View from The Hill: Malcolm Turnbull's home truths on the NEG help Labor in the climate wars
- Written by Michelle Grattan, Professorial Fellow, University of Canberra
An Easter weekend in an election campaign might be a bit of a challenge for a pair of leaders who were atheists. But fortunately for Scott Morrison and Bill Shorten, declared believers, it wasn’t a problem.
Both attended church services during the so-called campaign cease-fire that the main parties had proclaimed for two of the four days.
Morrison on Sunday was pictured in full voice with raised arm at his Horizon Pentacostal church in The Shire, where the media were invited in. On Friday he’d been at a Maronite Catholic service in Sydney.
Sunday morning saw Shorten at an Anglican service in Brisbane, his family including mother-in-law Quentin Bryce, former governor-general.
Neither leader was hiding his light under a bushel.
Church, chocolate and penalty rates
Sunday was an opportunity to wheel out the kids, chasing Easter eggs (Shorten) or on the Rock Star ride at Sydney’s Royal Easter Show (Morrison). This was campaigning when you’re not (exactly) campaigning.
The minor players weren’t into the pretend game. For them, the relative restraint on the part of the majors presented rare opportunity. Usually Centre Alliance senator Rex Patrick would have little chance of being the feature interview on the ABC’s Insiders.
But while Friday and Sunday were lay days for the major parties Saturday was not (and Monday won’t be either).
For Labor, Easter has meshed nicely with one of the key planks of its wages policy - restoration of penalty rate cuts by the Fair Work Commission. Even on Sunday, Shorten pointedly thanked “everyone who’s working this weekend”.
It was the start of Labor’s campaign focus turning from health to wages this week, when it will cast the election as a “referendum on wages”.
Turnbull resurrects the NEG
The weekend standout, however, was the intervention of Malcolm Turnbull, who launched a series of pointed tweets about the National Energy Guarantee (NEG).
Turnbull was set off by a reference from journalist David Speers to “Malcolm Turnbull’s NEG”.
“In fact the NEG had the support of the entire Cabinet, including and especially the current PM and Treasurer. It was approved by the Party Room on several occasions”, the former prime minister tweeted.
“It had the support of the business community and energy sector in a way that no previous energy policy had. However a right wing minority in the Party Room refused to accept the majority position and threatened to cross the floor and defeat their own government”. “That is the only reason it has been abandoned by the Government. The consequence is no integration of energy and climate policy, uncertainty continues to discourage investment with the consequence, as I have often warned, of both higher emissions and higher electricity prices.” He wasn’t finished. “And before anyone suggests the previous tweet is some kind of revelation - all of the economic ministers, including myself, @ScottMorrisonMP, @JoshFrydenberg spent months arguing for the NEG on the basis that it would reduce electricity prices and enable us to lower our emissions.” And then: “I see the @australian has already described the tweets above as attacking the Coalition. That’s rubbish. I am simply stating the truth: the NEG was designed & demonstrated to reduce electricity prices. So dumping it means prices will be higher than if it had been retained. QED” “The @australian claims I ‘dropped the NEG’. False. When it was clear a number of LNP MPs were going to cross the floor the Cabinet resolved to not present the Bill at that time but maintain the policy as @ScottMorrisonMP, @JoshFrydenberg& I confirmed on 20 August.” (Frydenberg, incidentally, has lost out every which way on the NEG. As energy minister he tried his hardest to get it up, only to see it fall over. Now he is subject to a big campaign against him in Kooyong on climate change, including from high-profile candidates and GetUp.) Turnbull might justify the intervention as just reminding people of the history. But it is damaging for the government and an Easter gift for Labor – which is under pressure over how much its ambitious emissions reduction policy would cost the economy. It also feeds into Labor’s constant referencing of the coup against Turnbull. Turnbull’s Easter tweets are a reminder the Coalition sacrificed a coherent policy on energy and climate for a hotchpotch with adverse consequences for prices; it dumped that policy simply because of internal bloodymindedness, and the now-PM and treasurer were backers of the NEG, which had wide support from business. Shorten has strengthened his commitment on the NEG, indicating on Saturday he’d pursue it in government even without bipartisan support. “We’ll use some of the Turnbull, Morrison, Frydenberg architecture, and we will work with that structure,” he said. Given the hole it has left in the government’s energy policy, pressing Morrison on the economic cost of walking away from the NEG is as legitimate as asking Shorten about the economic impact of his policy. Read more: VIDEO: Michelle Grattan on the starting line of the 2019 election campaign