Energy Minister Josh Frydenberg will take controversial energy policy to Liberal Party colleagues

ONE senior federal government minister hopes a meeting today with partyroom colleagues will be a “step forward” — but there could well be fireworks.

WHEN Energy Minister Josh Frydenberg walks into a meeting with Liberal Party colleagues on Tuesday, he knows what will be on their minds. And he expects “complications”.

He will take the proposed Clean Energy Target to a party meeting but admitted on Q&A on Monday night there would be robust debate, including from Tony Abbott who has already slammed the report as anti-coal.

Mr Frydenberg spoke to the former prime minister about the CET, which was recommended by Australia’s chief scientist Alan Finkel, after Mr Abbott said the policy was “effectively a tax on coal and that’s the last thing we want”.

“It’s not a tax on coal,” Mr Frydenberg told the panel, to which host Tony Jones interjected: “Did you manage to convince him otherwise?”

The minister responded by saying it was a “constructive conversation”.

“Tony has — everyone would love to be a fly on the wall for those — what Tony has said (Monday), he set himself two benchmarks for a future mechanism in this space, whether it puts downward pressure on prices and weather it would allow coal to continue. And I think the clean energy target does that.”

A Q&A audience member told the panel he was sick of the climate and energy policy being overshadowed by politics and asked Mr Frydenberg if he would get support from his party, particularly backbenchers.

“I think my colleagues, and I’ve obviously spoken to a lot of them over recent days, understand that business as usual is not an option. And that the problem we need to solve is for a level of regulatory certainty which will incentivise or see new investment, because we’ve seen nine coal-fired power stations closed in Australia over the last five years but we haven’t seen sufficient generation coming into the mix.

“I think what’s so important about Dr Finkel’s report is that it does, through the clean energy target, provide a market signal to see further investment. It does, through the stabilities measures, ensure that we can properly integrate more intermittent sources of power, mainly wind and solar into the system, into the grid without seeing a repeat of what we saw in South Australia.”

Will you be able to get the coalition backbench to adopt this model? @JoshFrydenberg responds #QandA pic.twitter.com/sLooUj7dUi

— ABC Q&A (@QandA) June 12, 2017

He said it would be impossible to please everybody, but there had to be an end to the “argy bargy” that has dominated energy and climate politics in Australia.

Mr Jones said: “Everyone wants to know what will happen when you go into the party room (Tuesday) and certain prominent figures from the past stand up and say you’ve put a tax on coal? You’ve created a magic pudding system here. It won’t just be one person, will it?

Mr Frydenberg answered he knew his colleagues would want answers from him.

“... and rightly so, [they] want to know more detail. Having spoken to them a lot of them have already read Dr Finkel’s report. They have got questions for me on various aspects of it.”

He would not say what level of support he would have in the partyroom.

“Well, I’m not taking a particular policy to the party room (Tuesday). What I’m going to do with my colleagues is take them through the changes we’re seeing in the energy system. What Dr Finkel has described as the most significant in more than a century. And repeat to them what are the key conclusions of the Finkel review? Out of that will come some discussions. This process has got a long way to run. We’ve taken a long time to get here. There’s a lot of complications. I hope (Tuesday) is a step forward.”

Chief scientist Alan Finkel on Q&A.

Labor MP Mark Butler believes the climate policy debate is not over.

His Labor rival Mark Butler was asked if he thought the “political climate wars” were over in Australia? He said they weren’t.

“Oh, not yet. I want to be honest about that. We have received a report 72 hours ago. There’s still some significant disagreements between the two major parties and very significant disagreements within Josh’s party about this. There’s a long way to go yet.”

Mr Jones asked Mr Frydenberg if he could “guarantee some of your more conservative colleagues won’t use this blueprint to try and lever themselves back into power?”

Amid much laughter from the audience, he answered: “I’m not as cynical as you, Tony.”

“My colleagues have been dealing, especially the ones that have been in the parliament for decades, they’ve been dealing with this issue for a very long time. They’ve got strongly held views.

“When Bill Shorten comes out and says let’s end the climate wars overnight, I think they’re justifiably a little bit apprehensive and a little bit cynical as well.

“What we need to do is settle our position in response to Dr Finkel’s report, consult widely with the proper stakeholders and then we can start to move it through the political process.

“To quote Winston Churchill, this is not the beginning of the end, but just the end of the beginning.”