Anthony Albanese must ignore ‘radical climate push’ from Greens Leader Adam Bandt and his cheerleaders in the media

Anthony Albanese would do well to ignore the white noise of radical fringe journalists and activists and instead forge ahead with what Australians were promised, writes Jack Houghton.

Anthony Albanese has a fight on his hands with an increasingly belligerent fringe Green movement pressuring the Prime Minister to abandon his pre-election climate commitments.

Make no mistake, Anthony Albanese has a mandate on climate. Conservatives may not like the tougher 43 per cent reduction he aims to achieve by 2030 but that is what Australians voted for.

And equally, progressive voices may be tempted to push for a faster and more radical energy transition than achieving net zero by 2050, but that would be out of step with public expectations.

There is a clear and direct misunderstanding of what the Independent MP movement – and the increase in the Greens primary vote – must mean for future policies.

Politicians and pundits alike should caution attributing the loss of a few seats by Liberal politicians to an appetite for faster energy transition.

In reality, the Coalition Government was viewed as being wholly incompetent. There are countless examples of situational mismanagement that have absolutely nothing to do with ideology.

In this writer’s view their election loss had little to do with Left versus Right tribal politics every media pundit is obsessed with pushing in post-election analysis.

If anything, the Coalition’s problem was a lack of ideological consistency which made decisions appear frazzled, rushed or desperate.

After all, Labor and the Coalition had an extremely close climate policy with the goal of achieving net zero by 2050 and collectively they earnt 68.3 per cent of all votes.

The Coalition received slightly more votes at 35.7 per cent and Labor was just behind with 32.6 per cent of Australians behind their pitch.

Given the overwhelming public support for the approach of our major parties, it is jarring to watch the Australian media take fools like Greens Leader Adam Bandt seriously.

In this coverage by The Guardian, Bandt threatens to push Anthony Albanese to scrap support for new fossil fuel projects.

“The new government should do more than be slightly better than Scott Morrison and slightly better than business as usual,” he said.

“We need to start taking action in line with the science and it’s critical to understand that Labor’s target is not science driven, it’s based on a level of global heating of 2C and above and that’s not consistent with the Paris agreement’s temperature goals.

Bandt may have had a great run at the election but his primary vote only increased by three points to 12.2 percent and journalists are acting as if he is suddenly representative of the average Aussie.

It is particularly nauseating considering Bandt is so disgusted with our country he won’t even stand in front of the Australian Flag.

And this is where Albanese truly has a difficult task.

He spent the election campaign spouting hyperbole and slogans to the public about his ambitious climate agenda, and now the more radical elements want him to deliver on those promises.

Albanese would do well to ignore the white noise of radical fringe journalists and activists and instead forge ahead with what Australians were promised.

Jack Houghton is the host of The Media Show and tonight at 8pm he will tackle this issue and the biggest media stories of the week. Watch live or on-demand on Foxtel or Sky News on Flash.