The ALP stage-managed its national conference, having learnt from its unexpected electoral defeat to Scott Morrison in 2019. But it has forgotten how Jeremy Corbyn’s anti-Semitic agenda destroyed the Labour brand in Britain. In a tightly controlled affair, the ALP declared its support for coal workers, renewable energy jobs and low-paid workers. The ALP platform, confirmed in congratulatory online contributions from hand-picked party members, was all about becoming the smallest possible target for the coming federal election. As chief political correspondent Geoff Chambers has written, Anthony Albanese’s sanitised conference was manufactured to neutralise controversy and division inside Labor. The exception was the bizarre decision to recognise a Palestinian state. On that score, the party’s authoritarian nature was on display with its decision to block former federal MP Michael Danby from speaking against it.
The electorally devastating policy to abolish franking credit refunds has been ditched, and the ALP climate change agenda announced on Wednesday was big on aspiration but short on detail. There is no short-term target, but a commitment to be carbon neutral by 2050 lacks any real detail on how it might be achieved. There will be support for electric cars, which basically translates into another subsidy for rich voters at the expense of the less well-off. And after the drubbing Labor received in Queensland in 2019, a last-minute amendment put by the Australian Workers Union and the Construction Forestry Maritime Mining and Energy Union praises coal workers and miners for building the nation. Against the wishes of green groups, gas is acknowledged as a transitional fuel and carbon capture and storage is welcomed with a promise of more funding.
Read the editorial in The Australian.