 Hello everybody. I'm Natasha Kasam, the Director of the Lowy Institute's Public Opinion and Foreign Policy Program. Thank you so much for joining us here today. I would like to begin by acknowledging the Gadigal people of the Oranora Nation and pay my respects to their elders past and present. So friends, colleagues, supporters, it is such a delight to welcome you today to the Lowy Institute to talk about this very important issue. It seems like it was only 18 months ago. It seems so much longer than that but the country was ravaged by catastrophic bushfires and it was just a few months later that the world changed with the onslaught of the COVID-19 pandemic. As last year's Lowy Institute poll showed us concern about COVID really did eclipse concern about climate change in Australia and for the first time since 2012. The number of Australians that said we needed to take urgent and pressing measures about climate change fell in this country. But what we can see today in 2021 is that climate is returning to the forefront of Australians' concerns about the world. In the Lowy Institute's climate poll that I co-authored with Hannah Laser and I think you all have a copy of today, it was really clear that this concern has increased yet again. The discussion here in Australia is changing. We saw an Australian federal court has ruled that the Environment Minister Susan Lay has a legal duty to not cause harm to the young people of Australia by exacerbating climate change when approving coal mining projects. We're seeing state governments move towards decarbonisation projects. We've seen our great ally, the United States, have officials that have said Australia is not doing its part on climate change. It's only part of the way in which this is gaining more momentum overseas. A Dutch court has ruled that Shell needs to cut greenhouse gas emissions by 45% by 2030 and we saw the G7 over the weekend commit to a global transition away from coal. I am so thrilled that we have this distinguished panel here today to talk about these important issues with us, the politics, the policies and the public when it comes to climate change. First here to my left we have Ines Willocks, the Chief Executive of the Australian Industry Group. He's previously served as the Chief of Staff to the Australian Minister for Foreign Affairs Alexander Downer and as the Australian Consul General in Los Angeles. Ines was meant to be here with us in person today but he joins us from Melbourne because of recent restrictions and we're very grateful that we could make this work. This is our first time posting a hybrid panel of this nature at the Lowy Institute. So please bear with us but also a great thanks to my colleagues in events for making this work. Dr Rebecca Hunley is an author most recently of how to talk about climate change in a way that makes a difference. She has previously led research at essential media and Vox Populae and published a report recently on how climate action can actually help Australia to recover from the COVID-19 pandemic. And then Nico Malley is the National Environment and Climate Editor for the Sydney Morning Herald and the Age. He's a former U.S. correspondent and we're just very lucky to have such an excellent panel of guests with us. So thank you all today. Thank you. Look Nick we're going to start with you just so we're all on the same page here today and for our audience listening and watching overseas. Do you think you could briefly run us through a very brief history of the complicated politics of climate in Australia? Thank you for the question. It's a very easy one of course. I don't want to sap anyone's will to live before we start so I'll go short but climate concern has been significant in the Australian electorate for as long as it has been in the world I think. The first real policy goes back as far as Bob Hawke in 1989 that if you fast forward through to the Howard government there are those there are some people who argue that one of the reasons he began to lose touch with sections of the electorate was his hard stance against Kyoto. And then in 2007 you had Kevin Rudd campaign on this notion that climate change was the greatest moral challenge of our time determined to take sweeping action including carbon tax which he then prosecuted in government in 2007 and then you had those years that followed of really bitter climate warfare which I won't go into huge detail over but Rudd tried and failed to get a carbon tax up in parliament twice. He then backed down on forcing a double disillusion election which tarnished his image because he had made that declaration that this was the greatest moral challenge. He then relied on trying to form a deal with the then leader of the opposition Malcolm Turnbull. Malcolm Turnbull in turn was rolled by a party room determined not to take action on climate change. The Abbott government was later formed Tony Abbott famously was again determined not to take that sort of action on climate change. He argued that what action should be taken shouldn't be through what he called a great big new tax but any action should be some form of direct payment for climate mitigation. And then if you and he rolled back the brief window Australia had when Australia had of an effective carbon tax which didn't in the year it operated reduce emissions significantly and then if you fast forward to today I think it's fair to say that you have a prime minister whose views have shifted I think because of international pressure and growing evidence he is slowly trying to move the ball you'll notice he doesn't this is a man who once famously bought a lump of coal into parliament he no longer discusses coal but on the other hand he's advocating a gas-led recovery which climate scientists would say is not a great deal better and you have a leader of the opposition equally determined not to see his leadership and his whole policy platform caught up in this one infernal policy complex who is so far leading a party that is more determined to act though divided on climate it still has members like Joel Fitzgibbon who insist that coal has a long future and who don't want to damage their own electoral prospects for that reason so as we head towards another election and as Australia heads towards United Nations talks in Glasgow at the end of the year you have two leaders very very two party a prime minister and a party leader very delicate very gunshot on this issue yeah that's fascinating and of course we're going to get into some of that international pressure of course there's the real question of what do the public think about all of this and Rebecca you've been watching this closely the ups and downs of Australian politics also in some way mirror what the public think about climate change what what do you think how have these things shifted over the past decade I think they're intersected with the public opinion I wouldn't say they're necessarily mirrorish so what we've had as Nick said over the last 20 years is a baseline concern in the community around environmental protection and climate but a real difference between people for whom that is something that it's their one