We are now well into the election campaign, and both the Libs and the ALP seem to be scrambling for the lowest risk middle ground. The area I am most interested in, environment, flows into population issues, urban planning and infrastructure, food security and of course climate change.

On none of these issues is either major party providing anything that I would call real leadership. Rather they seem to be playing hop-scotch, seeing who can get a leg up on the other and stay one jump ahead in the polls.

It is important to remind ourselves that in our Parliamentary system the leader elected by the party itself has a different role than in a presidential system such as the US. Thus, the party overall has to bear some of the blame for the vacuousness of their policies. For the ALP, I look to their LEAN group (the Labor Environment Activist Network) to become activists.  The party has slipped into a near narcosis of delusion about current clearly unsustainable economic settings. How long can the housing industy leech off our urban land? See the article by demographer Bob Birrell on immigration. He describes Melbourne as a ‘parasite city’. In that case, Canberra is a virtual Ebola.

As for the Liberals, well, the sooner Tony gets on his bike and keeps going, the better. I would like to see him try to land a job in the resource industry, somewhere near the Pilbara. Maybe he could run a gym, or answer phones.

In the absence of real meat in the polcy debate, the Sydney Morning Herald ran a whole spread on Wednesday about the issues we should be talking about, but aren’t. All experts, all offering their experience and common sense. Evidence, if that is still needed, to direct us towards real change.

But while the major parties try to seduce mature voters with the same old hip pocket trinkets, young voters are just ignoring the whole show. Enrolments of young people are way down, and getting them to participate will take more than token assemblies.

By the way, voters in Kooyong at a citizens’ assembly rejected the climate change policies of both parties. Good luck to the Greens and Independents, maybe for them moving forward can mean more than a soft shuffle.

I knew that John Howard would be in trouble at the 2007 election the instant that Tim Flannery was appointed Australian of the Year. It was obvious that Flannery would spend his 12 months flaying the government on climate change.

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When you’re struggling for credibility why would you re-announce the most announced infrastructure project in Queensland’s history? Yes, there must be an election on because someone has promised to build the Redcliffe to Brisbane railway line, yet again. And that someone is Julia Gillard, whose announcements last week of a Citizens’ Assembly and Cash for Clunkers were welcomed with widespread cynicism.

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Is she the ‘biggest dud since Rudd’? Or just Abbott’s twin sister? We’ve seen her mettle, she must believe, because now we are supposed to trust her for a term of her own. A bit too quick for my liking.

We seem to have no choice but to listen politely to endless media talk about old stuff: Hawke, Keating, Blanche, the Rudd and Julia story. You’ve got to hand it to the ALP: whatever else you might think of them, they’ve always been great haters. It was a mate in the ALP who told me their real role is to keep the lid on for capital. The mining industry sure has gone quiet, they clearly are happy with current arrangements.

Instead of ten precious media minutes about who is the more bitter ex-leader, I’d like to hear more than a minute given over to policy and even facts. For example, how about a scientist rather than a political insider, and some less widely flaunted information, such as this from NOAA, the not exactly leftist National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration in the US Dept of Commerce:

http://www.noaanews.noaa.gov/stories2010/20100715_globalstats.html

It very calmly states that the April-June and year to date temperatures have been the warmest on record. We all know that taking a short term snapshot isn’t of much meaning, but if many different sets of statistics all indicate that land, sea and air temperatures are rising above 20th century averages, shouldn’t we pay some attention?

Instead, both candidates for our leadership (and I deplore the move further into the mindset of Presidential rather than Parliamentary politicking) are wishy-washy at best on the issue of climate change.

I’ve joined a local Canberra campaign to get the ACT gov to reduced emissions by 40% by 2020, and am convinced that localised actions and policies are more likely to provide a buffer for adaptation than federal efforts.

Coal is now the dirtiest four letter word available, and it besmirtches the political process.  I’m waiting ever less patiently for some real leadership to step up.

Now that the mining tax has been sorted, and already forgotten, we can move on to refugees. Just what was sorted with the mining tax already slips into oblivion, but the miners are happy.  Somewhere along the road to compromise the public good had to yield, all too predictably.

The refugee ‘solution’ is likely to be the same: a blancmange that addresses nothing very well, stirs up all the wrong emotions, and attempts to pass the buck.

Why stop at building a processing centre? Why don’t we pay the East Timorese to take in some boat people as citizens in their country? Perhaps that could work, for the cost of some infrastructure and development aid. How about some serious education and apprenticeship projects that would give East Timor the people and the skills to rebuild their country, and give the boat people a new life along the way? Isn’t that what they want? There must be a triple win solution that could work, rather than the same old approaches that don’t seem to solve anything.

Blending cultures surely could work as well for developing countries as it has for Australia.  The US is rapidly turning Hispanic, in another generation Australia will probably be much more Asian, and why shouldn’t a good dose of Afghan or Pakistani population be a welcome addition to East Timor, Malaysia or Indonesia?

Gillard needs to let us assess her performance and policies before she calls an election. And could the ALP please come up with substantive progress on climate? Real commitments to measurable cuts in emissions, not just per capita cuts, is what’s needed.

In the meantime, at least the GetUp mob has produced something entertaining, using all your favourite pollies in an action movie trailer.

It’s worth a giggle:

http://www.getup.org.au/campaign/Enrol&id=1178