity to absorb waste, so we could pump as much waste to ocean and atmosphere as we liked, and we could keep extracting resources. </p>
<p>And so that was taken as read - the Earth is free as a source of resources and a source of waste dumping. The politics emerged out of who should maximise the benefit from the transition of those free resources and dumping into atmosphere and ocean. And of course the conservative parties took the view that those who owned the capital, if you like - the capacity to transform - had more of a right to the profits from that. And the workers became organised on the basis that they had a reasonable right to a share in the profits of what is engendered. But they are both taking the view that the Earth is free and infinite. </p>
<p>And they still do, and that’s where fundamentally the Greens are different, and neither of the others will take that on. So that is why for them the environment is an add-on. It’s just another part of a suite of policies, it doesn’t actually underpin where they come from, it’s just another part of a suite of policies.</p>
<p>Whereas for the Greens, we emerged in the 1970s at a period when there was beginning to be a strong recognition that the Earth was not infinite in its capacity to give up resources or absorb waste. This was the period of course of the Club of Rome, and so there was a lot of recognition at that point that the Earth is actually finite, it has a finite capacity in this regard. And therefore everything depends on the ability of the planet to sustain a human population and the broader ecological integrity, and there has to be a major rethink about our engagement. </p>
<p>Out of that came the Brundtland Report. I spoke to one of the people who was central to the Brundtland Report, and I said to him, how did we ever end up in situation where you had society, economics and environment? Because out of Brundtland, they came out of it basically saying there are only two real things - people and nature - and it is the interaction of those two that have to be sustainable, and the economic tools have to be tools that actually better guarantee a sustainable relationship between the two. How did we end up with economics suddenly having equivalence with people and nature, which are two real things, whereas economics is a conceptual tool? And he said that basically it came out of Brundtland and went to the World Bank, and when it came out of the World Bank it came out as a triangle. </p>
<p>Now I didn’t know that, and it really makes a lot of sense to me, because the minute it came out of the World Bank as a triangle and so you had the three things, then you always had society and economy trading off against environment. And that has been the politics out of the whole sustainability debate for the last 20 years of the last century and the first decade of this one. Whereas if we’d actually ended up out of Brundtland with a recognition that really you’ve only got people and nature - we’re actually part of the same thing but for the point of argument we’re separating them - and therefore you had to redesign the economic tools better to do sustainability we’d be a lot further down the track.</p>
<p>But what I’m saying is, for the Greens, because protection of - the sustainability of the planet as a home for us - is central to us, then you have that as completely the central focus. You build on that, so you protect your environment as the basis for a sustainable society, one that is just and peaceful and so on. So your four pillars of the Greens are ecological integrity (of course), social justice, peace and non-violence, and participatory democracy, and so that’s fundamental. </p>
<p>The others don’t get it. And that’s why you will have - you do have - a global financial crisis and you have every world leader on a plane heading to where they have to head immediately, we have to have emergency action, we have to have billions spent on stimulus and so on because we’ve got to save the economy. But we go into Copenhagen, we go into Cancun and then Durban, and we’ve just come out of Rio, and half the world leaders can’t be bothered going, and those who do go come out with some pretty pathetic statement that they might try somehow to do something. So we’ve now got a situation where out of Durban they agreed that by 2015 they would try to get to a global agreement that would take agreement after 2020. </p>
<p>So you see what I’m saying - that for the other - for both the Republicans and the Democrats in the US, for the Coalition and Labor in Australia and the same in the UK, the environment is just an add-on, they don’t get it as a central, absolutely underpinning feature. And that’s why they can keep saying, oh the fires and the droughts in the US this year, terrible terrible, but they’re kind of one-off - except they’ve broken every record nearly across the US in terms of temperatures - we’ve just had the Arctic ice retreat at historic rates, right across the planet, but yet they continue to talk about this as if it’s one off. And then you can have Campbell Newman standing up in Queensland saying that Queensland should be able to keep all their royalties etc from their coal, but of course the nation had a responsibility of a flood levy to help them when they accelerate global warming and they get massive cyclones and floods, but really, there’s a complete disconnect. You had Peter Beattie stand up and say he wanted to massively expand coal mining and build a new set of cyclone shelters down the Queensland coast, and people thought that was a reasonable kind of proposition, except the cyclone shelters never got built. </p>
