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  Issue No 116 Official Organ of LaborNet 19 October 2001  

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Interview

The Green Machine


Nick Bolkus outlines Labor's environmental stance and lays down the gauntlet to Bob Brown's Greens.

 
 

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What is your feeling of the level of interest out there in environment in a time when the focus is centred on more short term, international issues?

I think the people have moved on very substantially from international issues. I think there is a growing feeling that John Howard is starting to use international issues so that he can avoid facing the music on his record in government, and the environment is one of those areas where the public across the country is coming to the meetings and forums that I am having with a very deep concern. The environment is one area where people do want the government to take some leadership.

The environment means different things to different people. If you are a farmer it might mean the quality of the land; if you are someone living in a city it might mean whether there's a nuclear reactor in the area. How difficult is it to package it all into something that means one thing to everyone?

I think concern for the environment resonates across the country. It doesn't resonate just in the so-called leafy inner suburbs of Sydney and Melbourne. I am spending most of my time in regional Australia, places like Richmond, up in North Queensland like Capricornia, Townsville and Leichhardt, and in places like Adelaide where there is a whole raft of environmental issues - the basic lifestyle issues such as the water people drink and the air that they breathe. In inner city areas, air pollution is probably the biggest environmental problem. We also have a generation of land issues. Land clearing, vegetation clearing, salinity. Then you have a fundamental issue like climate change.

How do you address all these different and complicated issues? The way you address climate change, for example, is by a whole of government response; a response which entails "locking in" the knowledge nation economy, particularly in providing solutions for greenhouse problems. For example, we want the coal industry to continue but we now know that we may be able to reduce emissions from coal and aluminium industries by 25 to 30 per cent. We need to develop strategies to meet the twin objectives of not closing old industries, but reducing their emissions and to make them more acceptable.

So what we are proposing is a "whole of government" approach and our starting point has been Kim Beazley's Ministerial Working Group of about 12 Shadow Ministers which over the last few years has met on about 20 occasions to address environment issues. That group has included people like Laurie Brereton, Simon Crean, Martin Ferguson, Bob McMullan, Laurie Ferguson, Gavan O'Connor, Lindsay Tanner and Carmen Lawrence. It has been a multi disciplined response to the environment.

I think many of these issues need to be run from the epicentre of government. So when we are talking about salinity and the water issues, Labor does not want a situation like the current government's, where Robert Hill took 17 months to appoint the new Murray Darling Basin Commission Chair, because he couldn't find a suitable person to head it. On our side, Kim Beazley has decided that a driving force for our Environment Policy will be a unit in the Prime Minister's Department.

One of the perceptions about the environment is that it has always been in tension with jobs. This has created some difficulties in the trade union movement. Have you had discussions with unions about your environment agenda?

Yes, over the years we have had some good discussions and some heated ones. I think there is a new growing awareness that we can actually do things together. In some sectors - I think the coal industry is one sector - we have been working to ensure there is a future for the industry with an environmental agenda. I guess the real area of conflict between the unions and environment groups has been around logging of old growth forests. But I think there is a growing realization there that too much of the added value is going overseas. We are exporting job opportunities, and that has brought the unions and some aspects of the Green movement together to try and work for a common future. Increasingly, we now recognize that jobs will come from clean, green technology. There will be opportunities for employment in the new industry sectors, particularly in the regions.

Are you looking at new forums for discussing these issues with the representatives of working people?

I have a long history of involvement with the union movement, both at the State and National levels. I have had a working relationship with people like Martin (Ferguson) over the years. In government I had solid relations - not just with the ACTU - but with State Labor Councils across the country. Where there are issues that we may need from time to time to work through, I will be doing that, but I would like to set up a formal process with representatives of workers to see if we can actually bridge a few divides by sitting at a table and talking issues through.

The big announcement that you have made so far in the campaign is the ratification of the Kyoto Protocol. Obviously until the Americans back it, it is going to be limited in its scope. What hope do you see of bringing America on board in the medium to short term?

The important objective is to work internationally to get as much support for the protocol as we can. If we were to ratify, and Canada and Japan are pretty close to making similar sorts of announcements, we would then be looking at 55% of emitting nations prepared to ratify the protocol. That's what we need.

Labor's starting point is that organizations like CSIRO have predicted there will be serious downside effects on Australia if climate change continues unabated. We can do what we want to do domestically, but this won't protect us from the effects of global warming. We actually do need a strong international regime to protect the snowfields of Victoria, the Great Barrier Reef, a lot of the land cover of South Australia and WA. Now we reckon we can do it by way of an effective international response. The USA is probably never going to be a party, but what the USA will do is to develop market mechanisms which will be complementary to what is developed through the protocol process.

