Speaker 1: I think we could probably say we've never seen a
Speaker 1: cyclone quite like this. It's been a very strangely behaved cyclone.
Speaker 2: Mike's second is the Saturday Paper's National correspondent. He spent
Speaker 2: the week tracking Cyclone Alfred as a bore down on Queensland.
Speaker 1: You know, normally, when tropical cyclones leave the tropics, I
Speaker 1: mean the reason they call tropical cyclones, obviously they start
Speaker 1: to weaken. But Alfred did the opposite, you know, instead
Speaker 1: of petering out off the Sunshine Coast, it abruptly intensified
Speaker 1: and then it completely changed course. It basically did a
Speaker 1: U turn. It was heading off to the sort of
Speaker 1: east southeast. Suddenly it turned and went to the west,
Speaker 1: started heading towards Brisbane. Along the way, it's done at
Speaker 1: least one loop, the loop where it's sort of gone
Speaker 1: in a full circle.
Speaker 2: The storm hits as we're gearing up for the election.
Speaker 2: It brings back memories of the floods and bushfires that
Speaker 2: tore through the country last time we voted. From Schwartz Media,
Speaker 2: I'm Daniel James. This is seven AM today. Mike's second
Speaker 2: on the politics of natural disasters and why every election
Speaker 2: is a climate change election. It's Saturday, March eighth. Mike,
Speaker 2: you've pointed to just how unusual this cyclone is. Can
Speaker 2: you tell me about the conditions that led to what
Speaker 2: we've seen? Why did Alfred behave so strangely?
Speaker 1: The basic reason why this reintensification happened has to do
Speaker 1: with the ocean temperature. Science tells us that for a
Speaker 1: cyclone to form, it requires surface temperatures of above about
Speaker 1: twenty six point five degrees celsius. And as it happened,
Speaker 1: the water is around Australia at the moment and all
Speaker 1: through last year were the hottest they've ever been, including
Speaker 1: in the Coral Sea, and the water temperature of southern
Speaker 1: Queensland coast was a balmi twenty seven degrees. The meteorologists
Speaker 1: and the experts, people like Matt Kean from the Climate
Speaker 1: Change Authority and David Coroli from the Climate Council say
Speaker 1: what we all know, essentially, it's climate change. What Corolli
Speaker 1: tells me is that we're seeing fewer cyclones overall, but
Speaker 1: the ones that do form tend to be more intense
Speaker 1: and more erratic and wetter because you know, a warmer
Speaker 1: atmosphere holds more water, so when it rains, it buckets,
Speaker 1: and all of it aligns with Alfred's behavior. You know,
Speaker 1: it meandered down the Queensland coast for well over a week,
Speaker 1: then it powered back up, then it took a path
Speaker 1: we haven't seen in about fifty years for that region,
Speaker 1: and then you know, it moved to a snails place,
Speaker 1: essentially stalled, you know, while the big waves continued to
Speaker 1: batter the coast and the rain continued to buck it down.
Speaker 2: Brisbane's been bracing for it all week and a lot
Speaker 2: of the same places that were so damaged by flooding
Speaker 2: in twenty twenty two right before the last election. So
Speaker 2: how did that last event shape how people voted?
Speaker 1: Well, last election was very much a climate election. We
Speaker 1: had a green slide so called in Brisbane. The Greens
Speaker 1: picked up three seas. It's a large part of that
Speaker 1: I think was because the Greens had a wonderful ground
Speaker 1: campaign where they basically went door to door in response
Speaker 1: to the flooding and offered to help people. So that
Speaker 1: earned them a lot of goodwill. We'd also had the
Speaker 1: Black Summer bush fires not so long before the last election.
Speaker 1: We remember Scott Morrison's famous suicide note, I don't hold
Speaker 1: a hose mate, you know, which saw people move away
Speaker 1: from the coalition.
Speaker 3: The Prime Minister has caved tonight, rushing back from Hawaii
Speaker 3: amid criticism for taking a holiday while Sydney Burns Scott
Speaker 3: Morrison express I know it was.
Speaker 1: Jones to understand this, and they'll be pleased I'm coming
Speaker 1: back on shore.
