Analysis: Labor’s climate pain a lesson for feuding Coalition MPs

But if the PM can’t get his side on the same page on his net zero target, then Bill Shorten can tell him what will happen next.

The biggest problem with Labor’s climate policy three years ago was their failure to tell the same story in Gladstone and in Fitzroy.

So it was with great joy that Labor MPs leapt on the Coalition’s climate divisions this week, with Queensland LNP senator Matt Canavan declaring net zero was “dead” as his inner city colleagues insisted the government’s 2050 commitment was binding.

Headlines predictably followed about the Coalition’s renewed “climate war” and Scott Morrison was forced to wade in to clarify their position. But all the talk made no substantive difference to their policy.

Canavan has always been opposed to net zero, and he never pretended he would back it once it was adopted by the Coalition.

LNP candidate Colin Boyce thinks there is “wriggle room” in the government’s net zero pledge.

As for Colin Boyce, the LNP candidate in the Gladstone seat of Flynn who sparked this week’s storm, his intervention was less controversial than the headlines suggested.

“Zero net carbon emissions by 2050, Morrison’s document, is a flexible plan that leaves us wiggle room as we proceed into the future,” Boyce said.

That very document pins 40-50 per cent of Australia’s required emissions reductions on as-yet-unidentified “global technology trends”, “international and domestic offsets” and “further technology breakthroughs”. Plenty of wiggle room there.

It remains under appreciated that Morrison risked the fate of his government last year to commit to net zero. Had a couple more Nationals MPs rejected it in their party room, the Coalition would have cracked. But they didn’t, Morrison survived, and 2050 was locked in.

Canavan and Boyce’s interjections don’t change that. There is no appetite in the Coalition to revisit the commitment, as senior Nationals including David Littleproud, Michael McCormack and Darren Chester made clear. “Pull your head in,” McCormack told Canavan.

Nationals MP Michael McCormack wants his colleagues to step into line over climate. Picture: Matt Beaver

The practical issue – and therefore the political issue – is whether the Coalition has a legitimate plan to deliver on net zero, and whether voters will believe it.

Morrison never had a hope of convincing Labor and Greens supporters. He just needed enough inner city Liberal voters to trust his net zero scheme instead of abandoning the government for climate-focused independent candidates.

But if the PM can’t get his side on the same page, then Bill Shorten can tell him what will happen next.

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