Narratives and counter-narratives of political strategy: revisiting Australia's carbon pollution reduction scheme

ABSTRACT

In 2009, the Australian Senate rejected the government's ambitious Carbon Pollution Reduction Scheme. In the prevailing narrative surrounding these events, the Labor government, under Prime Minister Kevin Rudd, made a series of strategic errors that led to the scheme's – and ultimately, Rudd's and the Labor Party's – downfall. However, by taking a closer look at of some aspects of Australia's parliamentary system, including the norms of partisan voting and the numbers game in parliament, a different story is apparent. A counter-narrative is that the Rudd Labor government's approach was reasonable at the time, but that institutional factors and election outcomes presented significant obstacles to passing climate legislation of any kind. Correcting this narrative will enable a better understanding of the political circumstances in which environmental policies are enacted in Australia, a country with the potential for regional policy leadership on climate change.

2009年，澳大利亚参议院否决了政府雄心勃勃的碳污染减排计划。围绕这些事件的通行叙事为：陆克文总理领导的工党政府犯了一系列战略性错误，结果导致了该计划失败——以及最终，陆克文以及工党的衰落。不过，仔细观察澳大利亚国会体系的一些方面包括党派投票规范以及国会的数字游戏，似乎就是另外一个故事了。一种反叙事是这样的：陆克文的工党政府的思路当时是合理的，只是体制因素以及选举结果不利于通过任何气候立法。对叙事的这种修正可以让我们更好地理解澳大利亚环境政策赖以实施的政治条件，而这个国家是有潜力在气候变化方面引导地区政策的。

KEYWORDS:

• Australia
• climate change
• carbon emissions trading
• carbon pollution reduction scheme

Acknowledgements

An earlier draft of this article was presented at a workshop, funded by the Australian Political Studies Association, at the University of Queensland in November 2021. Many thanks to Brian Head and Cassandra Star for co-organising, and to Matt McDonald for very useful comments.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

1 In a bizarre twist to this story, Baden Teague, Liberal Party senator from South Australia, was outside the chamber when the vote initially occurred, and the government did at first succeed in defeating its own legislation. Senator Teague rushed in immediately after the vote and asked the government senators if they wouldn't mind recasting the vote a second time. They agreed, and with Senator Teague's vote the amended legislation passed. These events are recorded in the Senate Hansard for 1 March 1995.

2 It is important to note at this point that with Senator Boyce and another Liberal senator, Judith Troeth, crossing the floor to vote with the government, had the Greens voted for the legislation it would have passed. However, as this outcome was a result of the opposition's sudden change of leadership, there was no way the government could have foreseen this eventuality when they decided to pursue bipartisan support for their climate policy in 2008, and so it should not be interpreted as evidence that Labor should have courted the Greens all along. Also, it is unlikely that Senators Boyce and Troeth would have crossed the floor to vote for the more assertive climate change policies that the Greens were seeking at that time.

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Joshua Newman

Joshua Newman is Associate Professor in the Faculty of Arts at Monash University in Melbourne, Australia. His research examines the politics of public-sector decision making, including policy analysis, evidence-based policy making, and governmentindustry interaction.