It’s too early to judge whether Tony Windsor and Rob Oakeshott pulled the right rein in choosing Labor to govern the next term. The appropriate time will be in roughly 20 years.
Whether Labor is going to deliver on the two independents’ shared priority issues - broadband, climate change and long-term regional development - won’t be clear by the end of this term, or the next. It will take a decade or two for the real effects of September 7, 2010, to become apparent.
This must have been a extraordinarily tough decision for two men with conservative roots. The outcome says that the decision wasn’t political, in terms of Right or Left, but based on personal conviction on what was right for their electorates and rural Australia.
For Tony Windsor, who campaigned against the privatisation of Telstra, a pivotal issue is rural telecommunications and the national broadband network (NBN).
He’s right: done properly, a fibre national broadband network will utterly transform what it is possible to do in the bush and what it means to live here.
The Labor NBN plan is flawed, but the Coalition plan was held together with bandaids and a large dollop of hope that market forces would sew it all together. Market forces have just seen the privatised Telstra announce the layoff of 80 country linesman positions.
Rob Oakeshott is focused on regional development in general, and climate change in particular.
Whether you believe in climate change or not, there are a few facts that should make Mr Oakeshott’s focus on the issue welcome to rural Australia:
- Climate variability is one of the great ongoing challenges of Australian agriculture, and any investment in tackling that issue is valuable to the sector;
- Carbon sequestration, whether it is in soils, biochar or forestry, is an opportunity open exclusively to those who own and manage land;
- Renewable energy generation isn’t an exclusive to landholders, but having plenty of ground helps with economies of scale.
Mr Oakeshott’s task in picking which party could best handle climate change must have been the toughest call of the lot.
Tony Abbott and a good chunk of the Coalition may doubt there’s any cause for climate concern, but at least Mr Abbot is honest about his disbelief.
Julia Gillard has indicated that while climate change is on her list of things to do, it’s right down the bottom, ready to be sacrificed as soon as the political winds carry a whiff of smoke.
Picking between these two non-options must have kept Mr Oakeshott awake at night.
Perhaps Labor succeeded by associating itself with those unequivocal advocates for climate change action, Ross Garnaut and Lord Nicholas Stern.
Maybe Ms Gillard just made the more honeyed promises.
Regardless of their reasons for choosing Labor, these two independents now must follow up their act of political courage with what will be the toughest job of their political careers: keeping the bastards honest.
For men who operate on integrity, good luck with that.
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