Labor’s key climate policies failing to win support from voters, new poll reveals

The two central planks of Labor’s plan to cut greenhouse gas emissions by 45 per cent by 2030 have failed to win backing from voters, a new poll reveals.

Fewer than one in three voters backs Labor’s 50 per cent electric car target, an exclusive new poll reveals.

The Opposition’s revamped carbon trading scheme is also backed by just 35 per cent of Australians, according to a YouGov Galaxy poll taken for News Corp Australia in week two of the election campaign.

Both policies are central planks of Labor’s plan to cut greenhouse gas emissions by 45 per cent by 2030.

Opposition Leader Bill Shorten with wife Chloe after speaking to Labor Party supporters at a rally in Box Hill, Melbourne. Picture: Kym Smith

Bill Shorten has been under pressure to reveal the cost of Labor’s plan during the first two weeks of the election campaign.

The Opposition leader claims the policy wouldn’t be a ‘cost’ because the economy would grow by 23 per cent under either Labor’s plan or the Coalition’s policy to reduce emissions by 26 per cent on 2005 levels.

“I don’t accept the characterisation that it’s a cost,” Mr Shorten said in week one.

“We are going to grow because we are going to move to a lower carbon pollution economy and there’s other aspects which means that we will grow.”

Support for the party’s plan to slash greenhouse gas emissions was highest among Millennials, Greens and Labor voters, according to the poll.

More than 75 per cent of Millennials backed some aspect of the plan, while 80 per cent of Labor voters and 83 per cent of Greens voters supported it.

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Baby Boomers were more reluctant, but 58 per cent supported at least one of the measures.

Coalition voters were divided on the policy, with half saying they didn’t back any aspects and the other half backing at least one of the policies.

Tree clearing restrictions had the greatest support of the plan’s three main elements with 42 per cent of all voters supporting it.

But the poll also showed 35 per cent of voters didn’t support any of the measures, including one in five Labor voters.

Labor’s electric car target and its plan to extend the current emissions cap to 250 of Australia’s biggest industrial polluters have been key points of contention in the campaign’s first two weeks.

Prime Minister Scott Morrison has claimed companies would pay up to $35 billion to meet the ALP’s targets, while Mr Shorten called him a “coal-wielding, climate-denying cave-dweller”.

But in a sign the Coalition’s warnings over Labor’s electric car target aren’t cutting through, the YouGov Galaxy poll of 1012 people across Australia Tuesday to Thursday last week showed it would change how just 13 per cent of people voted.

There was no indication if it would sway voters to or against Labor.

Under the ALP’s climate plan, the current pollution cap implemented by former Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull would be lowered from 100 kilotonnes of CO2 each year to 25 kilotonnes of CO2, impacting about 250 of the nation’s biggest polluters.

Companies would be able to buy carbon offsets, including internationally, if their emissions were above the baseline.

They could also earn credits if their emissions were below the threshold.