or two their top one or two issues that determine their vote or how they might spend their money or invest their money we've seen and people who are generally concerned but waiting for leadership to connect how climate action is actually going to make their lives better so and it's in that group of people who are concerned about climate or want stuff to happen but where climate and environment might be in their top five issues where how the national politics play out are very important to them right depending on whether it's something that they see as relevant or urgent or as something that's just mired in politics so but what we have seen over that 20 year period in Australia is more and more Australians become alarmed about climate change so we've seen in the research that we've done and the research that you've done and a whole lot of work that's being done in this area we can probably say at least a quarter of the population are alarmed about climate and everybody else is on the spectrum so to speak I mean there's certainly some people in the political parties that are on the spectrum in a bad way as well that are making things stop that are kind of I suppose bottlenecks right but what is interesting to me is that if you look at the public opinion as it exists right now only nine percent of the community could genuinely be described as climate deniers 91 percent of the community are somewhere on the spectrum of basically taking the side seriously realizing that action on climate is something that should happen and should probably happen sooner rather than later they're there to be convinced about what policies are the best way forward the problem of course is that in politics and potentially in industry although I've got to say business and industry are leading the national politics on this and have done in the last 18 months to two years in ways that are pretty impressive you can have tiny groups of people within major political parties stop things happen in a way that doesn't happen with the electoral politics the other thing I'd note too is that when you cut that data by generation only one percent of Australians under the age of 25 are climate deniers and a very big group of them are alarmed so you've got consumers and voters coming down the pipeline who are you know really going to put this as an issue so the politics is changing the the business context is changing and the public opinion is changing as well and has even changed in the last 12 months as we've started to see Australia potentially get left behind the Biden administration's election I think is an important part of that but I think it'll start to dawn on on those people for whom climate and environment and maybe their number five and six issues that actually there might be some economic imperatives for it to be more like three and four potentially even two yeah there's there's a lot there but I really want to bring in as in here where from the business perspective you know Rebecca's just mentioned that much of the public are really waiting for leadership is that what you're seeing amongst the business community or are they adapting because it makes sense to them well hi everyone hope you can hear me and sorry I can't be there in person in Melbourne we're stuck here for a little while longer but hopefully I'll be up in Sydney soon but this is a really interesting conversation the way I characterize it Tash is this that 20 years ago within business it was no we don't want to change then that's shifted to do we have to change then to shall we change and now it's really how do we change conversation and business is pushing ahead with that and what's pushing that apart from you know leadership and concern among business leaders that they have yeah have to do and should be seen to be doing the right thing it's also the concerns of investors customers suppliers staff all of these things are pushing business in a pretty clear direction it's always heartening when I hear people say because I tend to believe it myself and I've said it publicly that business has really led this debate probably for the last you know five or six years at least they've sort of got out got ahead of government policy in many cases and climate and energy you know which used to be as somebody famously said to me once first once the energy paying the energy bill was what the firstly paid for the staples did that is now a boardroom issue and it is very much a fight in front of mind issue for business so the question now that business has is that there are many ways to climb this mount but what is the best way of doing it nick mentioned gas for many it's a necessity gas in the way they do business but for others it's all about trying to find ways to work in with battery storage development of new technology hydrogen all of those things and then also the last point I'd make on this task is that we just for the UK Australia sign a trade agreement or the framework of a trade agreement overnight our time there's going to be enormous pressure on Australia in the period air you talked about cop the department administration movements that other jurisdictions have made to move in what you know business would see as a sensible direction in a policy sense here nick referred to it as moving slowly or something like that we refer to it as crap towards sort of a zero by 2050 position so yeah I mean is is is sort of is coming along the question is how fast it's going and how it is how it is adapting as well as well as the business community so there's some of the key things I'm very confident in the direction that's being taken by business but not all business is the same not all business can move at a rapid rate there's got to be different speeds different trajectories but by and large the conversation has moved on I remember some fearsome battles I was involved in them I led them at my organisation around this around this issue and we came up with core principles you know back in about 2013 which we stuck to sins around energy and climate but we're heading in that that direction where basically you know everyone has got on board and now at Australian Industry Group which I lead we're part of many different business fora and community fora as well all trying to get policy alignment and agreement where possible so it's it's real outliers now who who have issues and problems around this space it's now as I started out by saying question how do we get there yeah I think that's really fascinating and it's pretty unusual for us to hear that you know business is out in front of a conservative government and so Nick what what do you think about this given there have been these kind of high levels of support for action now from the public from business what what is that inertia what is holding back the government at this point or at least keeping this pace to a slow one I think there's a few things there the most obvious is that I've heard Australia describes perhaps unfairly as a lump of coal with sheep on it and there's a reality that there's a base reality to it to the quick that the resources industry Australia was made extremely wealthy very rapidly by coal