Climate policy may lose the election for Morrison government: Barnaby Joyce

The Coalition could lose the election if it overreaches on climate change, warns Barnaby Joyce.

Barnaby Joyce says his leadership team will make no deal on whether Australia adopts a net-zero emissions target before the Nationals partyroom agrees to a final decision. Picture: Gary Ramage

Barnaby Joyce has warned the Coalition could lose the upcoming federal election if it overreaches on its Glasgow climate change package, as the right-wing minor parties have vowed to campaign in key regional seats against a push to achieve net-zero emissions by 2050.

The Deputy Prime Minister said the Coalition was “vulnerable on our rock-solid right” and warned that confidence in the Morison government’s climate agenda must be maintained to avoid voters splintering to the minor parties, flagging an “onerous’’ alternative if the Labor Party were to win the election and increase its emissions-­reduction ambition.

Mr Joyce and Nationals cabinet ministers David Littleproud and Bridget McKenzie remain locked in negotiations with Scott Morrison and Energy Minister Angus Taylor over the government’s long-term emissions-­reduction strategy – the centre­piece of Australia’s offerings ahead of the UN climate change conference in Glasgow.

The Australian understands that nuclear power generation options, offsets for key industries, support for traditional export sectors, no taxes, transition funds for impacted regions, the role of hydrogen, and land use changes have all been raised in talks between the Nationals and the Liberals.

Mr Joyce said his leadership team would make no deal on whether Australia adopts a net-zero emissions target before the Nationals partyroom, due to meet next on October 18, agrees to a final decision.

With Coalition and Labor strategists predicting a potential hung-parliament scenario, with preferences from minor parties crucial, right-wing party leaders Pauline Hanson, Bob Katter, Craig Kelly and Campbell Newman on Thursday confirmed they would reject any move to a net-zero emissions target.

It comes as the Coalition is bracing for battles in the central and north Queensland seats of Capricornia, Flynn, Leichhardt, Dawson and Herbert.

Liberal MPs in city seats are also facing pressure from pro-­climate independents agitating for more ambitious climate targets. Independent Warringah MP Zali Steggall, who ousted Tony Abbott at the 2019 election, on Thursday said she would reintroduce her Climate Change bills, pushing for a target of 60 per cent emissions reduction on 2005 levels by 2030.

Mr Joyce said: “We are vulnerable on our rock-solid right rather than the oscillating middle, and to win an election we must make sure we keep the confidence of that rock-solid right or they will go off the page to a ­myriad of other groups.

“And in splintering the vote, we will lose some of the vote which will diminish our prospects at the election. The Labor Party also knows that,” Mr Joyce said.

The Nationals leader said “keeping the confidence of our people” was crucial in delivering practical climate change ambitions. “The alternative result is something vastly more proscriptive, onerous and impeding and will be enacted by the Labor Party at our expense,” he warned.

The Prime Minister on Thursday said he was working through the cabinet process to land a final climate change plan before the COP26 summit in November.

“I’ve been very clear about our position when it comes to transitioning to the new energy economy. I believe Australia can do this and ensure that the regions excel,” Mr Morrison said.

The Morrison government is preparing to release a series of ­climate change announcements both ahead of and following the Glasgow summit, including its Future Fuels electric vehicle strategy, 2030 emissions projections, the long-term emissions-­reduction strategy, and an updated technology investment road map statement.

Mr Katter said he “could back Liberal or I could back Labor” in the event of a hung parliament, claiming Queensland and western NSW Coalition seats would be in jeopardy if the government embraced net zero.

“Capricornia is super marginal, Leichhardt is super marginal, the sitting member is retiring in Flynn, and as for ­Dawson – no one knows what will happen there and even what ­George Christensen will do,” Mr Katter said.

“I’ll back whoever gives North Queenslanders the best deal. There is nowhere else in Australia where there are five seats up for grabs – and it all comes down to how the major parties vote on net zero by 2050.”

The KAP leader, who is closely aligned with the CFMEU, said adopting net zero by 2050 would be “criminally insane as there are only three industries of significance in Queensland” – coal, cane and cattle.

United Australia Party leader Craig Kelly said “we shouldn’t sign up to anything that will put our economy at a disadvantage with China”, flagging that the UAP would campaign against a net-zero emissions target.

One Nation leader Pauline Hanson, who is pushing to win the balance of power in the Senate, accused the Nationals of failing to represent their comm­unities and said she was “totally opposed” to the net-zero target.

“There is no difference now between Morrison and the Labor Party. And what he has to consider is signing up to this net zero – it is really going to affect two of our biggest incomes in the country, which are agriculture and mining,” Senator Hanson said.

Mr Newman, the Liberal Democrats’ Queensland Senate candidate, said “it doesn’t matter what the Nationals say, where this is going is that the Coalition is going to sell out the coal sector, the coal communities in Queensland and NSW, and they’re also going to sell out the rural sector”.

The former Queensland premier said: “With every breath in my body, if I’m in the parliament, I’ll be fighting against it.

“I think it’s outrageous. I reject totally going down this path on something which is based on hypocrisy and dodgy accounting from established economies like the United States,” he added.

UAP chair Clive Palmer said the party’s membership base, which he claimed had reached 65,000, was not purely anti-vaxxers but also vaccinated Australians fed-up with restrictions on freedoms and struggling to keep businesses open.

The Queensland billionaire, who is bankrolling a major advertising campaign targeting the Liberals and Labor, said the UAP backed nuclear power because it would help achieve “zero emissions”.

“It also provides Australia with cheaper power because we’ve got so much uranium here. There’s no logical reason not to have nuclear power. If you were looking at lower emissions, seriously, that is one of the first options you would take,” Mr Palmer said.

The mining magnate claimed UAP polling showed the party was picking off voters from both major parties, with growing support in NSW.