Last Monday, frontbenchers from the Australian Labor Party (ALP) tabled a motion in the lower house calling on Parliament to declare a climate emergency. Only five Labor MPs showed up to defend their motion. Astoundingly low-energy though this effort was, it was hardly surprising: the party’s climate policy consists mainly of vague rhetoric, while in practice it continues to approve coal projects across the country.

In Queensland, the Labor government under Annastacia Palaszczuk has opted to fast-track the Adani coal mine, opening up the Galilee Basin to mining development that promises to increase global carbon emissions by a stunning 10 percent. The ostensibly left-leaning, climate-friendly Victorian Labor government under Daniel Andrews is expanding drilling activities offshore in the Otway Basin. The existent ban on onshore fracking and drilling will expire altogether next year, and there is no word of extending it.

We can see similar patterns across each state. The house is on fire, yes — a fire that the ALP not only helped start, but continues to fuel.