Climate change war erupts as Nationals MP Matt Canavan declares net zero is ‘dead’
Scott Morrison is facing divisions over climate change with Queensland senator Matt Canavan declaring net zero by 2050 is “dead”.
Scott Morrison is facing divisions over climate change policy with Queensland Nationals senator Matt Canavan defying the Prime Minister to declare net zero by 2050 is “all over bar the shouting”.
Just hours after Scott Morrison insisted the new climate target was “absolutely” Coalition policy he was undermined by outbreaks from the Nationals including Deputy Prime Minister Barnaby Joyce who backed the idea there was “wriggle room.”
It followed a Nationals candidate for the Queensland seat of Flynn Colin Boyce declaring that the target was “a flexible plan that leaves us wriggle room.”
“It leaves us wiggle room as we proceed into the future. Morrison’s statement that he has made is not binding. There will be no legislation attached to it,” Mr Boyce told the ABC.
Meanwhile, Deputy Prime Minister Barnaby Joyce, who is expected to campaign with the Prime Minister on Wednesday, said he understood Mr Boyce’s position.
“We’ve said we’ve set a target, we’re going to try and meet … but I think where Colin’s coming from, it’s completely understandable,” he said.
“Coal remains one of our nation’s strongest exports.”
Speaking in the marginal seat of Herbert on Tuesday, Morrison said Mr Boyce had since “clarified” he was talking about the pathway to net zero, not the target itself.
“Our commitment to net zero by 2050 is a commitment of the Australian government that I made in Glasgow,” the Prime Minister said.
“It is the government’s absolute policy. What he was referring to was our pathway to it and as technologies change and improve, then, of course, we’re going to get there and we’re going to get there by the best method possible.”
However, things escalated further when Nationals MP Matt Canavan, a former minister who is close to the Deputy Prime Minister told the ABC that net zero should be paused anyway.
“The other thing to say is the net zero thing is all sort of dead anyway,” Senator Canavan said.
“Boris Johnson said he is pausing it, Germany is building coal and gas infrastructure, Italy’s reopening coal-fired power plants. It’s all over. It’s all over bar the shouting here.
“We’re talking about something that is 28 years away. What will happen in 28 years’ time, or the policies that will happen in 10 or 20 years, I think, should be up to the Australian people in 10 or 20 years, some of who might not even be voting.”
The Prime Minister has been trying to ramp up a scare campaign about Labor’s commitment to a carbon credits scheme under the safeguard mechanism as a defacto “carbon tax”.
“Just be clear, it not only affects the coal industry, it affects mining and oil and gas production,” Morrison said. “It affects rail freight, it affects cement production, it affects fuel refining, and many other sectors are caught up in those arrangements, which would see them penalised and taxed.”
Under sustained questioning by 2GB radio host Ray Hadley on Tuesday, Mr Albanese agreed to offer the same pledge once uttered by former prime minister Julia Gillard, that “there will be no carbon tax, ever” if he is elected.
But Labor frontbencher Pat Conroy said it was the Liberal Party that was in a mess.
“If you want to talk about divisions in climate policy, we’ve got a spectacular example happening right today between the Deputy Prime Minister backing in his candidate in Flynn saying that their net zero emissions committed by 2050 is optional, that there’s wiggle room, that it’s not binding,’’ he said.
“I haven’t seen a bigger split on climate change since Malcolm Turnbull was Prime Minister.
“When we get Productivity Commission economists like Matt Canavan from the Gold Coast who smears coal dust on his face to go down a coal mine, that shows his disrespect for coal miners.”
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