Citizen’s assembly spells climate delay

If farmers are hoping the election campaign will provide them with certainty surrounding the federal laws they would operate under for the next three years, they have yet to see it from the major parties.
The strongest example of that came last week when Julia Gillard announced that, if re-elected, she would create a “citizen’s assembly” on climate change.
Acres of newspaper columns have already been devoted to the contradiction in the policy turnaround from climate change once being the “greatest moral challenge of our time”, and the farce of bringing 150 people to Canberra to muse upon this political quandary.
We already have a peoples’ assembly in Canberra that costs many millions of dollars – it’s called Parliament House.
The Members and Senators there are elected to represent all corners of the country and their views, and for three years they have been at a stalemate on this issue.
It is brave to think that the citizen’s assembly would achieve a better outcome.
Before this group convenes in Canberra, though, the electorate will have to decide whether this announcement constitutes leadership, a delay of action, or a short-term political fix.
From a farmers’ point of view, I welcome any move from a government that is striving for consultation.
However, there are some frustrating details in this policy announcement that distance it from real consultation.
From reading Ms Gillard’s speech and the media comments of her Ministers, it appears that the assembly – and the accompanying scientific experts – will strive for community consensus by April, 2012, with this consensus pre-determined to say that the Carbon Pollution Reduction Scheme (CPRS) is the answer. This consensus would be based on a sample of 0.0006 percent of our nation’s population
Should the answer be negative toward the CPRS, then the focus group and the government would simply have to improve at selling the message.
From last week’s speech, it seems the government is intent on changing the way electricity is generated in this country, but they also want to avoid the political fallout of further rises to electricity costs.
This is the real nub of the climate change agenda. Politicians think the public wants them to do something, but actually the public knows it is best if the government butts out and lets individuals, groups and businesses do their own “something” with incentives and support (which were also announced in the Prime Ministers speech).
With the election imminent, the people deserve to hear clear policies that may shape the laws they will operate under in the coming term of the Parliament, and likewise how these policies may affect the cost of living for utilities such as electricity.
People deserve to be able to make a decision about these policies, rather than having to decide whether or not they want a focus group.
Meanwhile, Ms Gillard’s said in her speech that irrigated agriculture will drop by 90 percent by 2100 if nothing was done on climate change.
Governments that paint predictions over 90-year horizons will inevitably be wrong, but they have the safety net of knowing that everyone voting on August 21 will not be around in 2100 to remind them of the error.
Farmers are accustomed to dealing with climate variability, especially in Queensland where droughts, floods, frosts and tropical storms are all common.
However, there is a vast difference between dealing with natural climate variability and dealing with man made climate change.
The latter has far more to do with what is happening on the world stage, in places such as China and India, than it does here, although obviously Australia must do its part.
Solving global issues and delivering a change on a planet-wide scale is going to require far more than a focus group gathering in Canberra.