<p>So that’s the difference, and that’s why I say, because the other parties do not have the same philosophical view or even <em>a</em> philosophical view about the environment underpinning everything else, they’re never going to be able to approach these issues with the integrity the Greens do and therefore that’s why the Greens are growing this century.</p>
<p><strong>David Bowman</strong> But let’s consider Tasmania. Some commentators see Tasmania as a basket case, as a joke, because its resource exploitation stage has been passed, pretty much. So how would the Greens be able to convince people that Tasmania is in fact ahead of the game? Because isn’t that what you’re describing - a lower amount of economic activity, less capacity to really generate more revenue from resource exploitation at least - so Tasmania is struggling and in fact the politics are that they’re wanting more of a slice of the pie from resource exploitation on the mainland, rather than saying - I mean, how can the Greens convince people that Tasmania is a good situation?</p>
<p><strong>Christine Milne</strong> We can’t. And I’d be the first one to say that, and in fact it proves the point. From the early - after the Wesley Vale campaign, 1989, and I was elected to the Parliament, I argued then that the future for Tasmania was not in the resource-based sector, that we had to make the transition out of the resource-based sector, into a brains, knowledge and service based economy, that the idea was to protect the environment and to build on the reputational value of genuine protection of the environment, get out of bulk commodity markets and go to high-value, low-volume markets, partly because of our isolation and the costs of freight, and partly because of the scale and the nature of the population. And that in that transition from a resource base to a brains-knowledge-information-skills based society, we needed to completely change the way we thought about things. </p>
<p>Proximity to Antarctica was important, to make this as a hub for Antarctic services; to look at being able to attract those people who in the new computer-based age - and things have accelerated massively in the last 20 years in this regard - but bring people to Tasmania who needed a creative environment in which to work, so all your innovators. So this really came from my thinking at the time with IBM. IBM then was saying to its workers in the US, “where in the US do you want to live?”. Because IBM realised that its competitive advantage was its human resource, and if it was going to compete against the others, it had to keep them, so they needed to ask their best brains, their best people, where do you want to live in the United States and we’ll set up there. And they overwhelmingly said Vermont, so they went to Vermont for that reason.</p>
<p>At the same time I went to Sophia Antipolis in the south of France. And what they did was say, OK how can we hit in France some of our best brands and some of our best industries when the wage structure here is such that we can’t pay them as well they would get elsewhere in Europe and Scandinavia or in the [United] States at that time. And so what they did was think, well this is the south of France – a lot of people want to live in the south of France – so what can we offer that other places can’t? And so they put up a satellite so they got the fastest data transmission at that time and attracted a whole lot of financial … Air France and others that depended on fast data transfer to establish themselves and they had really innovative structures.</p>
<p>So I argued in the early 1990s that there was no future in native forest woodchipping, that it would be dead as an industry by the end of the 1990s, that Tasmania couldn’t go on as it did, that we needed a massive investment in education and training. So protect the environment, massively invest in education and training, reposition ourselves in terms of the Antarctic, actually rethink this. And I brought out the Tasmanian business and industry strategy called “Clean, Green and Clever”. And essentially that is the model that the successful businesses in Tasmania have taken up. </p>
<p>So when you look around the state at our agricultural industry, we’ve become the epicure state of Australia. And that is based on high value/low volume, really high quality product. And wherever you look around the state from Bruny Island cheeses and quail and wines and organic beef and cherries, you name it. They’re not opting for massive, bulk commodity markets; they’re aiming for the high value markets. And Elgar farms just gold medals at the Sydney show and so on.</p>
<p>Where it all went wrong was neither Liberal or Labor in Tasmania would give up on their insistence that the blue collar base in the extractive industries had to continue to be subsidised. So we fought this through the 1990s and Tasmania just went further and further backwards. And then we were in a state of real depression in my view in the mid-1990s. And the then Liberal minority premier, Tony Rundel, agreed that its time we looked at the knowledge-based economy. And he was the first Premier - I felt so delighted I can’t tell you - he was the first Tasmanian Premier to come out and say the future of Tasmania is not in the resource-based industries. I thought “Oh, at last!” and he wanted to adopt what he called the “New Brunswick” model, which was out of Canada, which was basically an IT model. </p>
