Win some, lose some: PM’s snarky emissions about city voters could cost him vital seats

Only a politician with a surplus of snark would turn up to dinner with the nation’s business elite and tell them, over the best food and wine at a city hotel, that he had no time for people at inner-city wine bars.

But that is what Scott Morrison did this week when he tried to take both sides of the climate change debate in a two-step routine. First, promise to do something. Second, take a casual swipe at voters who want him to do something.

Scott Morrison speaks at the Business Council of Australia’s annual dinner this week.Credit: Wolter Peeters

“We’re not going to achieve net zero in the cafes, dinner parties and wine bars of our inner cities,” he said. He wanted to sip the chardonnay, if you like, but pose for the cameras in the act of spitting it out.

It was good chardonnay, too, according to those at the Business Council of Australia dinner at the Fullerton Hotel in Sydney’s old post office on Martin Place. The wine list included Peter Lehmann Riesling and Shiraz, Burton McMahon Chardonnay and Giant Steps Pinot Noir. The menu had cured ocean trout, grain-fed beef and roasted snapper. The chicken was organic.

Morrison wanted everyone to know he was on a “road to net zero” and was willing to embrace the emissions target for 2050, but he could not stop himself dissing voters who talk about climate change over dinner.

The remark had too many of the Prime Minister’s worst attributes. It was smug, glib, cheap. It was lazy, too, because Morrison preferred to set up some straw men in a wine bar rather than attempt a serious speech on climate ambition.

Yes, Morrison is playing a difficult game. He is preparing to embrace a net zero target before the next election, knowing he will be out of step with other leaders – and, most likely, the electorate – if he does not. So the language is deliberate. He wants to assure blue-collar workers his energy policy will help them.

Yet his remarks deepen the questions about whether voters can take him at his word, even when he pledges $566 million for climate research and $275 million for hydrogen projects.

Is he going through the motions, or is he sincere? After a decade of political failure on climate, he seems too eager to exploit the fractures in the electorate with a fake contrast between rural battlers and city wine snobs. A bigger leader would try instead to mend those fractures.

Some of Morrison’s colleagues are hoping the ends will justify the means. They think his language can calm the farm among the suburban and regional voters who are sceptical about climate action – even if it means aggravating voters in the cities.

“The people who already hate us just hate us a little bit more,” says one MP. “And the people who are disappointed with us are a little less disappointed.”

Another sees this as smart politics for Morrison to be “on the side of the bush” as he adjusts his stance on climate. This is a rational response for Liberals who want a stronger target on emissions: if beating up on wine bars helps Morrison prevent a bush backlash, so be it.

This is a big bet on Morrison’s new message to the regions. It’s a message that has a brazen contrast with the scare campaigns of the Abbott era. While the old leader told workers to be afraid of climate targets, the new one tells them to welcome them because climate action will save their jobs.

“The world is moving to a new energy economy – a net zero economy when it comes to energy,” he said on the NSW Central Coast on Wednesday. He positioned net zero as a net gain for industrial workers. “All of those jobs are going to be supported and they’re going to grow even more in the new energy economy.”

The positive sign for Morrison, so far, is that nobody in his party room has gone on the warpath. Not yet, at least. That is because the transition on climate policy is helped by a shift in the party room. Abbott is gone, Turnbull too. The leading Nationals naysayers, former leader Barnaby Joyce and former resources minister Matt Canavan, seem isolated. The biggest Liberal sceptic, Craig Kelly, has quit the party.

Morrison might even keep the Nationals with him on net zero. The crucial factor will be the incentives for farmers to reduce emissions. Given the money he has thrown around this week, Morrison is clearly willing to spend what it takes to get a result.

Watch out for some new spending on soil carbon, which buries emissions in organic matter in the earth. The Agriculture Minister, David Littleproud, is a key voice on making sure the climate plan offers farmers a reward.

While Morrison is on a road to bigger targets, his pledges will continue to disappoint the Australians who care most about climate. He clings to the goal of 26 to 28 per cent by 2030 based on 2005 levels – a target from a time when Barack Obama was US president. Now the new president, Joe Biden, aims for a cut of 50 per cent by 2030 at his virtual summit with world leaders this week.

By the time Morrison commits to net zero by 2050, probably around the time of the United Nations climate summit in Glasgow in November, other leaders will have moved further ahead. He may upgrade his target for 2030, but even that is not certain.

This makes Australia a laggard on pledges, but Morrison will talk about outcomes more than targets. He says Australia has cut its emissions by 19 per cent from 2005 to 2020, almost twice the result of the US. His refrain this year will be about the cuts achieved so far and his belief in having detailed plans to achieve more of them.

The funding put on the table this week is a start, but nothing happens without a target. Morrison will have to set a clear goal at the top before the election. He might want to adjust his tone about wine bars, too.

This is not just about rural and regional voters. Morrison may only drive city voters away with his appeal to the bush. And he needs those city voters. The Liberals lost Tony Abbott’s old seat of Warringah at the last election when independent challenger Zali Steggall campaigned hard on climate change. Some of the biggest swings against the Liberals at the last election were in city electorates such as North Sydney and Higgins.

It seems a bit daft of the Liberals to think they can lure those city voters back with a bottle of disdain, served chilled.