Next week marks the return for another sitting session of Parliament, the Winter sitting.

And this session also marks the first ALP federal budget to be handed down in 12 years, which of course means a fantastic magnifying glass will be concentrated on Canberra next week; in the build up to Budget night and then the next few days with the usual tidal wave of analysis and the Budget ‘winners’ and ‘losers’. Although the way Swan and Rudd are talking it’s going to be a pretty tough Budget but that everyone will get something out of it.

There has been an awful lot of talk from the federal government. And while the new government and Prime Minister Rudd should be congratulated about signing the Kyoto Protocol and finally apologizing to the Stolen Generations, there seems to have been very little subsequent follow through. I don’t mean the 2020 Summit, I mean concrete and tangible policy outcomes to address key challenges facing Australia; please note binge drinking is not a crisis or a key challenge facing Australia.

Having been in government for a little over 6 months now it is still too early to expect any new Government to do an incredible lot. But then at the same time unless there is the subsequent follow through on the all the sweet smelling words, then it will quickly result in more disappointment. One of the most disappointing things at the moment is the announcement of billions of dollars for the Murray-Darling Basin, a worthy issue, but what about climate change?

Senator Wong seems to be constantly telling Australians that they’re doing something about climate change but failing to provide the necessary investment in renewable energy as opposed to further subsidizing coal and oil interests. The Federal Government has also embarked on a process of wait-and-see with the Garnaut Review not expected to report for another couple of months, although Wong has indicated that the recommendations from the Garnaut Review will only be considered as part of Government’s mix of solutions. Rudd has already indicated that the Government will include ‘CO2 capture and storage’ and ‘clean coal’ in the mix of policy tricks to combat climate change. Despite Brumby’s pledge of reducing greenhouse gas emissions by 60% by 2050 (a figure considered too low by many leading climate change experts), Rudd has not yet indicated what the federal ALP will do about reduction targets.

While the Government has gone missing on real action on climate change, it has gone missing on real action in other areas as well.

Admittedly in the circles in which I travel it seems as though great numbers of people think that Rudd’s ALP (arguably the Australian version of Blair’s New Labour) will come to the rescue on all environmental and social ills facing our nation. A kind of rose-coloured fog has descended, but the chilling truth is the Rudd ALP federal government is much like Howard’s Coalition, albiet with less nasty rhetoric and polemic involved.

The ALP continues to support the expansion of the coal mining sector, as mentioned, as well as the continued logging of Australia’s old-growth and native forests. The Rudd Government continues to support the anti-terrorism laws that the Howard Government introduced during its 12 years in power; and the Rudd Government continues to support the Liberal’s approach to closing the gap on Indigenous Australians health conditions and welfare and the intervention. They continue to support the intervention imposed by the Howard Coalition and have moved to make access to welfare entitlements more difficult for Indigenous Australians through the Northern Territory and Western Australia. Despite the fact that Australia has wall-to-wall ALP governments at state and federal levels there still has been little action on social and environment issues. We have also seen where the new Government stands on civil unions for GLBTI people in the last week. The federal Attorney General, Robert McClelland, has slapped down the ACT Government for attempting to reintroduce legislation that would officially recognise relationships for gay and lesbian couples. The Rudd Government trotted out similar rhetoric to Howard’s government about the ’sanctity’ of marriage and upheld the right wing Christian lobby’s view that marriage is only between one man and one woman.

As an aside I’ve read over the past 5 to 7 years numerous letters to the editor in all the major daily newspapers about how marriage (ie a relationship between one man and one woman) is a cornerstone to our society and bedrock-like foundation. But how can this be the case when one third of marriages in Australia end in divorce? It would seem to me that this is not so much as a bedrock-like foundation but a straw-man argument to continue bigotry, fear and hatred. Anyway…

So after 6 months of Rudd’s new Labor Party being in power, very little has changed. The government will not overturn previous incursions into Australia’s human rights through the anti-terrorism instruments introduce by Howard’s Coalition (and fully supported by the ALP Opposition at the time). The government will not stop coal mining or oil/uranium exploration in precious national forests and marine sanctuaries (indeed the Queensland ALP government continues to give out exploration licenses for the Great Barrier Reef). The government will continue to ignore the rights of GLBTI people. The government will not dismantle the Australian Building & Construction Commission (ABCC) or remove its powers to imprison people that do not comply with directions or orders from the Commission and they will not return workers’ rights to what they were prior to the Coalition’s 12 year reign.

And of course the government will continue to support big business and commercial interests, regardless Iemma (NSW), Brumby (VIC), Bligh (QLD) or Rudd declaring war on inappropriate political donations.