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Like many Australians, green groups were surprised by the federal election result.
The
Climate Council, Greenpeace, the Australian Conservation Foundation and
the Wilderness Society all invested significant resources in the weeks
leading up to the May 18 poll.
Underlying much of their campaigning was the belief that the majority of voters wanted stronger climate action.
But the results did not seem to bear that out.
Did environmental groups fail to read public sentiment? And did they, in fact, help the Coalition to victory?
'Lecturing people in the community'
Former Greens leader Bob Brown led the now-infamous
Stop Adani Convoy from Hobart, through Melbourne and Sydney, right into Central Queensland.
It was the epitome of what some describe as trying to "drive change from out of town".
One of Australia's leading social researchers, Rebecca Huntley, said the Stop Adani Convoy strategy was bound to fail.
"People from outside the area coming in — that just pisses people off," said Dr Huntley, who heads up Vox Populi Research.
"Lecturing people in the community, I don't think it's ever going to work."
Paul
Williams is a senior lecturer in politics at Griffith University in
Queensland and is one of the country's foremost experts on elections in
that state.
He said the Stop Adani Convoy probably cost Labor at
least "tens of thousands of votes" in Queensland, if not "hundreds of
thousands".
"That doesn't mean the Queenslanders are in love with Adani — they're not," said Dr Williams.
"Adani became totemic — it was a totem for development and for blue-collar job creation."
Verity Morgan-Schmidt is opposed to Adani's Carmichael mine.
The chief of Farmers for Climate Action grew up farming
in Western Australia and now spends her time campaigning and organising
all around the country, including in rural Queensland.
But she agreed the convoy was counterproductive.
"I think the polls would reflect how successful that strategy was," she said. "It's very hard to drive change from out of town."
Many in the Coalition have also credited the Stop Adani Convoy for helping them win seats in Queensland.
Dr Brown
remained confident the strategy was the right one.
Ms Morgan-Schmidt said the strength of any social movement "comes from within and from being part of that community".
"We need to really talk and connect with people where they are," she said.
Kelly
O'Shanassy, chief of the Australian Conservation Foundation, agreed one
lesson from the election was that environmental groups needed to do
more local organising.
"I think that change — when you're talking
about change in a specific community — needs to be done within that
community," said Ms O'Shanassy.
The Climate Council's Amanda
McKenzie said the Stop Adani Convoy was a mistake, and her movement
needed to convince people that their community could benefit from the
change they were calling for.
"We are advocating for substantive
changes across the economy in all sectors. So you need to do a lot of
work in bringing people along," she said.
Green movement criticising Labor policy
Throughout the campaign, Labor walked an uncomfortable line on Adani. It tried not to openly support its proposed coal mine
but also insisted it would not stand in its way.
But on many other issues, the environmental movement did not entirely embrace Labor's plans either.
Less
than two weeks from polling day, Labor announced a radical plan to
establish a new Environmental Protection Authority and rewrite federal
environment laws.
These were in addition to its detailed climate
policies and targets the party had already released, as well as the
country's first federal land-clearing laws.
The reaction was mixed, with Greenpeace the least enthusiastic.
"While
Scott Morrison and Bill Shorten lock horns over their policies, both
are failing to address the climate emergency with credible plans," said
the environmental group's media release on May 4.
This division
was further exacerbated when Labor announced plans to subsidise the
expansion of the gas industry in Queensland and the Northern Territory.
The
move dismayed most in the environmental movement and led to a spray of
media releases and news stories about the greenhouse gas emissions that
expansion would inevitably create.
Dr Williams said Labor was
trying to have it both ways on some environmental issues, and that meant
they lost votes in regional Queensland without picking up as many as
they could have in Brisbane, Melbourne and Sydney.
Chief of Greenpeace Australia David Ritter
said if Labor had strengthened its environmental policies, the
environmental movement would have been fully behind the party — a
sentiment more-or-less echoed by all the environmental groups the ABC
spoke to.