<p>But again he got it wrong because he wanted to focus on the low-skilled end, so the call centre-type end. Now there was a place for call centres then, but it was clear they had a very narrow window of opportunity because it would get picked up in Asia in low wage economies, where you had fairly high levels of education and that’s of course what happened. But he didn’t pick up the top end even though Harradine at the time got $100M for Tasmania to establish this IT future. And that $100M was practically wasted. It’s just a tragedy of the lost opportunities.</p>
<p>Jim Bacon took over the leadership of the Labor party. And this is, in my view, the most shocking thing he did and something I will never forgive him for: he went to that election in 1998 saying, “Take no notice of all this, Labor’s going to take you back to your comfort zone. We’re going to go back to the kind of Tasmania you all like, we’re going to re-open the mines, we’re going to get the logging industry going again. We’re going to get all those things you’re all comfortable doing”. And we got to a point in Tasmania when people realised that was not a sustainable model. And he made Eric Reece – “Electric Eric”, the patron of the Labor campaign – and he went into that campaign, and everybody went, “Oh, what a relief! We’re going to go back to everything that we were comfortable with and that we knew” and so he got elected.</p>
<p>The GST came in then and Tasmania got this massive windfall gain out of the GST and the $100M of Harradine money. And so this new Labor Premier came in. They changed the electoral system to try to get rid of the Greens and they got this massive windfall of cash, suddenly hit Tasmania. And so they said, “See what happens if you’ve got the Greens in balance of power, look the state’s going nowhere? Put Labor in and look we’ve built a new racetrack out there, we’ve got new gates on the football ground”. It was bread and circuses here in Tasmania and they just frittered away the one opportunity we had to do the massive investment in education, training, in rethinking what the future might be.</p>
<p>In the meantime I’d been arguing to get the university to expand beyond Launceston into the northwest, because we had really poor retention rates to senior secondary and university in the northwest and we massively needed to get investment in education there. And one of the great things I’m really happy about is the direction the university is taking in Tasmania. And it’s ironic that the university will be the major employer in Burnie within the next few years. This is the town that was most famous for the pulp mill, you know, for many, many years the industrial centre of the northwest. And to me that’s pretty symbolic of the gradual change that’s going on that we’re getting that investment in the university up there.</p>
<p>So my view is the current state of Tasmania - the fact that the logging industry has been subsidised heavily from the mid 1990s and is still got its hand out - is because Jim Bacon opportunistically chose to abandon the right course for Tasmania and actually pursue what we had done under that Liberal period of minority government when we were in balance of power to get the state thinking about the alternatives, and to actually delay the inevitable transition of Tasmania by more than a decade. And what we’re going through now is exactly what we went through in the mid-1990s and I think, what a waste. </p>
<p>But those sectors that chose the new direction, they’re doing very nicely, thank you. And what we need to do now is really push those sectors that can do well. And the fact that we’ve got 600 marine scientists in Hobart I think is fantastic. Well not just in Hobart, but Hobart and environs. Isn’t that marvellous? A critical mass of intelligent, innovative scientists. We’ve got the Antarctic division, the CRC at the university, the CSIRO, what a fantastic thing to build on with proximity to Antarctica. We’ve got a whole lot of countries that get to determine where the Antarctic base is going to be, why wouldn’t we be doing everything we can to make it Tasmania? So I think what we’ve got in Tasmania, for anyone who wants to look at it, is a microcosm of the rest of the country. We are now seeing a massive resource boom across the country, we’ve seen the hollowing out of the manufacturing sector, we’ve seen no investment in education and training over all those Howard years, a big wind back and a disproportionate dependence on the resource extractive industries, and what’s going to happen at the end of the boom? Just like happened in Tasmania: you’ve lost a decade’s worth of building the alternative economy, and then what do you do? </p>
<p>So that’s why I’m so passionate about getting Gonski implemented in terms of getting our school funding back on track, and really starting to look at developing the manufacturing sector and the roll-out and commercialisation of the innovations in our universities around global warming because we’re some of the cleverest in the world when it comes to these technologies.</p>
<p><strong>David Bowman</strong> So you’ve talked a lot about government investment. The counter argument is you’ve got to raise the revenue from somewhere. Classically politicians don’t like raising taxes and Tasmania would benefit for instance from a GST 25% increase or something; it would have an immediate benefit for a poor state like Tasmania. So these questions of the balance between aspiration and ideology versus the pragmatics of politics: you’re a politician, so how do you, in the end you have to make compromises and you’ve also got to have your eye on what the electorate is willing to tolerate. Do you think the Greens really want to be in these balance of power situations? Isn’t it a much more ideologically pure state to just be outside and having visions of how the world could be, rather than the grubby mechanics of how the world is?</p>