Speaker 2: But they know that.
Speaker 1: You know, I don't hold a hosemte, and I don't
Speaker 1: should control room.
Speaker 4: That's the great people who do that.
Speaker 1: The other thing I should mention, of course, is we
Speaker 1: had a bunch of so called teals climate independence elected
Speaker 1: in what had formerly been safe Liberal Party seats and
Speaker 1: central to their platform, of course, was that we should
Speaker 1: have a stronger response to climate change. Now things have
Speaker 1: changed a bit, the cost of livings in biting climate
Speaker 1: change had receded as a top priority for voters. But
Speaker 1: I think this storm could very much refocus the minds
Speaker 1: of voters, particularly the four million odd voters in the
Speaker 1: path of this cyclone, could very well refocus their minds
Speaker 1: on the issues.
Speaker 2: And if that is the case, why people are looking
Speaker 2: for action on climate change. Still, what would the government
Speaker 2: be able to point to when it comes to which
Speaker 2: record on climate change action.
Speaker 1: Well quite a bit actually, I mean not as much
Speaker 1: as a lot of people who are concerned about climate change,
Speaker 1: including myself I Dad might hope for. But the Albanezi
Speaker 1: government highlights a number of measures that it says are helping.
Speaker 1: For a start, when it came in, it immediately upped
Speaker 1: Australia's commitment under the Paris Climate Accord our emissions reduction target,
Speaker 1: which had been twenty six to twenty eight percent under
Speaker 1: the Morrison government. Labor jumped it up to forty three
Speaker 1: percent emissions reduction by twenty thirty, and then it implemented
Speaker 1: a a variety of policies that were intended to help
Speaker 1: get us there. You know. A key one was the
Speaker 1: Safeguard mechanism, which requires Australia's biggest corporate emitters to progressively
Speaker 1: curb their greenhouse gas output over time. They've introduced fuel
Speaker 1: efficiency standards for cars, making them cleaner and use link
Speaker 1: less fuel, and various incentives that encourage investment in when solar, hydrogen, etc.
Speaker 1: So these policies collectively are what the government credits and
Speaker 1: a lot of the experts, I might say, also credit
Speaker 1: for putting Australia on track to meet this legislated forty
Speaker 1: three percent ambition for cuts in emissions. Meanwhile, the coalition,
Speaker 1: led by Peter Dutton, has previously indicated that it might
Speaker 1: not even stick with that forty three percent target if
Speaker 1: it's elected. Last year, Dutton said, and I'm quoting him here,
Speaker 1: there was no sense in signing up to targets you
Speaker 1: don't have any prospective achieving. Dutton has since tried to
Speaker 1: tamp this down, and he said that he's he will
Speaker 1: not be following Donald Trump's footsteps and withdrawing Usustralia from
Speaker 1: Paris altogether. Would you consider withdrawing from Paris.
Speaker 3: I think we've been pretty firm in our commitment to
Speaker 3: net zero by twenty fifty and that's a commitment that
Speaker 3: we take seriously in the will honor. I think it'll
Speaker 3: be interesting to see where the United States goes and
Speaker 3: what influence that has in Europe and elsewhere around the world.
Speaker 1: But you know, the devil's in the detail. And Matt Kean,
Speaker 1: the head of the Climate Change Authority, says what we
Speaker 1: might see if we can get a coalition government is
Speaker 1: what he calls a dirty remain, meaning that they might
Speaker 1: stay in name, but do things that undercut our ability
Speaker 1: to hit our targets.
Speaker 2: Coming up after the break the political Balancing Act in
Speaker 2: a time of crisis.
Speaker 5: Hi Ruby Jones. Here, seven Am tells stories that need
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Speaker 2: Well, let's talk some more about the Paris Agreement in
Speaker 2: Australia's commitment to it. Are we on track to meet
Speaker 2: our obligations?
Speaker 1: So yes, the target was forty three percent compared with
Speaker 1: two thousand and five levels by twenty thirty, so that's
Speaker 1: what we submitted under the Paris Agreement. According to the
Speaker 1: most recent figures from the Climate Change Department, which came
Speaker 1: out at the end of last year, our missions are
Speaker 1: projected to be down to forty two point six percent
Speaker 1: on the current trajectory by twenty thirty so we're very close. However,
Speaker 1: Paris requires each party to ratchet up its ambitions over time.
