Shorten ups climate change stance
CANBERRA: Labor leader Bill Shorten has toughened his stance on climate change, labelling it an emergency he vows he will prioritise if he becomes Australian prime minister tomorrow.
The stronger language follows the lead of the UK Parliament, which declared a climate emergency earlier this month.
It was soon followed by Ireland, while UN Secretarygeneral Antonio Guterres described it at a Fiji summit this week as a ‘‘global emergency’’ requiring ambition and urgency.
‘‘I promise we will send a message to the world that when it comes to climate change Australia is back in the fight,’’ Shorten said in his final major election speech in Blacktown yesterday.
‘‘It is not the Australian way to avoid and duck the hard fights. We will take this emergency seriously and we will not just leave it to other countries or to the next generation.’’
Labor’s policies include a 45% emissions reduction target on 2005 levels by 2030 as well as a 50% renewable energy target.
The Opposition has been hounded on the cost of its targets by the Liberal Party, which has a much smaller 26%28% emissions reduction target policy, from the same baseline.
Prime Minister Scott Morrison insisted former PM Malcolm Turnbull’s son urging voters to dump Liberal MPs would not distract him.
The son of the former prime minister, Alex Turnbull, said: ‘‘We need more people who want action on climate change. This election don’t give the Libs your vote.’’
Meanwhile, a group of scientists and experts called on the next government to prioritise action on climate change.
The 62 experts, including Nobel Prize winners and former Australians of the Year, penned an open letter to politicians featuring a graph showing Australia’s emissions have been rising since 2014.
The Australian Capital Territory (ACT) parliament yesterday declared a climate emergency in the national capital, becoming the first Australian state or territory to do so.
ACT Greens leader and Minister for Climate Change and Sustainability Shane Rattenbury moved a motion calling on the major parties to acknowledge a state of climate emergency that required urgent action.
‘‘From now on, every time the government makes a decision we will ask ourselves: what does this decision mean for climate change, for emissions and for the climate crisis we need to avert?
‘‘If it is not consistent with reducing emissions, then we need to think again,’’ Rattenbury said.
Australian political commentators and academics say race and immigration have been largely missing from this month’s election campaign as a consequence of the Christchurch mosque attacks.
Sydney University public law professor and immigration lawyer Mary Crock said the Liberal Party previously used the slogan ‘‘we stopped the boats’’ to good electoral effect.
There was an expectation the immigration debate would be front and centre again, she said.
‘‘But the impact of the massacre in Christchurch and then in Sri Lanka has really switched the political discourse on that,’’ she said.
‘‘So we’re seeing actually both political parties not wanting to talk about race, religion or migration, which is I think is really fascinating.’’
Refugee Council of Australia policy officer Shukufa Tahiri said there was a ‘‘lot of goodness’’ in New Zealand after the Christchurch shootings and that rubbed off on Australia.
Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern’s reaction to the attacks had sent a powerful message to Australian politicians, she said.
‘‘I think the show of support in New Zealand and the language that Jacinda Ardern used and the leadership she showed did put the attention on Australian leadership and to a certain extent the politicians did realise that their political leadership and their investment in the politics of fear was creating consequences that were translating into tragedy in their neighbouring country.’’
Meanwhile, One Nation and United Australia have continued their focus on immigration.
An independent senator, Fraser Anning, was widely condemned for linking the mosque attacks that killed 51 people to Muslim immigration. — AAP/ RNZ
❛ Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern’s reaction to the attacks
had sent a powerful message to Australian
politicians