by coal that we exported and coal that we burned for cheap energy and there's no getting around that and so when the world decided as it has that the time it comes to stop burning fossil fuels and first off coal that cost to Australia was greater so the politics here was always going to be harder secondly it's become obvious that and this is related that because of those resources industries because of their long-standing wealth and power they have far longer and far more established relationships through with both parties with governments through business organizations through personal relationships through the trade union movement they have the ear of government and of opposition in a way that is not replicated in say the united kingdom in most of Europe it's changing the united states but that it's been more similar there but but that has changed and so the power of the resources industry to slow this process down can't be exaggerated and then there is the very real and related effect on individuals lives how do you tell 20 year old in muscle broke or somewhere who's earning who doesn't have a trade qualification and might be earning as much or more than their high school principal that way of life has to end that's really hard and it's really unfair and it has an outsized implication on certain constituencies which is why you see people like Joel Fitzgerald advocating on behalf at the moment I think the Labor Party has failed to find an effective way to reassure those communities and industries that well we have to find a way for the whole community to bear this burden well I just want to jump in there as somebody who does analyst focus groups in seats like the Hunter Valley with people like you've just described it's actually a bit more complicated than that mining is the ninth biggest employer in the Hunter Valley not the first the third the seventh the ninth first is health care educations their manufacturing's their retailers their disability services it's the ninth in five years it'll be the 11th having worked with a lot of companies that are trying to get out of that area so it's not so much that you go to the place at the Hunter Valley and there's tons of people employed directly in mining because there aren't there aren't it's not a massive employer in the way that other employee in a way that other industries are it could in fact be a bigger employer if we move towards renewable energy because there's going to be lots of opportunities in mining and lots of opportunities generally manufacturing if we move quicker towards renewable energy the problem is is that if you do a focus group in a place like the Hunter Valley with a whole lot of people who actually aren't employed in mining they think that mining is absolutely critical to the future prosperity of Australia but and when you say to them how many people are employed in mining in Australia they say 250,000 and then when you tell them how much it actually is it's about you know the exact numbers about 10,000 and coal maybe less than gas and we're talking about Australian but they're surprised but then they also say but those are real jobs those are jobs that sustain communities it is so demoralising to be with a group of people in the Hunter Valley who work in disability services who are teachers who are shop owners and they say that those are jobs aren't as important we cost the government money we don't make Australian money now in fact every every industry including education makes Australia a lot of money the problem is the role that the fossil fuel industries have had over time and some of that has been justified and some of that has been because of a very effective public opinion campaign to say we are essential has made people think that we can't live without them and it's made people diminish those sectors that have also been critical to Australian prosperity such as education so I think there is something more fundamental here about the role of fossil fuels and the Australian imagining of what prosperity looks like and we have to it's very difficult to unpick that and it's very difficult to challenge that but we do have to go some way towards doing that because it is stopping us helping shape the Australian economy in a direction that will actually deliver jobs for that 20 year old in Musclebrook because I can guarantee you at 45 he will not be working in the mining industry what does that look like to you Ines what do you think are there you know are you hearing kind of similar stories from the people you talk to and how are your members and the people you work with thinking about these economic opportunities as we go forward and as Australia's economy inevitably shifts this is one you've got to spend a little bit of time unpacking mining itself employs about two percent of the total Australian workforce that's the data point but there are obviously many points back from that where it supports further employment but in itself it's not a huge employing sector where it is huge is the income it generates for the economy our trade to China is well was up until the latest dispute spent 160 billion dollars a year iron ore is about 80 billion dollars of that about half in terms of the of the income generated it's the same as an exporter of coal Australia is in the top two coal exporters globally that doesn't mean we we have to keep using it here but there's obviously going to be a continuing industry for export for some time to come these are not simple decisions just to walk away from that and the economic benefits that it brings so there's sort of a dual carriageway approach here where you're looking at employment and you're looking at revenue that's generated for the country and holding up living standards as a result of that I mean you wouldn't want to really think about where Australia would be right now if it weren't for income generated out of mining but business is going back to your point there tapish business is is moving there's a very concerted effort around what you might call fuel switching going on and there's a big effort that's being put in by business into energy efficiency which is where we would all think some of the great gains could be made in terms of emissions these are important issues and decisions that businesses are taking now there are going to be jobs created from renewables so you look at one of our big members Boyd Scott Steel they just appointed an executive to their management team specifically to look after the climate and energy issues and this is part of the journey the day and other steel companies globally are on towards what you might call green steel now it's a little way off but they're on that journey and they and you know they're determined to get there and and play their part it's the same right across other sectors I talked a little bit earlier about that climate round table we're part of with the National Farmers Federation the NFF has got to the point of supporting net zero by 2050 the aluminium council is in the same boat you know and they're big energy users so they're trying to find creative ways to contribute and you know this has the potential to be a a