The former prime minister defended Labor’s environmental record after Adam Bandt described the government as “neoliberal” and “now the party of the centre-right”.
Former prime minister Paul Keating has savaged Greens leader Adam Bandt for branding Labor a “neoliberal” party in a row over the environment after Labor secured the numbers to legislate its 43 per cent cut to greenhouse gas emissions.
With Labor and the Greens voting together on one issue while sparring on others, Keating intervened to tell Australian voters that they could trust Labor on the environment.Provoked by attacks on Labor’s record in government, Keating denounced the Greens as the “enemy of Labor” and accused Bandt of distorting the truth by ignoring Labor achievements including Medicare, compulsory superannuation and the safety net for wages under workplace laws.
Prime Minister Anthony Albanese and Climate Minister Chris Bowen welcomed the outcome but rejected the latest claim from the Greens by saying they would not use the new climate regime to halt all new coal and gas projects. Bandt signalled his next demands on climate by saying he wanted the “safeguard mechanism” to apply strict rules on emissions to stop new coal and gas developments, naming the Scarborough, Beetaloo and Narrabri gas fields as the biggest problems.
“How could any reasonable person describe these mammoth changes as ‘neoliberalism’, a word associated with the likes of [former British prime minister] Margaret Thatcher and [former United States president] Ronald Reagan.
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