As Malcolm Turnbull prepared to be sworn in on Tuesday, industry and policy groups were busy outlining their list of policy priorities for the new prime minister.
Environment groups called on Turnbull unanimously to be more ambitious when it comes to setting emissions reduction targets, and said renewable energy industries should be bolstered. However, on Monday night Turnbull said he would stick with the government’s current climate targets ahead of climate talks in Paris.
Business groups, including the Australian Chamber of Commerce and Industry, said business confidence must be restored and hoped Turnbull would encourage investment and innovation.
Meanwhile, the Human Rights Law Centre said Turnbull should take immediate steps to improve human rights in Australia by advancing gender equality within his cabinet and scheduling a parliamentary vote on marriage equality.
Here are the main policy areas up for discussion:
Climate
John Connor, chief executive of the Climate Institute, called on Turnbull to make climate change central to his administration.
“All parties and all leaders who say they are serious about climate change need a plan for the modernisation and decarbonisation of our economy,” Connor said.
“Failure to catch up with other nations risks leaving our pollution-intensive economy outdated and vulnerable to global investment trends. Not having a plan for decarbonisation means not having a plan for our economy and not having a plan for the future.
“Neither major party in Australia currently has a clear plan for decarbonisation. This political moment offers an opportunity for a fresh bipartisan approach to climate policy but it can’t be one with piecemeal measures.”
The Australian youth climate coalition said it was outraged by Turnbull’s recommitment to Tony Abbott’s pollution targets, which it described as “dangerously low”.
“It’s just not good enough for our new prime minister to immediately reaffirm Tony Abbott’s dangerously low pollution reduction targets to be taken to the United Nations at the end of the year,” a spokesman, Dan Spencer, said.
The Australian Conservation Foundation said Turnbull, as a former environment minister, should understand the depth of Australia’s environmental challenges.
“Mr Turnbull’s insight that disruption is our friend if we are agile and smart enough to take advantage of it is greatly encouraging, as Australia faces a major energy transition, needing to shift away from our reliance on coal and make the most of renewable energy,” its chief executive, Kelly O’Shanassy, said.
“The Australian community overwhelmingly supports clean energy and wants to see deep cuts to the pollution that is causing global warming.”
WWF-Australia’s chief executive, Dermot O’Gorman also pointed to Turnbull’s former role as environment minister, and said with the Great Barrier Reef having lost half its coral cover, and wildlife under threat from loss of habitat and rising temperatures, he should work towards lasting, bipartisan reforms for Australia’s environment.
Health
The Australian healthcare and hospitals association said that as Turnbull began to reframe the government’s approach to economic management, discussions on how Australia funds its health system must remain a focus.
“Health providers and consumers have made it clear to political leaders they expect government to maintain a high quality, sustainable public health system which is affordable and accessible for all Australians,” it said.
“Our leaders must respond to these concerns – a strong economy depends on the good health of its citizens.”
The Australian Medical Association congratulated Turnbull, and looked forward to a “fresh approach” to building a strong health system, starting with a lift on the freeze on Medicare patient rebates.
Its president, associate Prof Brian Owler, said: “Poor health policy plagued the Coalition following the 2014 budget, and the government has struggled to fully recover.
“The ill-fated GP copayment and the scrapping of public hospital funding to the states severely damaged the government’s health policy credentials. The management of the health portfolio has improved, but there is still so much to be done to strengthen the health system to meet the needs of a growing and ageing population.
“The first task is to lift the freeze on Medicare patient rebates.”
Other priorities outlined by Owler include: a genuine, transparent consultative approach to the Medicare benefits schedule reviews; the restoration of public hospital funding; a review of the private health insurance system; significant new investment in general practice; coordinated medical workforce planning.
Business and industry
The Australian Chamber of Commerce and Industry urged Turnbull to continue with efforts to repair government finances, fix the problems of federation, undertake critical tax reform and advance the cause of free trade. Business confidence must be restored, its chief executive, Kate Carnell, said, adding that Turnbull had a strong track record in business.
“Australia needs leadership that understands the country must live within its means and prepare its economy for the challenges ahead,” she said.
“Business confidence remains fragile. The ongoing leadership instability, coupled with an obstructionist approach from the opposition and crossbenchers, has left some businesses reluctant to invest.
“We hope the change in leadership resets the relationship between the government and other parties for the sake of advancing the national interest.”
Innes Willox, chief executive of the Australian Industry Group, said tax reform was high on the agenda, and agreed with Carnell that business confidence must be restored. Policies encouraging innovation would be key to this, he said.
“We need to be competitive when it comes to tax,” he told the ABC.
“We would like to see that issue pushed forward. We need to develop key policies to encourage innovation and reward for entrepreneurship. That’s going to be crucial to our economy.”
