Labor's dilemma: progress on climate change is the hostage of xenophobia | Clive Hamilton

Labor wants to neutralise refugee policy as an issue before the next election. Is accepting tow-backs the only hope for a return to sanity on climate change?

Must child refugees remain incarcerated and brutalised if Australia is to return to a sensible climate policy?

This is the horrible question now confronting all progressive Australians. By progressive, I mean those who understand the dangers of climate change and the imperative for Australia to play a fair role in reducing global emissions and who, at the same time, feel appalled that this nation can lock up asylum seekers in offshore detention centres to live, without hope, in sub-human conditions.