<p><strong>Christine Milne</strong> Getting balance of power is much more important because you can actually deliver outcomes. The only reason we’ve got a clean energy package implemented, legislated, implemented, in effect, right now, in Australia, is because the Greens got balance of power in both houses in the Federal parliament last election. Both major parties went into that election saying they were not going to price carbon in this period of government, and it was only because of the agreement with the Greens that the Multi Party Climate Committee was set up and that we got the outcome that we did. </p>
<p>And so I feel in terms of my political career thus far in the parliament … I went into the Senate in 2004 campaigning to say we need to take global warming seriously and so I feel a great degree of satisfaction to having been part of that and to deliver as close to a whole of government approach as I could get (notwithstanding resistance in some parts of the federal government, Martin Ferguson in particular). But we’ve got the Carbon Farming Initiative, the Biodiversity Fund, the Clean Energy Finance Corporation in addition to emissions trading and several energy efficiency measures, so that’s just one example. </p>
<p>Balance of power in Tasmania, when I had that with the Liberals it was my bill that got gay law reform in Tasmania, we got gun law reform as a result of a tripartite agreement at that time. The apology to the stolen generation came because we were in balance of power, and the vote for the republic before the Constitutional Convention. Then back to 1989-92 with the Labor-Green accord, it was because we were in balance of power that we doubled the size of the wilderness world heritage area in Tasmania. And when you drive around you see the Friendly Beaches National Park, the Douglas Apsley National Park, the southwest wilderness – it’s because the Greens were in balance of power. </p>
<p>So the periods outside balance of power are when you do the work on the policy detail so that the minute you are in a position to implement it you actually know what to do and you’ve got the detail and you’re ready to go, which is what we did. So you absolutely need to be in balance of power to actually deliver on those policy outcomes.</p>
<p>Can I just go to the tax issue? One of the things I got in the clean energy package which I’m really pleased about - and it wasn’t just the Greens, the Labor party wanted this too, so this was a happy coincidence of coming together of ideas - and that was that if sustainability is your core objective and you need to stop dumping things to ocean and atmosphere then clearly what you need to do is make it more expensive to do so, so you price the bads. You price pollution and you price resources so that you slow down their extraction and make their use more efficient. And on the other end of the scale you lift the tax on income so that you start rewarding creativity and the good. So if you are not extracting resources and polluting then you can earn more. </p>
<p>That’s exactly the kind of financial structures we’re going to need this century and this is the first time in Australian politics where we’ve actually implemented what I would call an ecological financial arrangement. So now we are pricing pollution at $23 a tonne and now people who had a $6000 tax-free-threshold, now it’s $18,200. Now there’ll be an awful lot of students around Australia and a lot of people working part time who probably didn’t earn more than 30-odd thousand or maybe 35 working part time, they will now get 18,000 of that tax free. So what a good outcome for the planet! We start getting pollution down and we start getting the pressure taken off people who are trying to make a different contribution. </p>
<p>So that’s the kind of thing. The super profits tax was another one. We are in balance of power, we have to take responsibility. We said we will support the super profits tax, absolutely, because we want to go into a sovereign wealth fund just as the Norwegians did so that we can use that in this transition because we need to pay for health and education and everything else. The government wasn’t prepared to do that but in the recent budget we took a lot of flack because we came out and said we will not support the tax cut to big business because we need that money to implement the new education proposals for Gonski, we need that money for the national disability insurance scheme, we need it for good things. The government, and we said we’ll support a tax cut for small business because in the current economic environment they are suffering because of the high dollar and because of the difficulties they’ve got getting workers because of the mining boom. And we said to the government if you are not prepared to split them that’s your problem, we are prepared to split them but we’re not going to support that tax cut to big business.</p>
<p>The result was they didn’t proceed with the tax cut to big business, that saved the economy a huge amount of money, billions, but instead of putting it into systemic reform like implementation of Gonski, they gave it out in terms of the education bonus. You know, $300 or whatever across, you know, students and so on. Now that put money into the economy to enable people to buy things and no doubt some of it was spent on education expenses or you know meeting general expenses, but it’s not the systemic change that you need to make across the country. </p>
