NON-CORE PROMISES

WHEN Liberal PM John Howard won office in 1996, he promised to retain many of the social policies of the Keating government. Howard’s first horror budget cut funding to higher education, labour market programs and the ABC, despite a promise not to. Howard justified this, saying he would keep “core” promises, implying the rest of his commitments were “non-core” and did not count.

Now, when addressing an Energy Summit in Canberra, Federal Energy Minister Angus Taylor is reported to have said the following concerning careven bon emissions, “some in this debate think net zero means zero. It doesn’t. Net zero is not zero. It is not zero emissions” and thereby boldly held to an entrenched Liberal tradition.

Douglas Ross Robbins

Trevallyn