Chapter 6 discussed the ways in which the issue of climate change revealed differences in international politics theories. This chapter balances that international focus with a detailed account of the domestic politics of climate change and other environmental issues. The chapter emphasises institutional factors, such as Australia’s bicameral national parliament and federal structures (see Chapter 2). It also points to the broader power exerted by major business interests on Australian politics, recalling the critical theories discussed in Chapter 4. The operations of environmental and other pressure groups and the impact of voters in the 2010 federal election point to the need for behavioural research on this issue (Chapter 3), while the chapter also suggests the importance of understanding the circulation of discourses around ‘water’, ‘climate change’, ‘polluters’ and ‘economic growth’ (see Chapter 5).

Modern states face many wicked problems – policy issues that are complex, multidimensional and seemingly intractable, and that go beyond the capacity of any single government agency or portfolio (Australian Public Service Commission 2007). Garnaut (2008d, p. xviii) refers to them as ‘diabolical problems’. Reconciling environmental sustainability and global economic competitiveness, which remain the over-arching and primary priorities of the modern state, is a wicked problem. The tensions between the priorities of economic growth and environmental protection result in part from differing normative perspectives regarding the relationship between the natural environment and the national economy.