significant job creator but also a significant knowledge creator as we go through the development of new energy development and new technology development so the business is thinking about this in pretty creative ways and different ways and that's what where this conversation is really bears no likeness to what it was 10 years ago these are front of mind conversations and it goes back to where I started it's around what the community wants and expects and using that data point that Rebecca mentioned 91 percent you know in favour in one way or the other of action on climate the question is around pace scale and all of that but business recognises that and they go where their customers go and where influencers are around them go staff investors and like so this is a big opportunity for Australia now the question is going back to Musclebrook and your 20 year old how do you make that transition and and make it clear to a 20 year old in Musclebrook who does expect a significant ways like that that there are other opportunities out there for them and you do it in a way which is reasonable and fair and provides them with opportunities to continue to make a good living you know I just I mean one of the things that's really clear I do I do a bit of work with corporations in hard to decarbonise industries and I once upon a time I might have included agriculture for that but that's actually doing there's actually a lot of that's a lot that's happening in in the ag sector which is exciting but there are there are big employers and big important Australian companies we want to be around for another hundred years that are hard to decarbonise and it's kind of easy you know it's it's not like IKEA they're not like IKEA they're not like those kinds of organisations that can do can make pretty aggressive targets and and when I do work with them it's really clear that lack of federal consistency around policy around framework is actually incredibly difficult there are some organisations that can creatively move quickly without national policy settings providing a lot of incentive for that but there are other other organisations which desperately need that and they're not going to be able they might get you know 50 of the way there they're not going to get anywhere close to near where they need to without some without the federal government stepping up they've been happy that the state governments have done what they've had to do but that's where that's where it's clear that that lack of consistency and lack of framework is really hampering what they want to do they might be they might be happy with what state government's doing but they're also concerned that states and federal and various states and federal are moving at different pastes so there's that lack of consistency and coherence across all the eight jurisdictions that's what really worries business when you get different policy settings and different jurisdictions that's what makes life very hard for them that's why a nationally consistent framework is crucial to have any success here I think that there's an interesting almost disconnect between the idea of having this conversation today and how much it just shifted in 10 years but then you look at for example the global energy monitor and when you look at the regions of the world where the most new coal fired power plants are planned Queensland is number one on the list right you look at what our polling shows and 63 percent of Australians would support reducing coal exports overseas you know the same number would support banning new coal mines only 30 percent support creating kind of new subsidizing new coal fired power plants and then on the weekend of course the g7 leaders signaled an end to direct government support for coal power generation by the end of this year so Nick could you tell us a little bit about what happened here at the g7 and how Australia is reacting to that well one of the things that the g7 agreed on the the leaders of the group of wealthiest nations agreed on was that they do not like what they perceive what what they call in their communique as carbon leakage this is what happens when it's not obscene this is what happens when a jurisdiction like the EU has a carbon tax of about 80 bucks or a price of about 80 dollars a ton at the moment and so if you want to emit carbon in your factory in the EU that's how much you have to pay after they introduced that the you some companies in Ukraine thought beauty and set up steelworks just outside the EU and started importing steel that is what is referred to as carbon leakage when when your own manufacturers or producers are undercut by carbon free imports now the group of seven leaders agreed on Sunday that they wanted to prevent this and the way to do that is what the EU is about to announce which is carbon border tariff and other countries that have already flirted with this are the US under Biden Japan South Korea later on this year we expect China to introduce its own price so these aren't in place yet but what we're seeing and this is the problem that Australian governments face is that the debate we're having here and not resolving is going to be resolved overseas they're going to decide eventually well no you can't import Australians and you meet him unless it's green without paying a price similarly when we come to negotiate a free trade agreement with the EU they're going to start in fact they've already declared they're going to look at agricultural clearing they're going to look at all of these other land practices which they either prevent in the EU or disapprove of so the failure in Australia to come to a resolution is as Innis has already said becoming not something which supports Australian industry and manufacturing but something which is a burden the political failure is now a burden and I've spoken with climate activists in the past year who have said to me just to go back to points that you've both made they almost throw their hands up they look at how far the private sector has come in the past couple of years and say we've been wasting our time for a generation because what has happened in the past few years with with huge pools of money controlled by fund managers like BlackRock and Vanguard declaring that they're they're going to set their own climate standards has blown away generations according to some people's despairing argument blown away generations of climate activism and it is it is the government that's being left behind but I think one of the things that you're exactly right so um in some work that I was doing for a we're super who um big industry super fund that are doing a lot of investing and renewable energy I interviewed Tony Wood at the Gratton Institute and he just said to me look the world will make a decision for us on climate and those decisions will not necessarily Australia's best interest our national interests will not be at the centre of those decisions so we've had this kind of hubris to think that we can just not decide you not make a decision on climate and go our own way or kind of delay so we either decide well with our national interests at the centre of it or we're