Yesterday, I almost broke into tears. It was one simple text. A simple message that our “Environment Minister” had decided to approve the Whitehaven Maules Creek Coal Mine. That he’d expedited the process because of the political reasons. That the mine was being approved despite allegations that Whitehaven had fudged elements of the approval process. That we were digging up even more coal, even when we know climate change is getting worse.
You may think it’s an odd thing to want to cry about. But after the years we’ve had, for me it’s not.
Yesterday made me think back to 2007. It was such a great year. As long as I had been politically aware at that time, I had lived under John Howard. 11 years of a conservative Government, run by one of the people I couldn’t stand the most. But in 2007 we could sense the shift. We were all optimistic – the Government was going to go, as so with it the legacy of the Howard years. The Labor Party were finally providing something new. Something exciting. Reform to our workplace laws, action on climate change, a new approach to asylum seekers.
As each bit got chipped away I’ve tried to hold my nerve. I didn’t expect the Fair Work Act to be as good as I wanted it to be, so I could accept that. I would complain, but at least it was better than WorkChoices. I kind of guessed that the Apology would not be followed by much actual action, and I knew that the ALP supported the Intervention. So whilst I didn’t like it and was determined to fight it, I was at least prepared.
Then came the CPRS and it feels like it’s all been downhill from there. A 5% reduction I thought? You have to be kidding me. That wasn’t at all what we voted for. Since then, the hits have kept of coming.
Dumping climate action until 2013. A citizens assembly on climate change. Mandatory Internet filtering. Extending income quaranteening across the country. The East Timor Solution. The Malaysia Solution. The Pacific Solution. Cutting welfare for single parents. Mining the Tarkine. Turning the Barrier Reef into a coal highway. Approving coal mine after coal mine after coal mine.
And now, I am just feeling down, beaten to a pulp. The so called major “centre-left” party in this country has swung so far to the right, has swung so far away from the environment and any sense of social justice that it is hard to even look at them any more.
And what do we get? Excuse after an excuse, after an excuse. “Tony Abbott would be much worse”, we’re told. Yet, it feels like in “being better than Tony Abbott”, the ALP has now become in so many ways much worse than John Howard. That joy of 2007, the success of defeating him is gone – filled with a bunch of right policies that even he didn’t implement. Wilderness that he protected being mined, asylum seekers being treated even more poorly, welfare policies that are worse for pretty much everyone.
If being better than Tony Abbott is now what defines success in Australia’s major “centre-left” party then there’s something seriously wrong.
We can and should demand better. We can live in a world without income quaranteering, without new coal mines, without the destruction of the Tarkine, without treating asylum seekers awfully. We can live in that world, and today, instead of feeling miserable, I will strengthen my resolve to make it happen. It has to happen, because I, like so many others, am sick of feeling like this.