A carbon tax will obviously help reduce carbon emissions and achievement of the net zero target, but it will also help raise the revenue needed to fund essential government services and promote Australia’s economic development.

Many Labor supporters, including such Labor giants as Bill Kelty, have been critical of what they see as the Albanese Government’s minimalist policy strategy in the last Parliament. Albanese’s response was that he wanted to ensure that his government survived for a second term as that would secure the sustainability of Labor’s policy initiatives.

Well, Albanese has got his second term, and very likely a third term. So what are the key policy challenges that do need to be addressed?

Some relate to foreign policy and Australia’s national security strategy.

As regards domestic policy challenges, Professor Ross Garnaut, a leading economist, contends that Labor’s historic victory should toll the death knell for the political conflict and policy instability that has plagued Australia’s “energy debate” for so many years. The government must grab this opportunity to get the energy transition right in this term and build new zero-carbon industries that will be in great demand in coming decades.

I agree with Garnaut that if we get the energy transition right in this term, it will make a major contribution to resolving the most important domestic policy challenges, which are:

Climate change

Clearly, if we want to limit the extent of climate change, we need to reduce carbon emissions to zero, and the sooner the better.

The government assures us that Australia will reach its target of 43% emissions reduction by 2030. This projection, however, assumes a significant acceleration in pace from 2027 onwards, as national emissions have flatlined at around 28% below 2005 levels for the last four years.

Theres is no doubt that renewable energy is cheaper, but progress has been delayed by political conflict and consequent policy uncertainty. As Garnaut recently put it, “we ended up with an approach to reducing emissions that relies on a myriad government decisions, none of them easily predictable in advance by market participants”. Undoubtedly, progress would have been faster if the........

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