James Campbell: Net zero explanation from the National Party
James Campbell suspects that what brought the National Party to the table is realising the Liberals are serious about doing something on climate change.
James Campbell
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It gives you a good idea of how seriously everyone is treating the net zero debate inside the government that a whole week has gone by since the National Party room was briefed on the bones of the deal and we still don’t know what’s in it.
Sadly for our readers, though not for the government, it has become more difficult to find out what has been going on in the cabinet since the exits of certain ministers in recent years.
Larger meetings are a different matter. In Canberra, what happens in the party room, doesn’t stay in the party room.
Indeed for many years one industrious scribe made it a point of pride to arrive at the Coalition party room briefing having already published an account of the meeting online. Yet here we are a week after the National Party was walked through the government’s net zero plan last Sunday and six days since the Liberals were given a look-see, and we still have only a vague idea of what it involves.
So this is what we know so far. Let’s start with what won’t be happening.
Despite urging from the Business Council of Australia, we won’t be increasing our Paris Agreement commitment to reduce emissions by 26-28 per cent of 2005 levels by 2030. Nor will we be reducing our exports of products which at the present produce large amounts of carbon dioxide.
The plan apparently shows agriculture, resources and gas exports to be higher in volume and value in 2050 than today.
Nothing much will be happening to coal mining either, according to the Nat’s deputy leader David Littleproud who said this week coal miners in central Queensland shouldn’t be shuddering in their boots as “we’re going to see those jobs, coal exports go into the 2040s and well into the 2050s”.
Put like this it’s almost hard to see what all the fuss is about.
We also have a reasonable idea of what the National Party wants to be in the plan but isn’t there at the moment. The first a “socio-economic safeguard” which would in certain – undefined – circumstances allow for a pause on the plan. They also want more regular reviews to check up on how the plan is affecting the regional economy.
As for what’s actually going to change and how, well that is far less clear. While it does include skills and job creation programs for regional industries, it apparently doesn’t say much this will cost.
I asked a couple of National Party MPs – one pro net zero, one anti – how they would explain the plan if they were asked about it in the pub back in their electorates.
Their answers were essentially the same: I couldn’t because I don’t really understand it.
(One added it was a ridiculous hypothetical because no one in the pubs in his seat would ask about it.)
One way or another we’ll find out soon enough as the Nats are meeting again on Sunday to decide whether they are in or out.
Most observers seem to think the majority of the party room will give it a tick with the exceptions of four Queenslanders: Llew O’Brien, George Christensen, Matt Canavan and Keith Pitt.
From the Government’s point of view it doesn’t really matter what the first three think about the plan.
As it’s only statement of intent to be ticked off by Cabinet without the requirement to give it any effect through legislation, they’re free as backbenchers to agree to disagree.
Pitt’s case is different.
Although he’s not a member of Cabinet it’s hard to see how he could stay as Minister for Resources and Water if he thinks the government’s position on one of the biggest policy questions of the day is a complete crock.
Losing Pitt would also be bad for the government not just because losing a minister would be messy but because as a former electrical engineer he’s one of the few people in Parliament who actually knows what he’s talking about when it comes to energy supply.
What has brought the National Party to the table I suspect is the realisation the Liberals are finally serious about doing something on climate change.
And the reason for that is self-interest. According to a well-placed insider, climate change now registers as the single biggest issue voters in Victoria are telling pollsters they care about.
Now of course, this being Victoria most of them are Labor and Greens voters, but the situation is apparently not that different in swaths of Sydney.
One urban Liberal MP – not a Victorian – likes to say that net zero by 2050 has become the price the Liberal Party needs to pay to talk to inner-city voters.
In other words, climate change is an issue the party needs to neutralise before some urban voters will even begin listening to it on the issues it actually wants to talk about like job security and the economy,
This might be so, but it carries an enormous risk.
You can’t spend more than a decade subtly telling people this issue doesn’t really matter and then suddenly turn around and say, actually its really important without people wondering what else you might have been bullshitting them about.
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