Internet Australia, the peak body representing internet users, called on Turnbull to acknowledge the Abbott government’s failure to understand the importance of the internet and to fast track construction of the national broadband network.
“Of all the politicians in our federal parliament, Mr Turnbull knows better than most the value of an effective broadband service to our economic future,” said its chief executive, Laurie Patton.
“Right now the priority must be to roll out the NBN as quickly as possible. We can continue to debate the appropriate technology, but we cannot wait any longer to get Australians connected.”
Peter Strong, executive director of the Council of Small Business Organisations of Australia, urged Turnbull to avoid a shake-up of portfolios. The council supports the small business minister, Bruce Billson, in his push to alter section 46 of the Competition and Consumer Act to introduce an effects test designed to reduce the power of big business.
The treasurer, Joe Hockey, the attorney general, George Brandis, the trade minister, Andrew Robb, the finance minister, Mathias Cormann, and Turnbull are understood to oppose Billson’s proposed changes.
Business Council of Australia’s president, Catherine Livingstone, said she was pleased Turnbull had indicated he would focus on business growth fuelled by innovation.
“With massive global forces of change upon us – from digital disruption, to ongoing economic volatility, to a shift in economic activity towards a rising Asia – now is an ideal time to re-energise Australia’s economic and social policy agenda,” she said.
“All Australians should welcome Mr Turnbull putting a stronger economy firmly at the heart of his plans, and rightly acknowledging the importance of sound policies which will lead to business confidence, which in turn will mean more jobs, and more opportunity for all Australians.
“For the business council, a stronger economy for all will require a 10-year plan including ambitious tax reform that supports growth and fairness, a new framework for a modern and competitive workplace relations system, and a pathway to a meaningful budget surplus off the back of a redesign of programs to reduce spending growth.”
She acknowledged Abbott for his work on industry growth centres, the Asian free trade agreements and the national deregulation agenda.
Marriage equality
The national director of Australian marriage equality, Rodney Croome, said for the first time in Australian history both the prime minister and opposition leader clearly supported marriage equality.
“I’m obviously very hopeful that that means we can move forward on this issue as quickly as possible,” Croome told the ABC.
“I’m hopeful that soon we can join the company of nations that allow same-sex couples to marry.
“We’d prefer marriage equality resolved in parliament. I believe if there was a cross-party free vote on this issue we’d see the reform pass very quickly, but if there is to be a plebiscite on this reform then we’re keen to work with the prime minister and opposition leader to ensure that the process is as fair and timely as possible.”
Photograph: Richard Ashen/Demotix/Corbis
But the Australian Christian lobby has urged Turnbull to stick with the Coalition’s decision to hold a people’s vote on marriage after the next federal election.
Its managing director, Lyle Shelton, said despite disagreeing with Turnbull on the need to redefine marriage, he hoped he would allow time for those opposing marriage equality to make their case.
“Those seeking to change the definition of marriage have had overwhelming support from the media, including through the banning of ads, and time is needed so all Australians can be allowed to hear the other side of the debate,” Shelton said.
“We’ve not even begun to discuss the ethical dimensions surrounding commercial surrogacy and anonymous donor conception, both of which are needed to deliver ‘marriage equality’.”
Asylum seekers and human rights
Paul Power, chief executive of the refugee council of Australia, said no government had disregarded public opinion more on the issue of refugees and asylum seekers than Abbott’s.
“Particularly when it comes to the detention of children – there is a lot of public revulsion at the numbers of children detained by successive governments over the years, and the time is right for a Turnbull government to listen to public opinion on this,” Power told Guardian Australia.
He called on Turnbull to address serious human rights abuses occurring in detention centres on Manus and Nauru, but said the extent of any changes to immigration policy would “very much depend” on who the immigration minister would be.
“It seems clear that the government is unlikely to change direction significantly when it comes to immigration policy, but even within existing policy there is a lot of room for people to be treated with much greater humanity in terms of people being detained in Australian detention centres.
“There are alternatives to detention readily available and a government taking a new direction could work on ensuring detention is used as a matter of last resort and that the number of people, especially children, kept in detention should be a matter of priority.”
The human rights law centre’s executive director, Hugh de Kretser, said there were some immediate, simple steps Turnbull could take to improve human rights in Australia.
“Some immediate priorities include advancing gender equality within cabinet, scheduling a parliamentary vote on marriage equality and making a strong public statement in support of meaningful constitutional recognition of Indigenous peoples,” he told Guardian Australia.
“We need to restore our relationship with the UN and reverse the trend of eroding of the safeguards that protect Australians’ democracy and human rights, like the rule of law, press freedom, whistleblower protections and NGO advocacy.”
In the medium- and longer-term outlook, Turnbull should tackle significant human rights challenges and seize opportunities to advance the protection of human rights in law.