forced to decide reactively and badly or we pay a carbon tax to an Australian government or a carbon tax to the EU I'd rather pay a carbon tax sister we wouldn't do good things with it if we can so you know how much is this factoring in to exporter thinking at the moment are we going to end up in what seems to me almost unfeasible where Australian industry is almost calling for a carbon tax here in Australia well I have to declare here that I'm the deputy chair of Australian super I sit on the investment committee so we're funneling billions of dollars around all the time and we put ESG you know not you know it's front and centre but very much in front of mind of investment decisions that we make and that and climate is a key part of that and how businesses respond on climate issues the issue there just to say is that you have to have an understanding I think as Rebecca made the point earlier that not all businesses can suddenly jump across the pond and become renewables space businesses overnight everyone is to use the the vernacular on a journey here and some will go faster than others but it's about what you know what the intent here and you know and there is a risk those who aren't a real risk that those who aren't really just going to get left behind and Nick referred to the G7 you know meeting I think that's through putting down some markers probably more towards where COP26 will go in November I mean I'll just tell you a story I was I was interested in the Australia UK FTA and Boris Johnson's comments that he thought Australia was heading in the right direction and I can make an argument for that too and I've made it to Boris's climate champion Nick topping on that Australia is it's moving it's just moving in a different way the response to that is well what's the point of having a plan if you don't have a target and that you can flip that back what's the point of having a target if you don't have a plan you can work that through but when I was at a session with Boris Johnson about a month ago as part of the B7 the business 7 for ahead of the G7 he gave a presentation and all he wanted to talk about was climate and he talked about the benefit of climate in job creation and he talked about the environmental impacts obviously but he ended his speech in typical Boris fashion by quoting Gordon Gekko and saying green is good he kept repeating green is good green is good you can tell where they're going you can tell where the EU is going and the EU will probably be the first ones to make the jump around what you would call carbon tariffs and then how Australia reacts to that that's going to be really when rubber hits the road at a government level that's when the rubber will really hit the road it's interesting you mentioned carbon tax I suspect you've got to come up with another formulation than tax carbon tax because we've run that that I think it's been run here run here a decade ago we all saw how that ended I mean I would argue from a business perspective the $26 a tonne price business was asked to pay then was bar and excess of what was should have realistically been put forward but the talk of a tax here I think it's going to be a very difficult argument to run and win within big sections of the community who might normally be supportive so it's about trying to find another mechanism that would be where I where I put that at the moment that's still going to be played out yeah and that's certainly what we found we asked about introducing an emissions trading scheme or a carbon tax and we had 64% say that they were in favour but Rebecca I want to come to you here on some of this kind of international pressure that we're hearing from the EU from the US from the UK of course is that having a domestic impact in terms of public views and how do you think that might play out yeah I think it is I think that you know 20 years of listening to Australians talk about how we imagine ourselves and some of that's right and some of that isn't right we have tend to think of ourselves as having a wonderfully clean environment about being good on environmental issues about about you know doing our fair share and and you know and and that I think is shifting I think to some extent what's happening with the Great Barrier Reef has shifted that a bit and again some of that's public perception and and filtering down I think there is this sense that if they feel if we feel like the world is moving on energy and particularly China and the US but even to a greater or lesser extent Japan and Korea who are really kind of critical partners for us with export if people kind of work out that they're moving that we might be left behind and I certainly talked to a lot of my clients about harnessing this sense of FOMO fear of missing out and that if we can and that that will change and I think the Biden administration is already making Australians feel like perhaps we're not going keeping a pace we don't necessarily want to be leaders but we certainly not want to be laggards and if we and if the fact that we are laggards is connected with a real problem with the economy that ongoing we can't really expect that we're actually missing out on economic opportunities in the region or globally if that really starts to sink in not with people who are alarmed about climate change but those people who are generally concerned but don't think about it if they see it in those terms then that's going to shift and then things like for example some kind of price on carbon or whatever mechanism might be seen as deregure everywhere else particularly with our export partners and that will be important and I think you're starting to see that at the sector level I mean I presented to a department a state department in the primary industry a couple of months ago and they were particularly concerned about the idea not so much of you know farming in the climate age which is very difficult but what that was going to mean for exports if Australia didn't look like it was really keeping a pace with what was happening so I think that economic conversation is changing our understanding of how we're perceived globally is starting to slowly filter through and perhaps really deflate this idea that actually we're great on climate and we're all fine and we're great on environment and this is a wonderful country with clean air and all the rest of it but hubris or laziness around that is not a great it's not it's not good. Now I'm going to come to the audience in a moment so please do get your questions ready but before I do I think there's a really interesting kind of issue here where as mentioned already Nick the UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson says that Australia's moving in the right direction and you know he says that Australia's set a net zero emissions target for 2050 one of your colleagues one of your colleagues from the audience says actually that's preferably which is of course Australia's policy and the next day you have the nationals on Australian television saying there's no agreement in Australia to set a date for a zero emissions target all of this international pressure all of this business pressure