<p>The government knows that, but we were the ones that made the tough decisions on that tax, and we’re doing exactly the same on the withholding tax where the government wanted to increase it from 7% up to 15. And I said I’ll agree with that providing you give me a discount rate of 10% for overseas investment in green buildings, commercial buildings, that have a high energy star and energy performance rating, because I want to make sure that the new skyscrapers in Sydney and elsewhere are actually energy efficient buildings. And the reason for that is that pension funds in Canada and the like have quite high ethical standards to meet and a lot of those want to invest in things like office buildings but they have to be the right kind. So we’ve now actually leveraged $2 billion worth of investment in new office buildings in Sydney from pension funds in the US and Canada which are going to go into green buildings which are better amenity for the workers, they reduce the costs and so on. So we’re constantly trying to raise money. It’s actually the Greens pushing to raise money and the government is reluctant to take on those because they are concerned about increased taxes and the like. But Scandinavia does it and you get the result.</p>
<p><strong>David Bowman</strong> Going back to your parable of Tasmania, and the fact that you really - that’s very much a rocky trajectory in terms of your argument for a transition to a green economy - there’s a number of political changes occurring and that are predicted to occur in Australia. So isn’t one of the jeopardies that a Green party has is that although in the first instance there may be some symbolic wins, there may be some spectacular losses if some of the reforms are promptly abolished, as discussion is for instance with some of the legislation in Queensland, the Wild Rivers, Tony Abbott seems to be staking his political credibility on the fact that he wants to abolish the carbon tax. So isn’t that a high-risk - because what would be the global significance of that, if these achievements are actually ultimately turn out to be reversed?</p>
<p><strong>Christine Milne</strong> Well, it would be a terrible setback for a transition to a low-carbon, zero-carbon economy if the whole clean energy package was reversed, not only in Australia but yes I think there would be a significant flow-on effect - people around the world would throw up their hands. But you see I don’t think it’s going to happen. Tony Abbott said that he appointed Malcolm Turnbull to tear down the NBN. Remember that? Demolish it, smash it, that’s what his job was - get rid of the NBN. And Malcolm Turnbull came out and said he would do so, it was an absolute disaster, we were getting rid of the NBN. Here about, I suppose, a month or two ago, the Liberal party met and determined they were no longer going to get rid of the NBN. Unlike the Prime Minister, who is accused of being a liar and everything else when she changed her mind on something, it didn’t even rate the front page of the paper. In fact, most people around Australia don’t know that the Liberal party have actually reversed their position, they’re not smashing and tearing down the NBN anymore, it’s just disappeared, the NBN is there to stay.</p>
<p>Now, I totally agree that Abbott has made a much bigger play of carbon pricing than he did on the NBN, but nevertheless it’s the same positioning. Now, they came out and they said the Carbon Farming Initiative was terrible, was going to destroy rural and regional Australia, they filibustered the debate, in the Senate, it went on and on with all the biggest load of nonsense you’ve ever heard. When it went through, they stood up and said, oh, now that it’s the law we’re not going to reverse it. So the Carbon Farming Initiative and Biodiversity Fund are here to stay. </p>
<p>So then the Clean Energy Finance Corporation, the $10 billion that was described as everything as a sort of slush fund for the Greens and so on - it’s actually a statutory authority to invest in renewable energy - the Coalition were going to abolish that on day one, now they’re going to refer it to Treasury and the bureaucracy to see how much money has been expended and where the contracts are and so on and so forth. So you just watch that space.</p>
<p>That brings me to emissions trading. The trouble for the Coalition is, where are they going to get the money. They say they are committed to a 5% reduction in emissions and they say they’re going to do it with their direct action plan. Now they’ve already said they’re not going to pursue the mining tax, so that’s going, and they’re not going to charge polluters for the pollution; in fact, the taxpayer is going to fund the paying of the polluters to reduce their emissions. He is going to abolish more than 12,000 public service positions, but even that is not enough to fund this. So the question is, where is Tony Abbott getting the money from to pay the polluters? Now, he hasn’t got it. </p>