Speaker 1: All parties were supposed to submit their new targets by February.
Speaker 1: Australia missed the deadline. Matt Kean if the Climate Change
Speaker 1: Authority attributed the delay in part to the disruptive climate
Speaker 1: policies of Donald Trump in the United States and said
Speaker 1: that that meant they would have to recalibrate what Australia
Speaker 1: would do. But I would suggest a more cynical observer
Speaker 1: would look at this and say, well, the government probably
Speaker 1: prefers to delay announcing a higher target until after the election.
Speaker 1: So there's still this question hanging of how far Australia
Speaker 1: would go under a future Labor government. There's little doubt
Speaker 1: that Labor would, if it was re elected, set a
Speaker 1: more ambitious target for twenty thirty five. The question is
Speaker 1: just how much it would advance its ambition, whether it
Speaker 1: would match what the experts say is actually needed, which
Speaker 1: is something around a seventy five percent cut to be
Speaker 1: consistent with the goal of keeping global heating at less
Speaker 1: than two degrees. So if a future government attempts to
Speaker 1: step back, it would be in violation of the treaty.
Speaker 2: So, as you mentioned, Mike Peter Dutton has ruled out
Speaker 2: withdrawing from the Paris Agreement. But let's talk about the
Speaker 2: coalition's climate policy and what they would mean for our
Speaker 2: missions targets.
Speaker 1: You're right, Dutton has said he's committed in principle of
Speaker 1: setting a new twenty thirty five target. He's given no
Speaker 1: hint as to what that might be. But the policies
Speaker 1: the coalition has laid out race series doubts about whether
Speaker 1: they'd even meet the twenty thirty target, the forty three
Speaker 1: percent reduction goal. For one thing, the coalition voted against
Speaker 1: essentially all of Labour's climate policies, you know, the safeguard's mechanism,
Speaker 1: fuel standards, et cetera, et cetera. But more significantly, the
Speaker 1: coalition's signature nature policy is building a whole bunch of
Speaker 1: nuclear power. The coalition says that it wants to have
Speaker 1: thirty eight percent of Australia's electricity coming from nuclear power
Speaker 1: sources by twenty fifty. The problem with that, of course,
Speaker 1: is that nuclear takes a long time to build. On
Speaker 1: even the most optimistic projections. They wouldn't get even the
Speaker 1: first of their proposed nuclear power stations built until the
Speaker 1: mid or late twenty thirties and in the interim. Their
Speaker 1: plan is to keep the old coal fired power generators
Speaker 1: running and burn a lot more gas, all of which,
Speaker 1: of course releases more carbon into the atmosphere. So the
Speaker 1: Climate Change Authority ran the numbers on the coalition's policy
Speaker 1: and they found that this reliance on fossil fuels during
Speaker 1: the time it takes to build nuclear would add something
Speaker 1: like two billion tons of extra carbon pollution to the atmosphere.
Speaker 1: Matt Keen has also pointed out that even the coalition's
Speaker 1: own commissioned modeling that they relied on when proposing this
Speaker 1: nuclear plan from Frontier Economics also recognized that there would
Speaker 1: be billions of extra tons of emissions under the nuclear plan.
Speaker 1: The opposition's response was to take aim at the messenger.
Speaker 1: There were suggestions that Keene should be sacked and that
Speaker 1: this was a politicized exercise. In fact, the shadow Climate
Speaker 1: Change and Energy Minister Ted O'Brien, and this nuclear plan
Speaker 1: is essentially his baby. He wrote to Keen, accusing the
Speaker 1: Authority of departing from its mandate, and he accused them
Speaker 1: of producing quote a political critique.
Speaker 4: I'm not sure why mister O'Brien is trying to politicize
Speaker 4: the Independent Climate Authority.
Speaker 1: Our role is to provide evidence based and science based
Speaker 1: advice on climate policy. Kein invited the coalition to provide
Speaker 1: any solid alternative estimates. So far, as far as I know,
Speaker 1: the coalition has not done so.
