We’re already being swamped with ideas about “reforms” needed to recover from the pandemic crisis. But the word reform is like gift wrap – a handy cover for any offering, thought-through or otherwise.
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| ‘The energy market operator says Australia could accommodate levels of up to 75% “instant” wind and solar penetration in its main grid by 2025.’ |
Perhaps we should ditch the word entirely, and with it the forest of feelpinions about what governments “must” do to advance an author’s previously-held ideological positioning in the post-corona world.
Imagine if we took just two lessons from the way Australian governments responded to the coronavirus: that good decisions are made when they consider the evidence and the best available expert advice; and that policy-making can accommodate reasonable differences of opinion, without becoming a “war”.
Think, as Laura Tingle did in a piece for the ABC’s 7.30 this week, of the difference it would make if interviewers and commentators allowed room for discussion of complex and competing ideas, before demanding that politicians rule them “in” or “out”, or before finding a backbencher who will say they might cross the floor on a policy that conflicts with their ideological prejudice – even if that policy hasn’t yet been outlined.
Read the story from The Guardian by Lenore Taylor - "Australia listened to the experts on coronavirus. It's time we heard them on climate change.”
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