<p>They’ve already got a $70 billion black hole, they don’t have the money. So that is why I’ve said, in the next 12 months - and bear in mind, Tony Abbott cancelled the leave of his front bench for the first two weeks of July so they could fan out across the country and start the people’s revolution against the carbon price. Now, I don’t know about you, but there was no citizen’s revolution starting anywhere that I noticed at all. People in fact have mocked Tony Abbott all over the place, and the latest poll is saying people are going, what was all that about then, it hasn’t affected me at all, much. So Abbott has just changed his position in the last couple of weeks and the focus is now not so much on carbon pricing, it’s gone back to “can you trust the government?”. So it’s gone back to integrity issues rather than carbon pricing because he’s not making way on carbon pricing. </p>
<p>So I’ve said that Tony Abbott either has to change - Tony Abbott and the Coalition have to change their position on emissions trading, or both. And then we had the Australian, run an editorial out of nowhere talking about emissions trading, whether you needed a whole-of-economy emissions trading, or you might have a sort of narrower one. And I thought, oh here we go, News Limited’s starting to create the debating space for Tony Abbott to move into perhaps a more restrictive emissions trading, or some kind of nuancing of the existing scheme. So I don’t think you’re going to see, give it another six months, the Coalition going into next year without having significantly changed its position.</p>
<p>But in terms of how you maintain ownership, the reason I support work with multiparty committees and experts is that having experts on parliamentary committees allows people to change their mind, creates the space for people to change their mind whilst saving face. If you get a group of politicians around a table, it’s very difficult for people to change their position without being described as having backed down, back flipped, this or that. If you get a broader group of people - and an academic says, “well yes you could say that but actually its wrong”, or “have you thought about trying to get the same outcome with this different mechanism”, or whatever, it creates an environment in which people can come together. And then when they have, the ownership is such that even if there is a change of government, you don’t lose the reform. </p>
<p>And that’s what happened with gay law reform in Tasmania, and it’s what happened with gun law reform. And that’s why I wanted to get all the parties on the Multiparty Climate Committee for the same reason, and it’s why I proposed to the Prime Minister we have a multiparty group to look at asylum seekers - and to get experts around the table to take the political pressure down several notches, and to bring a more serious policy engagement around the table, in a safe environment, which is created by having people outside the political process engaged. </p>
<p>I think that many of the reforms we’ve achieved in this period of government - things like the Parliamentary Budget Office, so from now on, this coming election but henceforth, there’ll be a Parliamentary Budget Office so that opposition parties can get their policies properly costed - those kinds of reforms will stay, and they’re there because of the Greens.</p>
<p><strong>David Bowman</strong> So almost in conclusion, you’re arguing that the Greens are a reformist party rather than a revolutionary party?</p>
<p><strong>Christine Milne</strong> Absolutely, we’re a reformist party and we’re going back to basics in terms of what is real on the planet. And that is, people and nature are real, the rest are constructs, and those constructs can be changed, and economic tools have to be changed in order for people and ecosystems to survive.</p>
<p><strong>David Bowman</strong> Ok, well thank you very much.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/8847/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>David Bowman receives researcg funding from ARC, TERN, NASA and NERP.</span></em></p>David Bowman What I wanted to ask you is, in two years time, the concentration of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere will be about 400 ppm. According to the Greens’ policy documents, the world should have…David Bowman, Professor, Environmental Change Biology, University of TasmaniaLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/64532012-04-16T00:49:14Z2012-04-16T00:49:14ZGreens’ future is bright under Christine Milne<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/9605/original/n3b94f9n-1334534704.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=75%2C58%2C5540%2C3682&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">All eyes are now on Christine Milne to see if she is up to filling the void left by former leader Bob Brown.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">AAP Image/Lukas Coch</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>Bob Brown’s decision to resign as leader of the Greens last Friday marks a new and interesting phase in the evolution and development of the Australian Greens. </p>
<p>Brown’s exit from the Senate in June inevitably invites questions about the party’s prospects without him, as well as questions about the suitability of Christine Milne as his replacement. </p>
<p>But Milne is already flexing her new leadership muscle – taking on the government over <a href="http://www.smh.com.au/opinion/political-news/no-hope-of-tax-cut-for-big-business-milne-20120415-1x1o5.html">company tax breaks</a>, public service <a href="http://www.theaustralian.com.au/national-affairs/treasury/greens-flag-fight-over-budget-cuts-as-christine-milne-targets-push-for-surplus/story-fn59nsif-12263272717701">job cuts</a> and challenged the need for a <a href="http://www.smh.com.au/national/greens-to-oppose-tragedy-of-surplus-20120415-1x1we.html">budget surplus</a>. </p>