In Europe governments are already adopting an agenda for climate change in line with the Kyoto Protocol and recognizing opportunities within that. That will prompt industry in the USA to pick it up as well. I think there will be enough momentum in the USA for them to lock into whatever is agreed to internationally, despite the lack of a formal ratification.

The issue of Green preferences is obviously important with a lot of young people leaning towards the Greens. How confident are you, and how important is it to get a preference deal?

We in the labour movement and Labor Party have got our own policy position to present. We, the longest living party in the country, had strong environment policies for decades. We are now presenting our policies and I must say that a lot of young people, particularly former Democrats, are saying to us that we are the only Party in this election with a coherent environment policy. The Democrats are immature in their policies - they are having trouble being taken seriously, while Bob Brown keeps raising the bar. For Bob, ratification of the Kyoto protocol was important for years but when we announced our policy, he dismissed it as insignificant. I think people are starting to get a bit frustrated with the minor parties on the environment.

At present 80% of Green voters will preference to us anyway. It will be important for Bob to respond to his voters' wishes, otherwise it will be a case of the tail wagging the dog. In the meantime, we are not going to come up with policies that are unsustainable in an effort to please him or anyone else.

So you are not losing any sleep over Green preferences?

We would like to have them, but at the same time I have got to say the cards are not all in his hands. Bob Brown has spent the last five years railing against John Howard on just about every conceivable issue. If Bob Brown wants a republic, if Bob Brown wants a humanitarian agenda with indigenous Australians, if Bob Brown wants a vibrant, independent ABC, if Bob Brown wants to protect the environment, he must send his preferences to us. If he does not, then all the Howard injustices that he has campaigned against in the last five years will continue. Bob Brown can't afford to keep the Howard government alive. I'm sure he saw what happened in the USA. Ralph Nader didn't support Gore, he supported Bush. Kyoto is dead and Ralph Nader is dead as a political force in the US, discredited: there is a lesson there for Bob Brown.


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*    Read the ALP policy

*   View entire issue - print all of the articles!

*   Issue 116 contents

In this issue
Features
*  Interview: The Green Machine
Nick Bolkus outlines Labor's environmental stance and lays down the gauntlet to Bob Brown's Greens.
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*  Industrial: Regaining Control
France�s 35 hour week stems from the program of the Left coalition government which went to the polls in June 1997 with the policy of �worksharing�.
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*  Unions: Home Of The Longest Day
Australia has a dubious new prize to put in its cluttered national trophy cabinet. We are increasingly the most over-worked nation in the world.
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*  Campaign Diary: Week Two: Fightback
Labor's doing everything to win a normal campaign - but this is no normal campaign.
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*  Economics: Who Will Notice When You Die?
Johann Christoph Arnold asks whether the anti-globalisation movement is the answer to an epidemic of loneliness.
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*  History: American Terror
Incredible revelations about the work of the US National Security Agency through the Cold War years help put the current War of Terror into perspective.
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*  International: Global Day of Action
In the aftermath of the terrorist attacks in the US last week, the ICFTU has announced that preparations for the Global Unions Day of Action on November 9 will go ahead.
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*  Satire: World Gripped by Fear as Howard Third Term Looms
The global community has uniformly condemned the recent terrorist attacks, which horrifically helped revive the re-election prospects of John Howard.
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*  Review: Flashbacks
Cultural theortician Neale Towart consults his record collection in a bid to understand the chaos gripping the earth.
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News
»  Unions Triumph in Bra Battle
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»  Ansett's Redundancy Edict: Hand in Uniforms
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»  Economic Management Libs Style: Porkbarrelling And Profligacy
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»  Long Hours Ranks Swell
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»  Extra Security Urged at Chemical Sites
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»  Regional Airport Security Ignored By Anderson
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»  "Sack or Back" Shier
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»  Backpay For Exploited Guest Workers
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»  Nurses to Test New Equal Pay Laws
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»  Libs Back Unions as Compo Police
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»  Racism Rocks Workplaces
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»  Community of Sydney to Back CFMEU
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»  Green Activist Restrictions Lifted
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»  Hotel Union Cautious About Employer Gloom
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»  International Workers to Converge on Sydney
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»  Workers' Bank Opens Shopfront
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»  Face The Music And Shove It Up The Junta!
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»  Activists Notebook
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Columns
»  The Soapbox
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»  The Locker Room
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»  Trades Hall
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»  Tool Shed
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Letters to the editor
»  Joy is at it Again!
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»  The Extra Yards
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»  Water Aid
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»  Redunancy Under Attack
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»  Orwell No Anarchist
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»  Ways Around Treaty Rights
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