“The indefinite offshore detention of people who have come to Australia seeking safety must end,” he said. “Instead of inflicting cruelty on those who survive the risky journey, we need to save lives at sea by creating safe pathways to protection.”
Australia’s peak community welfare body, ACOSS, called for the immediate scrapping of a plan to make young people wait four weeks for unemployment benefits, and a reversal of cuts to family payments that it said would particularly hurt single parent families.
“We want to see an end to victim blaming and the targeting of people struggling on social security at a time of rising unemployment and a slowing economy,” ACOSS CEO, Dr Cassandra Goldie, said.
Family violence
Liana Buchanan, of the federation of community legal centres, said for a change of leadership to be meaningful, all women facing family violence must be entitled to free legal help from community legal centres.
The federal government’s cuts to community legal centres nationally endangered women and children and contradicted its claimed commitment to ending family violence, she told Guardian Australia.
Turnbull could change that, Buchanan said, and she also called on the opposition leader, Bill Shorten, to declare where he stands on free legal help for women and children at risk.
“Due to cuts, in 2017 community legal centres nationally will get less than federal MPs spent on office refits in 2014-15,” she said.
“The 30% cuts will reduce them to less than 5% of what the federal government spends on its own lawyers every year. Community legal centres help women get family violence intervention orders with appropriate conditions to keep them safe, and give them free legal help with a range of problems related to family violence.”
The Australian of the Year and deputy chairwoman of the Council of Australian Governments’ domestic violence advisory panel, Rosie Batty, told Guardian Australia she was looking forward to working with Turnbull “and continuing the important leadership that the federal government needs to demonstrate in this epidemic”.
“This is family terrorism and has a huge impact on our economy, and based on that we really must see that continued and heightened support and focus,” she said.
Chief executive of the anti-domestic violence organisation Our Watch, Paul Linossier, urged Turnbull to commit to a 10-year community education program on gender equality and domestic violence in partnership with the organisation.
“Recent evidence has shown that one-off single-component campaigns are unlikely to have impact, yet sustained and comprehensive campaigns can create significant cultural change,” he said.
Science
Prof Andrew Holmes, president of the Australian Academy of Science, said he was encouraged by what he has heard from Turnbull.
“I was inspired to hear him say that we need an agile country that is ready to embrace new technologies,” Holmes said. “As Mr Turnbull said, we need an agile society, focused on innovation, because the future of jobs depends on that. We need to be prepared for that and adapt to that.
“We support investment in science and we look forward to the new leadership’s position on that. We will continue to advocate for science and investment and we look forward to working with the prime minister for a long-term vision for science policy.”
AusBiotech’s chief executive, Dr Anna Lavelle, said she hoped Turnbull could overcome what she described as a “period of inertia” and fast-track tax reform to support innovation in the biotechnology sector in particular.
“Public funding will not be able to fully leverage Australia’s innovation to gain economic and social benefit, we need instead to look to tax reform,” she said.
“It is through this mechanism that we can stimulate innovation that will enable Australia to retain what it has built, create what is yet to be built and, specifically, attract private capital investment which would augment any public contribution.
“The first step would be to abandon current attempts [in the Senate] to undermine the successful research and development tax incentive with a 1.5% cut.
Indigenous
The prime minister should reinvigorate the efforts to close the gap in Indigenous people’s inequality, including by addressing the “crisis of Indigenous over-imprisonment”, de Kretser said.
An Aboriginal health expert with RMIT university, assistant Prof Aunty Kerrie Doyle, urged Turnbull to do more to address Aboriginal suicide rates, which are almost triple the national average.
The Abbott government had failed to close the gap in Indigenous health outcomes, she told Guardian Australia.
“Turnbull must go back to funding Indigenous research and identifying research priorities,” Doyle said. “Because we’re not doing well. The latest statistics show the life expectancy for Aboriginal women in some areas is less than the life expectancy for women in Sierra Leone.”
Meanwhile chief executive of Our Watch, Paul Linossier, said Turnbull must address the multi-level disadvantage which compounded the experience of family violence by Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander women.
“A multi-year, community-driven, gendered approach is integral to the work of local community services responding to family/community/lateral violence, alcohol and drug abuse, child abuse and community strengthening,” Linossier said.
Education
Universities Australia’s chief executive, Belinda Robinson, was pleased to hear Turnbull acknowledge the changes technology and global competition were having on the Australian economy.
“The key to adapting and thriving in the face of those global changes will be a clever investment in Australia’s universities,” she said.
“This is vital to ensure our country isn’t left behind. As Mr Turnbull said last night, as the world becomes more competitive, and new opportunities arise, Australia must be able to take advantage of them. We agree that we need to be a nation that is agile, that is innovative, that is creative. That’s always been our own vision for the country.”
In a letter to Turnbull, the Australian Council of Trade Unions called for an investment in education through reversing the government’s position on $100,000 university fees, and fully funding Gonski reforms.
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