There is no such thing as a free lunch
The major parties will always be keen to downplay big environmental reform ideas because rocking the boat is simply unacceptable in a political campaign. The solution is to bring the environment ‘in from the cold’; to connect it to the numbers that politicians see as central to what voters think is important.
The Government tinkers with the environment while inflating and conflating its efforts so as to deliberately mislead the people. The final Senate Estimates before the official election period (‘last chance quiz’) poked a few holes in the Government’s carefully contrived environment Budget narrative, but this doesn’t mean we are any wiser about what’s going on.