can can we get beyond it when we still have this kind of happening in the party room? I've got absolutely no idea the honest answer to that I mean given that there has been so much blood political blood spilled over this and given that some of the positions that have been drawn by some of the key players here are so stark it's hard to imagine it at present there are there are many people I understand and I'm not a Campbell reporter I'm not completely plugged in I'm talking about what I'm reading and colleagues I'm speaking with in contacts I'm speaking with there are people there are a lot of people in Campbell who would like to move forward and who emphasise to me when I speak with them the prime minister's movement on this but there are those who get up and very publicly and very determinately demonstrate that they are not having a bar of it and I can't see how that changes in the coalition and equally it's difficult to see how it changes at present in the ALP I remember visiting Germany as they were closing down their thermal mines well they're still in the process but visiting them to see how they were going about this and the key way they were doing it was by agreement they had a task force put together with representatives of the coal mining companies the unions and the government who all worked together and then they slowly picked which mines would be closed down when and moved workers from one to the next and paid those who wanted to retire earlier handsome some to retire and I said can you I said to one of the union leaders who was instrumental in crafting that policy and who does spend a lot of time in Australia and talks with the CFME mining division I said to him can you imagine that happening here he said no way he couldn't imagine a circumstance in which those three sectors could work together and then when I raised it with Australian miners they pointed out that the relationship between the the energy producers and the and the conservative government was just as bad as the relationship between the unions and the government in fact some of the unions and the producers were talking more clearly to one another than with the government so there there is a lot of bad blood in the water and I find it difficult to see at present how there will be a road a road map to use the vernacular it seems to the moment laid out that would lead to rapid decarbonisation of the Australian economy and look you and you've also got the fact that look every federal election since 2007 has come down to a handful of seats so essentially a handful of voters in a handful of seats all both political parties understand the need to narrow cast to that group and having done that kind of research I can tell you that it's very easy to scare them about what rapid decarbonisation would mean to the economy and to them so in many cases obfuscation or let's just not talk about climate change and try and win them on other things is the tactic is the way to go forward so I can also understand why that hampers the politics as well but business movement is really rapid yeah which I think is a fascinating dynamic before I go to the audience I actually did just want to ask you Rebecca you know we talked about pressure from the EU from the US the UK we didn't talk about the Pacific which has had a kind of long-standing frustration with Australia's inertia on these policies yeah I've always thought look I've thought if you are really really want if you really want safe strong borders and you don't want refugees coming here by boat and you should worry about climate change we're going to have people of the Torres Strait probably after the first ever climate refugees in their own country needing to be resettled we're going to have you know some really significant issues in the Pacific we already have some diplomatic challenges in the Pacific and the role of the Pacific in terms of their ongoing relationship with China and the US so I think we ignore that at our peril but like I said there's been some really worrying projections around what what climate change is going to do with global issues around assaults you know around refugees and those kinds of problems with migration so like I said you know if you really want safe strong borders and not people arriving on boats then that might be something you should be worried about might turn to the audience now if you could put up your hand wait for a microphone to come to you and just introduce yourself before you ask your question so the inners can hear you as well thank you thank you my name is Freddie Sharp it's clear from what you've all said that the only single roadblock in this country to effective climate policy is the federal liberal national party every state and territory government has a commitment to carbon neutral by 2050 Matt Keene in New South Wales is the most progressive politician in the country bar none on climate change so I'd like to add maybe a note of optimistic hope a precedent there are two or three sacred cows in right wing politics in Australia and around the world one is budget surpluses are all important the other one is climate change is not real and should be resisted any action to mitigate it should be resisted we've actually shot that first sacred cow in the last 18 months in the face of an existential crisis like Covid deficit spending around the world has gone into overdrive our own government is spending record amounts of government money as they should sensibly at last on boosting the economy at one sacred cow gone is that enough of a precedent for the rump of the right wing in the liberal national party coalition room to go maybe we can crab walk away out of this and recognize the reality of it it's just a sacred cow cows can be shot let's move on how positive can you guys be about the fact there is a precedent that we no longer care about deficits sounds like any questions I don't think well I'll have a go yes please go ahead go for it thanks Nick um look Covid has done many strange things to body politics all over the world so debt and deficit is not a big issue now but that's not to say that it won't come back to be one in the years ahead we're just in sort of incredibly unusual times I'd be looking to the next budget to really get a line a bead on on where a coalition government if they're re-elected and don't have a budget before the next election where they where they head on debt and deficit I think they are crab walking towards you know a net zero by 2050 position it's it's the treasurer mentioned that in his budget speech if you would have think the coalition treasurer would mention net zero by 2050 in a budget speech you know three years ago I would have you know I would have run you know naked down Berk Street it's just been big transitions occurring within politics the issue quite realistically is when you think back Malcolm Turnbull had the national energy guarantee attempt to put that through that got blocked by maybe six maybe eight coalition back benches that's really what it turned out in the end politics change all the time the dynamics of those parties change all the time I can be fascinating to see what happens