We pick up with Mr. Albanese and the trained monkey already in progress
Interview, Part Five: Albo Stumbles
Asked if his policy would involve a higher reduction target than the government (itself a nonspecific question – reduction from what year’s levels?), Mr Albanese offered the following non-answer
We will take climate change seriously
Nope – not good enough, Mr. Opposition Leader. Stick to your guns if you hope to be taken seriously. He then made the following extraordinary statement
I’m trying to be generous to them [the Morrison government]. Hopefully, they’ll wake up tomorrow and go, ‘There could be something in this climate change thing’ and take action.
Yes – and hell might freeze over too. The Tories will never take action on this issue because they are paid not to. Money talks, Mr. Albanese, and everything else walks. This is, I suspect, part of the reason people see you as weak. You speak of hope that these bought and paid for streetwalkers for corporate Australia will see the light because – what – one of them read something? The only way to get a Tory to care about an issue is for it to affect them personally! Until one of their (many) houses burns down, they will not care a fig for this issue! Play hard politics, Sir. Take their arrogant inaction on this global threat and break them with it!
Interview, Part Six: The Recovery
Asked about his support for the Adani mining project, Mr. Albanese said that it was a project by a private company and not the government. In other words, politicians’ opinions are irrelevant. An artful dodge, but in response to the trained monkey’s question about Labor losing support in Queensland for being ‘wishy-washy on supporting our [Queensland’s] coal industry’, Alabo did offer this very useful piece of insight
People in Queensland and everywhere else who are involved in the industry know that the industry…continues to provide. The questions that you had before about our target, be it our emissions reduction target or renewable energy target. If you have got a 50 per cent renewable energy target, by definition, there’s 50 per cent coming from fossil fuels. So, let’s be realistic there about what the framework is domestically and internationally. Of course, there will continue to be coal exports.
Right. This is a good retort to the strawman that climate policy seeks to eliminate coal by Thursday. The point is transition rather than immediate, radical action. The jobs that are connected to the coal industry would be phased out over time as the industry is phased out. Retraining and income support for those no longer employed in the industry would be a necessary element of the transition policy. But full credit to Mr. Albanese here: he reframed the issue, confronted the strawman and gave a truthful, punchy response.
Interview, Part Seven: International Influence
The next question concerned international influence in Australian domestic politics, with a focus on China. Albanese noted the carious difficulties that the Tories have had with gifts from Chinese representatives, specifically the infamous gold watches. He then said it was a ‘both sides of politics’ issue. Respectfully, Sir, there is a difference between Sam Dastyari and a minor incident involving paid travel (which he repaid but was forced to resign anyway because Labor exists) and Gladys Liu and the scandal around her. Degrees matter, Mr. Albanese. Attempts to influence Australian politics may impact both sides, but it is misleading (and overly generous to your opponents) to say ‘both sides do it’.
Conclusion: Labor Rebuilds
The last political question was about Labor’s rebuilding after the election loss in May of 2019, which Mr. Albanese dealt with in suitably lofty terms. It was not a bad answer, just the standard ‘we took a hard look at ourselves’ line that you hear from many parties rebuilding after an election loss. No mention of the media. No mention of the complete snowjob that they did on Bill Shorten. It was an entirely internal assessment. Sad, really.
Overall, a terrible series of loaded, misleading and horribly framed questions which the Sky website mined for soundbites to quote out of context. This propaganda outlet has no place in Australian political discourse.
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