Politics

Opposition Leader Peter Dutton is putting extreme strain on Australia’s bipartisan foreign policy when it comes to dealing with our biggest trading partner, China. He continues to speak very loudly while Australia is carrying a stick he admits isn’t yet big enough.

The policy challenge for the Albanese government is compounded by pressures left deliberately by the Morrison government, or attributable to its incompetence and neglect – in aggregate, record debt with budget deficits stretching as far as the eye can see. Important and urgent structural challenges are needed in the health system, and aged and disability care in particular, along with energy, housing, defence and climate policy.

It still hasn’t dawned on the Liberal and National parties why they suffered such a stunning defeat at the May election. Maybe Labor’s slender majority masks the rejection of the Liberals in their heartland seats, which resulted in a near-record number of independents. So far the Liberals seem to have no obvious strategy to win back support.

Curiosity and impatience for referendum detail is unsurprising. This is the second decade of the constitutional recognition journey in Australia, and it is Australia’s first referendum since 1999. It is worth pointing out, however, that much of the early mainstream media discussion is consciously or subconsciously mimicking the republic referendum debate.

More than any other figure in our democracy, a prime minister can influence the direction of the nation. Anthony Albanese knows it, and he is not allowing the most difficult economic and strategic circumstance in more than three decades to deter him from forging new pathways.

This is the year of hope, denial and cognitive dissonance about the emergence of newer and more challenging variants of SARS-CoV-2 far outpacing vaccine development. Like saying your grandfather smoked all his life and lived to 100, thus smoking is fine, people are telling each other ‘I had Covid and it was mild’.

Governments globally claim to base their policy responses to Covid-19 on science, on the advice of medical experts. But there has been a multiplicity of different opinions on the evidence, allowing governments to be politically selective in deciding what to do – even to ignore the basic thrust of the advice.

The full impact of the change of government nine weeks ago will be clear on Tuesday when the new parliament sits for the first time. It will be an acid test for the Albanese government. The test is one it has largely set for itself. Despite claiming it does not need the parliament to commit to its 43 per cent reduction goal by 2030, Labor has invested too much time and energy to brook an easy defeat.

Peter Dutton is calling for ‘civilised debate’ in Australia. On Sky News he complained that the current standard of public debate is ‘reprehensible’ and ‘unacceptable’. The opposition leader blames social media for the decline. I do not.

The concept of Australia becoming a renewable energy superpower should be a no-brainer. A clean-energy revolution is under way that will drive societies around the globe to a low-carbon existence. This will rival in significance the Industrial Revolution, which was driven by fossil fuels – coal-fired power, and petrol and diesel engines.