post-election if the coalition gets up what happens within the national party that'll be one to watch because there are two wings of the national party on this as well so I think you know things will move and continue to move in what you and I would probably call a positive direction and they're not going to jump there they're going to sort of inch their way there and as as political parties the makeup of them change situations change and I think as nicks made clear it's and and Rebecca it's the same in the Labor Party there are enormous differences there at a at a national level too and they will all play out in time so I'm I'm more optimistic than not and this is from someone who sort of lives through you know almost 20 years of watching and being involved in these fights from various perspectives I'm more confident now than that we'll get to where we where we want to get to then I have been in a very long time and just to add in terms of the shifts in the Labor Party the dynamics in the union movement are shifting again slowly everything that happens in the union movement happens quite slowly the movement from the AMWU and the ETU has been interesting the rhetoric is different there again the ACTU are managing that carefully and then of course all that needs to happen is the Labor Party needs to feel like it can win in the critical seats where coal players a role or fossil fuels have played a role in prosperity in the past maybe not necessarily in the future in those Queensland seats and holding on to the hunter but also potentially in places like Tasmania you know Tasmania is 82% hydro right um they're not there's nobody down there working in coal and there's lots of opportunities for example in green hydrogen and that kind of in that state as well as in tourism and protecting that state so there are ways that you can have conversations with key electorates that you need to hold on to and win and once they've nailed that then the politics will change and that union politics is also changing yeah I think in our poll we found that the question of cost is really shifting where 74% of Australians said that the benefits of taking action on climate change would outweigh the costs and we're really starting to see the conversation move from the costs of action to what are the costs of inaction and so I think that does have perhaps optimistic for one effect and we'll take another question from Alex Oliver the director of research here at the Lowe Institute just wait for the mic sorry thank you for your time and expertise tonight I've got a question for Inners the Finkle review I can't remember what year it was but the emissions intensity scheme undid the Turnbull government as the carbon tax undid the Gillard government and you talk about finding a different mechanism so if if the government were to crap all gets way to a zero by 2050 target and and the Morrison government is saying you know it's it's how we get there that's important not what the target is can do you or your members who presumably very influential with government do you think that you can get there without a mechanism like a carbon tax or an intensity scheme and if you do need a mechanism what on earth could it be since we have been through such exhaustive processes trying to find a mechanism that actually works yeah Alex it's a good question I mean within Australia we've tried every sort of methods that we've had you know baseline and credits we've had carbon taxes we've had every sort of initiative under the sun to get there in any measure there has to be carrots and sticks incentives to behave in one way or another so I don't think the settlement yet around exactly what an incentive could and should look like or you know the amount it should be or anything like that or how it's paid who it's paid to all of that I think I think we probably still have to unfortunately go through another iteration on that but I think the view is that we'd I mean to be quite blunt we'd probably rather get there without one but it may be that there has to be some some mechanism like that to to to pull us up to the line not clear yet to be honest yet about what that looks like I think at the moment the conversation is very much like the one we've just been having it's about trying to shift my mindsets to achieving the target and just from talking and listening to Rebecca I remember I'm sure she weighed nine I did one of these similar sort of sessions about eight years ago with Jed Carney when she was president of the ACTU and this issue around cold jobs versus green jobs was incredibly difficult in fact Jed poor thing put a head in her hands at the end and said this is all too hard yeah it's made this is all too hard but but we are moving so if we get that if you get the recognition around okay net zero by 2050 is the goal we're going to use technology to get there which makes a lot of sense if you think about it what else do we need you know as incentives and what do they look like I think that's the third act of what will be its react play that we've been at the moment one of the things that hasn't really shifted over time is 80 to 90 percent of Australians have been consistently supportive of investing in more kind of renewable technology and so I think that part of it is not going anywhere and we had another question here Andrea uh Jay Horton a question to either Innes or Nick why is a net zero 2050 goal a good policy for Australia I'm happy for Innes to answer this as well but I've got a couple of thoughts on that 2050 was first established by because scientists said that was where we needed to get to to be on track to withhold warming to something close to the Paris targets but since then because even since the Paris agreement was drawn with the world has failed to act fast enough it's only in Australia that we're discussing 2050 anymore when I talk with scientists they say well net zero by 2050 is too little too late the targets internationally have already come forward in most countries and in fact most international leaders are talking about 2030 not 2050 because a 2050 target is meaningless if you don't act sooner so that's if you accept those premises the other thing I'd say is that um given that scientists already no I'll leave that aside in fact if Innes wants to say anything on that but the other thing I'd say is that there's no other field of human endeavour that I know of where we expect people to extend themselves or systems to change without a target and in fact it seems to me very odd that we would say well we won't have a target it to me at at its face value doesn't make a lot of sense things people coalesce around targets uh they innovate around targets Innes did you want to chime in on that as well yeah it's a good question Jay I mean I I could I could I don't want us to sound like sheep and that's not my intention at all but there is global movement and momentum around this now and if Australia which is a far different economic makeup to any other country on the planet I think that was recognised by Boris Johnson in his comments overnight but if Australia doesn't make movement we'll get we'll be isolated um