"I think it was open for the Labor Party to be more ambitious," said Mr Ritter.
"That would have enabled even greater energy from the community to get behind their campaign."
Mr
Ritter said that like everyone involved in campaigning, their strategy
was informed by the available data — and they thought Labor would win.
In
that context, he said they figured it was important to strongly
criticise the Coalition's policy, "and similarly to seek to encourage
the Labor Party to have a more ambitious climate policy".
'Letting the perfect get in the way of the good'
There are those who believe the environmental movement did little to help the ALP's chances.
The ABC has been told senior figures within the party are angry at what they see as campaigning against Labor.
Although
Ms McKenzie said the primary responsibility for success or failure lay
with the parties themselves, she did lay some blame with environmental
groups for expecting a party to be "perfect".
According to her,
part of the environmental movement was so focused on Adani that it did
not swing behind Labor, even though it was accepted by the movement as
the better choice.
"We do need to push Labor on Adani. But also,
where there is effective climate policy — and Labor did bring a strong
domestic climate change platform — the environment movement could have
done more to communicate that to its base."
Ms McKenzie alluded to
the history of the Australian climate wars, where relatively ambitious
policies — like Kevin Rudd's first emissions trading scheme — were
scuttled by the Greens because they were not considered ambitious.
"I
think that's the big lesson for the environmental movement is, as we've
learned before: letting the perfect get in the way of the good."
Trusting politicians to deliver
But the environmental movement does not accept its actions were a major reason for Labor's loss.
Most
people the ABC spoke to pointed to the money spent by coal miner Clive
Palmer, utter distrust of mainstream politics and what they described as
scare campaigns run by the Coalition.
Wilderness Society campaign
director Lyndon Schneiders said trust was a big problem for parties
promising anything ambitious, and that would always be an issue when it
came to tackling climate change.
Dr Huntley agreed this was a
problem for any party proposing something with an upfront cost, and
environmental policy was a classic example of that.
"They don't necessarily think that our politicians are very good at thinking long term," she said.
Even if they did think long term, voters did not trust politicians to deliver, Dr Huntley said.
"You're
going to get me to pay for this thing now, that you say you're going to
do in the future? But you're so bad at even keeping the promises
today!"
But Dr Huntley and Dr Williams believe the election was
not won or lost on the environment, as other immediate issues like tax
reform appeared to be more important in people's minds.
Incoming
Environment Minister Sussan Ley said she acknowledged Australians held
strong views on caring for the environment, both locally and globally.
"I
look forward to listening to the variety of perspectives and ideas that
will be put forward, as well as implementing our Government's strong
range of policy initiatives in this portfolio," she said.
The new
Minister for Energy and Emissions Reduction, Angus Taylor, said the
Government had a clear mandate for its climate policies.
"Our
national target is achievable, balanced and responsible, and is part of
coordinated global action to deliver a healthy environment for future
generations, without wrecking our economy."
Some environmentalists still think they got it right
Some
in the environmental movement are already working on local organisation
and how to embrace policies they find less than perfect.
Despite this, there are some who would not change how they approached the pre-election campaigning.
According
to Mr Schneiders, it just was not the right time for change — no matter
what the opinion polls seemed to suggest before the election.
For him, the answer is to keep on the same track.
"People get too wrapped up in the tactics of this game, you know? And they play the politics too hard," he said.
"There
is a problem and it needs a solution. But all we can do is articulate
the problem and provide the solution. If we do that long enough, the
community … will respond."
Ms McKenzie recalled her first major
sense of defeat — the collapse of talks at the UN's conference on
climate change in Copenhagen in 2009.
"After Copenhagen, basically everyone, all activists across the world, gave up and went on holiday."
She said that left a vacuum for those fighting to stall action on climate change to fill.
So Ms McKenzie said she was focusing on what she saw as a positive.
"I think there is a sense that climate change is a bigger issue than it was before.
"I
think that the core message of hope from the election is that climate
change was a central issue. It hasn't been a central issue to the
election since 2007."
