The Greens leader discusses his tough stance on climate, why being a politician doesn’t make you a sex symbol, and the defining case he worked on as a lawyer.
Each week, Benjamin Law asks public figures to discuss the subjects we’re told to keep private by getting them to roll a die. The numbers they land on are the topics they’re given. This week, he talks to Adam Bandt. Last month, the leader of the Greens, 50, steered his party to its most successful federal election result.“I don’t think we’re in the Bob and Blanche terry-towelling-robe-interview era any more!”To be careful with what you’ve got.
You’ve talked about getting to net zero emissions in 10 years while achieving full employment nationally. Isn’t that an unrealistic, expensive pipe dream? Well, I think anything that avoids the collapse of civil society and our economy through the climate crisis is money well spent. We’re still stuck in this idea of talking about the climate crisis as if it’s a room where you can dial the furnace up and down. People think, “Oh, it’ll get a bit hotter but then, maybe, in 20 years, we can cool it down a bit.” It’s not like that. It’s about whether you go over a cliff or not.
There’s a mix of reactions among members of our team. Relief that it’s finally being talked about, but also recognition that it’s a really difficult environment for women, in particular, to be working in. It’s prompted us to have our own internal reflections as a party: how do we change our workplace, and what can we do as MPs to start being better?We’ve done an internal review on what needs to change and those recommendations go to our party room.
No. The Greens worked with Labor [by then under Julia Gillard] to put a price on pollution and create an emissions trading scheme. What I remember is the Greens, Labor and independents working together to put a price on pollution, and the Liberals, fossil-fuel industry and Rupert Murdoch coming together to tear it down. We actually had a really good system in place in Australia and it passed through Parliament when no one party had a majority in either house.
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