<p>In fact, despite <a href="https://theconversation.com/outsiders-and-ratbags-the-greens-will-struggle-without-bob-brown-6448">some doom and gloom</a> around the party’s chances without Brown, there’s now a real opportunity for the party to grow under a new leadership.</p>
<h2>The Greens’ solid base</h2>
<p>The Greens are unlikely to be significantly diminished by Brown’s departure, even if he has been the familiar face of the party at the national level since his election to the Senate in 1996. </p>
<p>Unlike the ill-fated Australian Democrats, the Greens’ electoral success does not appear to be especially dependent on the popularity of its leader. </p>
<p>The level of support for the Greens within the electorate has been growing steadily since its inception, increasing at all but one federal election between 1996 and 2010. </p>
<p>The party’s primary vote has been devoid of significant volatility, which seems to suggest that it’s drawing much of its support from partisans, not from disenfranchised major party voters. </p>
<p>This is further supported by <a href="http://aes.anu.edu.au/">Australian Election Study</a> survey data which shows that the number of voters who profess affective ties to the Greens has risen from 1.2% in 1996 to 5.9% in 2010. </p>
<p>Importantly, the Greens’ voter base shares certain underlying socio-demographic as well as attitudinal characteristics in common. </p>
<p>While this segment of the electorate is small in numerical terms (estimated by scholars at approximately 10% of the population), the fact that the Greens appear to have mobilised a distinctive constituency is an important step towards establishing genuine longevity in the Australian party system.</p>
<h2>Time for renewal</h2>
<p>If anything, Brown’s decision to retire from the Senate presents an important opportunity for the party. </p>
<p>First, his exit guarantees that the party’s fortunes do not become unhealthily linked to one particular person, as might have occurred the longer Brown remained in the Senate. </p>
<p>Second, Brown’s decision to retire before the expiration of his term will allow his replacement the opportunity to settle into the Senate and to establish their profile ahead of the 2013 poll.</p>
<p>Third, and perhaps most significantly, Brown’s retirement allows the remaining Greens MPs to step out from the long shadow that his presence has cast.</p>
<p>For more than a decade, Brown’s authority both within and outside of the Party has made it difficult for many of the Greens MPs to gain greater public prominence. </p>
<p>As the established parties well know, there must exist opportunities for promotion and advancement within the ranks in order to prevent the more ambitious members of the parliamentary wing from growing restless. </p>
<p>Sarah Hanson-Young’s <a href="http://news.smh.com.au/breaking-news-national/brown-confirms-deputy-challenge-20101026-171m2.html">unsuccessful challenge</a> to Milne’s deputy leadership in late 2010 demonstrates that even Greens politicians may harbor their share of personal ambition.</p>
<h2>Milne as leader</h2>
<p>The party room’s decision to elect Christine Milne as leader is a sensible choice that will ensure continuity and stability. </p>
<p>It is important to remember that this is not the first time Milne has been called upon to fill Brown’s shoes. She took over as parliamentary leader of the Tasmanian Greens when he quit to contest the federal lower house of Denison in 1993. </p>
<p>The two Senators have enjoyed a close working relationship, as well as a set of intersecting political experiences. </p>
<p>Brown and Milne are largely accidental politicians whose parliamentary careers were galvanised by environmental causes. </p>
<p>Both spent many years in the Tasmanian Legislative Assembly where together they survived the turbulent 12 months of minority government under the [Field ALP government](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michael_Field_(Australian_politician). </p>
<p>Between 1996 and 1998 when the Tasmanian Greens once again held the balance of power in the Tasmanian Parliament, Milne revealed herself to be skilled parliamentary tactician. </p>
<p>And in the years following Milne’s defeat at the Tasmanian state election in 1998 until her subsequent election to the Senate in 2004, she served as Brown’s political adviser.</p>
<p>How long Milne remains in the leadership role is quite another matter, however. While clearly an earnest politician, and an experienced pair of hands, she lacks some of the natural charisma possessed by her colleagues. </p>
<p>This isn’t to say that Milne will be challenged in the short term (or certainly before the 2013 election). But in the post-Brown era, a new figure may emerge within the party room who commands the same level of respect and authority Bob Brown enjoyed. </p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/6453/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Narelle Miragliotta does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Bob Brown’s decision to resign as leader of the Greens last Friday marks a new and interesting phase in the evolution and development of the Australian Greens. Brown’s exit from the Senate in June inevitably…Narelle Miragliotta, Senior Lecturer in Australian Politics, Monash UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/64372012-04-15T22:27:08Z2012-04-15T22:27:08ZPortrait of a charismatic leader: putting Bob Brown in context<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/9587/original/g9bjpmg2-1334298533.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">New Greens leader Christine Milne should learn from Bob Brown's charismatic leadership.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">AAP/Alan Porritt</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>Australia has a long record of charismatic political leaders and Bob Brown is perhaps the most notable recent example, but unlike other leaders of this style he has demonstrated remarkable political skill. </p>