Speaker 2: It's interesting, though, Michae. Isn't it that we see leaders
Speaker 2: band together in moments of crisis, as we've seen this week.
Speaker 2: We've seen the L and P Premier David Cristo fully
Speaker 2: standing with the PM talking about the cyclone. But what
Speaker 2: we don't seem to be seeing is leaders banning together
Speaker 2: and coming up with a bipartisan solution to what's causing
Speaker 2: these disasters in the first place. How do you think
Speaker 2: Albanese's handling of this storm in this moment could reshape
Speaker 2: the election campaign.
Speaker 1: Well, it was a very pertinent observation you made that
Speaker 1: we've seen Albanese standing there with Chris and Fooley. Albanze
Speaker 1: is walking a line here. He needs to show leadership
Speaker 1: without looking like he's being opportunistic, I would suggest obviously
Speaker 1: he sees it playing to his managed to be visible
Speaker 1: in a crisis, and we know that failing to adequately
Speaker 1: respond to a disaster can be deadly for political leaders.
Speaker 1: I refer again back to Scott Morrison heading off to
Speaker 1: Hawaii and during the Black Summer bush fires, And interestingly,
Speaker 1: I don't think Peter Dutton's handled this terribly well so far.
Speaker 1: He went on Brisbane Radio on Wednesday morning, you know,
Speaker 1: talking about the seriousness of cyclone Alfred and the importance
Speaker 1: of checking on the old neighbors, etc. But he politicized
Speaker 1: it and took a swipe at Anthony Alberizi, suggesting that
Speaker 1: if Albinizi called an election this week, it would display
Speaker 1: a tiney for the reality of the situation.
Speaker 4: Some people will have lost everything that in the reality
Speaker 4: of these weather events, and to go to an election
Speaker 4: at that stage, at that time, I think the Prime
Speaker 4: Minister would have a ten year to do that. Yeah,
Speaker 4: due until the seventheenth of May, so he's got plenty
Speaker 4: of time too.
Speaker 1: Then it was revealed in a I think you'd say,
Speaker 1: an amusingly snarky piece in the Financial Review rear Window
Speaker 1: column that Dutton had left his electorate on Tuesday to
Speaker 1: do a party fundraiser in Sydney and had been entertained
Speaker 1: at the harbourside mansion of Justin Hymns, and the finnpiece
Speaker 1: had a killer final line which said of Dutton, I
Speaker 1: don't hold a tarp mate. But the bigger question here,
Speaker 1: I think is the policy one. Ultimately, you know, the
Speaker 1: risk is the coalition parties under Dutton are seen to
Speaker 1: be deliberately obstructionist to climate action. And it's interesting when
Speaker 1: I was talking to Matt Keen, he actually used those
Speaker 1: words deliberately obstructionist, as Keene said when I spoke to him,
Speaker 1: and I'll quote him here because it was a particularly
Speaker 1: strong and pertinent quote. I thought. He said, whether we
Speaker 1: realize it or not, every election is now a climate
Speaker 1: change election because it touches everything the economy, the environment,
Speaker 1: the prospects of future generations. And he was saying we
Speaker 1: should be pressing politicians all the time to explain how
Speaker 1: they'd deal with the world. That is quoting him again,
Speaker 1: inexorably heating up. So I would make two observations here.
Speaker 1: The first is that this particularly pertinent in the electorates
Speaker 1: of Peter Dutton and Ted O'Brien because they're right underwhere
Speaker 1: the cyclone's tracking. And the other is that the smart
Speaker 1: money is still on a minority government in the next parliament,
Speaker 1: and the people who will hold a balance of power
Speaker 1: will be Greens. They will be the community independent Teals,
Speaker 1: all of whom have shown that they are much stronger
Speaker 1: on climate issues than the major parties are, So you know,
Speaker 1: this could well drive a stronger response in the future,
Speaker 1: I think and hope.
Speaker 2: Mike, thank you so much for your time.
Speaker 1: Thanks a lot.
Speaker 2: Dan seven Am as a daily show from Schwartz Media
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