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‘Thin labourism’

How is the Albanese government travelling?
by
April 2024, no. 463

‘Thin labourism’

How is the Albanese government travelling?
by
April 2024, no. 463

The Journal of Australian Political Economy (JAPE) recently published a special issue to mark the (presumed) halfway point of the Albanese Labor government. There was an editorial and nineteen articles. As you would expect, the verdict was mixed. The most striking thing to me, however, was that the authors had enough material to work with. A similar exercise for the Abbott and Morrison governments would have produced the problem faced by Old Mother Hubbard. The Turnbull government might just have provided her poor doggy with a bone, but one without much meat on it.

Comment (1)

  • I was much persuaded by Jonathan Franzen's 'New Yorker' piece of some years ago now, in which he put the position that we need to acknowledge that the quest to halt or slow climate change has already been lost.

    We simply don't care enough, either about the lives of future inhabitants or indeed our own children, and any notion of the value of nature is ascribed to it and not inherent. I don't write that intending to be inflammatory but rather simply as a matter of fact.

    Other than us zealots, the vast bulk of humanity is no more prepared to consider curtailing flying (for instance) in the name of a safer climate than they are to take a bus on their commute.

    Morality demands that as advocates we continue to do what we can, but we are just going through the motions - no one imagines that the ragtag collective of nobodies that constitutes the emissions reduction activist community in this country has a hope in hell of making a difference.
    Posted by Patrick Hockey
    28 March 2024