Kim Rubenstein, Independent ACT Senate candidate, says that the Labor Party has embraced her key policy initiative for a process modelled on the 1983 Prices and Incomes Accord to fast track a consensus on climate action.
Shadow Treasurer Jim Chalmers said an “Accord-like” deal on climate and energy policy under a new Labor Government would help build trust with business, and open the way for a broader economic reform agenda.
Chalmers said Labor and business now shared similar views on climate and energy policy, which opened the way for breakthrough negotiations.
“It’s an Accord-like opportunity,” he told the Australian Financial Review today.
Professor Rubenstein called two weeks ago for an Accord-style Climate Compact to break the deadlock that has paralysed Australia’s response to climate change for two decades.
She urged the incoming Federal Government to convene, in its first months in office, a process of negotiations that would join all stakeholders in charting a strategy to at least halve emissions by 2030, and ideally cut much deeper.
“We have little time in which to catch up on two lost decades,” Professor Rubenstein said. “It’s now or never.
“We need to settle the agenda and see policies enacted in the 2023-24 Budget.”
She pointed to the 1983 Prices and Incomes Accord under the Hawke Government as demonstrating the power of negotiated settlements to open the way for sweeping economic reform.
“The Accord ushered in the modern economy we know today,” Professor Rubenstein said. “We now need a Climate Compact to deliver the decarbonised economy that will help avert catastrophic global warming and set us on the path to a just, sustainable, and prosperous future.
“Canberrans and people right across Australia are crying out for urgent action. The major parties have been locked in stalemate as we endure the devastating effects of global warming, most recently the floods in NSW and Queensland and, two years ago, the Black Summer fires.”