<p>The concept of charismatic leadership was first defined by Max Weber as “that resting on devotion to the exceptional sanctity, heroism or exemplary character of an individual person.” </p>
<p>Brown exemplified a broad style of charismatic leadership; by contrast, Pauline Hanson, adhered to the narrow. Brown presided over the steady emergence of the Australian Greens as an effective national political party, Hanson presided over (or at times merely observed) the meteoric rise and rapid fall of One Nation.</p>
<p>While the Greens’ current electoral success owes something to Labor’s trend to the right, it has independently succeeded in carving out its own durable niche to the left of the Labor, unlike so many previous attempts.</p>
<h2>A brief history of Australian charisma</h2>
<p>The phenomenon of charismatic leadership is the result of the interaction of personal qualities and social circumstances. Notorious party-changer and Australia’s seventh prime minister <a href="http://adb.anu.edu.au/biography/hughes-william-morris-billy-6761">Billy Hughes</a>, former NSW premier <a href="http://adb.anu.edu.au/biography/lang-john-thomas-jack-7027">Jack Lang</a> and One Nation leader Pauline Hanson all surfed waves of social conflict around class and national identity. </p>
<p>All were charismatic leaders, but all eventually deluded even themselves. Their appeal was as much directed against their enemies as it was towards supporters. </p>
<p>In a deeply divided nation such as Australia during World War I and the Great Depression, this strategy worked for a time for Hughes and even Lang. Both leaders were able to form electoral majorities around imperial loyalty (for Hughes) and the defence of working-class living standards (for Lang). </p>
<p>Both targeted enemies: Catholic Bishop Daniel <a href="http://adb.anu.edu.au/biography/mannix-daniel-7478">Mannix</a>, Bolsheviks and Sinn Feiners for Hughes and the “money-power” for Lang. In the end, however, both Hughes and Lang took their rhetoric too far and repelled voters and their political allies.</p>
<h2>From the fringes to the mainstream</h2>
<p>Pauline Hanson, like Bob Brown, faced a difficult challenge. Both the Greens and One Nation were parties of a minority (much more so than the parties of Hughes or Lang) but some of their beliefs, ethnocentric nationalism for One Nation and environmental protection for the Greens, appealed to many more voters than just their true believers. </p>
<p>Pauline Hanson, however, forgot the first lesson of radical political success; that a radical party needs a “conservative” or at least reassuring leader. She thrived on polarisation and delighted in martyrdom status. Rather like would-be Republican Vice President Sarah Palin, she wore out her welcome, even among many initially sympathetic to her message. </p>
<p>In Europe, some former far-right fringe parties have made the transition to mainstream politics, but others such as the British National Party have failed to adapt, just as One Nation failed. Bob Katter seeks to appeal to a constituency once attracted to Hansonism but unlike Hanson he has eschewed an aggressive and polarising style. </p>
<p>In this respect he is following in Bob Brown’s footsteps. If Katter appeals to an imagined Australian nation, Brown appeals to a human community. Both have largely steered clear of identifying a class of enemies.</p>
<h2>Minor challenges, a strong future</h2>
<p>Once a minor party has managed an electoral breakthrough it faces a new set of challenges. It has to remain united in the difficult process of political compromise. As a minority it has to persuade voters that it can deliver, resist its themes being co-opted by the major parties and also reassure its activists that it has not surrendered its identity. </p>
<p>Charismatic leadership can be particularly useful in the latter task. A party’s true believers have to be reassured that they are not forgotten. The task of participation in government is necessarily once of compromise and frustration. Bob Brown’s personal appeal has been vital in insulating the Greens from their radical critics. </p>
<p>Bob Brown’s charismatic appeal has aided his appeal to both green activists and more moderate voters. </p>
<p>New leader Christine Milne will have to continue this balancing act, but it is likely that the political landscape will continue to favour the party. </p>
<p>Labor in government will continue to work hard to repel many voters on the left, while the likely post-2013 scenario of an Abbott government and a traumatised and bewildered ALP can only render the Greens even more attractive to first-time voters on the left.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/6437/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Geoffrey Robinson does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Australia has a long record of charismatic political leaders and Bob Brown is perhaps the most notable recent example, but unlike other leaders of this style he has demonstrated remarkable political skill…Geoffrey Robinson, Senior Lecturer, School of Humanities and Social Sciences, Deakin UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.