and I think that's important because you know one in five Australian jobs relies on on trade you know over 40 percent of our GDP comes from trade and you know we need to be in a position to be able to be to remain a trading nation and we do run the risk of being heavily penalised or excluded if we don't move in that direction now there's an argument around do you set the target or do you have the plan and I think that that's a legitimate argument to have it's like going up a mountain two different ways but as long as you get to that point is what the important thing here I think realistically is um for the international community um it's important because other other countries are moving in that direction they're coming off a different base and we have to be recognised as having a different base but we we have to we have to play our part and every time another major economy makes a shift in this direction the pressure on us just globally the eyes this turn on us globally um so we're not going to solve it on our own I don't think anyone's saying that you know we're not going to be the saviours although when you talk to some of the CSIRO scientists some of the you know the predictions or or prognostications around what happens if we don't make you know the 1.5 degree target are pretty horrifying you know whether you want to believe them or not but we you know in the end you know we have to play our part as a trading nation we seem to play our part I think there is also an element of pragmatism most of Australia's coal and gas is exported overseas and as my colleague Roland Roger has written about you know it's 70% of that is going to Asian markets that have now set net zero targets and so the economics are really shifting I will take a question now from Michael Fully Love the executive director at the Louie Institute. Thank you very much Tash and thank you Rebecca and Nick and Innes for a terrific conversation and I want to follow up Innes by asking you a question about your last answer and this this issue of isolation that you mentioned and let me draw on your experience not just as head of AIG but as an Australian diplomat and an advisor to the Australian Foreign Minister. A lot of the history of Australia's relationship with the world is about fear of isolation and being so distant from our sources of security and prosperity we've always been joiners by instinct and involving ourselves in conflicts and debates and trade all over the world but is there a sense in which there's a real danger of isolation for us at the moment we're physically isolated from the world the government has told us we can't the borders won't reopen for 12 months we're a daggers drawn with our largest economic partner our largest trading partner and now we're at odds with our oldest allies the United States and the United Kingdom is this an uncomfortable position for a country like Australia that doesn't like being isolated it sure is Michael it's it's desperately uncomfortable and has the potential to become exceptionally uncomfortable we're probably I mean this is you might think this is an odd thing to say but we're probably in a bizarre lucky that we have the security challenges we have at the moment because they're a counterpoint in all of this the the China relationship is definitely difficult as you know but that has made Australia even more important in a security sense you know in terms of its relationship with the United States and Western allies so we've probably been able we're probably able to play that card you know they need us as much as we need them in a security front which probably takes a bit of heat off this debate that might otherwise be there if the Biden administration coming in and they were you know pretty hot to trot on climate there's one of the issues that is one of the three big ones that President Biden raised that he wanted to address in his firm in his term as president so you know we're probably in a fortunate position there's not more pressure on us and I can but I can see that coming Michael particularly around the cop I think and it's going to be I mean I'm not a political commentator but it's interesting if we have an election before November or not and then how that plays out at the cop whoever wins that's going to be a pretty important moment in this debate this discussion but Australia doesn't like to be alone we've been geographic landmass with a with a very different economy to the rest of the world and export reliant economy that what that is what makes us want to have friends and be liked and be part of the game and in trade we were leading performers of the the Cairns group for instance you know we've always played a big role in these multilateral global issues and I can tell there's going to be a lot of pressure through later this year for probably for more from Australia as as this unfolds and as Boris Johnson you know he's holding cop he'll want to make a statement there America will the US will want to put a stake in the ground there and we've got the EU trade negotiations all coming to a head around the end of this year that's going to be a very important time in this conversation it is it's an interesting gamble isn't it from a politician's point of view that this idea of Australia kind of closed Australia that doesn't really care about whether we play a big role or we keep pace with the world that that group of voters in that clutch of seats are not going to care and are quite happy that they don't have to travel overseas except maybe they would like to go to Bali but that's okay they'll go to Queensland it's a gamble that those people aren't going to care about these things and we can continue to shut down shut down shut down there will be a moment when even that fiction will not be able to be sustained that that that small group of voters in those small group of seats will go actually we really can't go alone on this or a whole range of other things and we've got a lot of catching up to do we do not want to be out shivering in the courtyard smoking a cigarette with two other a couple of other rogue nations while everybody's inside having a COVID safe party but that I sometimes worry is that that's where we're headed look it wouldn't be a conversation I'm not sure COVID safe party for that much fun but there's always plenty of everyone's everybody in the party's immunized and we're not look it wouldn't be a conversation if we didn't raise China and fortress Australia in the last minute we just made it so I'm glad to hear it but look this has been a fascinating discussion I'm really sorry we didn't get to everybody's questions but I hope you can stick around for some wine and cheese please join me in thanking our fabulous panelists today I'm very pleased that Lowy Institute is hosting this Friday a conversation with Ted Wei legislator in exile from Hong Kong and there are still some tickets available if anybody is interested and then next week an online event with the American writer Lawrence Wright please sign up for those on our website we're really pleased to have you back in the building again and we look forward to seeing you again soon thank you