ALP pushes new climate target deal

Joel Fitzgibbon will call on Labor to reach a ‘sensible settlement’ on climate change and adopt the government’s 2030 emissions target.

Opposition resources spokesman Joel Fitzgibbon. Picture: AAP

Opposition resources spokesman Joel Fitzgibbon will call on Labor to reach a “sensible settlement” on climate change and adopt the Morrison government’s 2030 emissions reduction target, arguing that the policy shift would lift the party’s support in working-class and regional areas.

The leading NSW Right figure, who represents a coal electorate in the Hunter Valley, will on Wednesday night declare that Labor should match the higher end of Scott Morrison’s target to reduce carbon emissions by 26-28 per cent of 2005 levels by 2030.

In a speech at a Sydney Institute event, Mr Fitzgibbon will say that a 28 per cent reduction would be a “meaningful achievement” and allow Labor to refocus its climate change attack on the government’s failure to meet the targets it has committed to under the Paris Agreement. He will say that Labor can make the case for more ambitious cuts by 2050 if it demonstrates that the 2030 targets are being met without damaging the economy and destroying blue-collar jobs.

Labor went to the election promising to reduce Australia’s carbon emissions by 45 per cent over the same period as the government’s target.

Bill Shorten struggled to detail what impact the policy would have on the economy and jobs.

Mr Fitzgibbon will invoke a line from Labor hero Gough Whitlam to declare the party could take action on climate change only if it were able to win government. “You can’t achieve much if you are perpetually in opposition,” an advance copy of Mr Fitzgibbon’s speech says.

“As Gough Whitlam once said; ‘the impotent are pure’.”

Mr Fitzgibbon will also criticise Mr Shorten’s strategists for underestimating the Prime Minister and failing to change Labor’s policies and messaging after Malcolm Turnbull was dumped as Liberal leader.

He will declare the party needs “significant cultural change” to win more regional seats and that MPs need to be “realists, not ­idealists”.

Mr Fitzgibbon will urge his Labor caucus colleagues to “check our progressive instincts” so the party does not turn off blue-collar workers and people of faith.

Declaring that Labor needs a new strategy on climate change, Mr Fitzgibbon will ask: “How many times are we going to let it kill us? Indeed, how many leaders do we want to lose to it?

“Scott Morrison argues that reducing emissions by 26 to 28 per cent by 2030 is sufficient to honour our Paris commitment. But even if that is true, due to government inaction, Australia’s emissions are rising year on year — they are not reducing.

“But what would be the outcome if Labor offered a political and policy settlement to make 28 per cent the target by 2030? The focus would then be all about actual outcomes, and the government would finally be held to ­account and forced to act.

“What an achievement it would be if in three years’ time emissions are falling sufficiently to have us on track to achieve a 28 per cent reduction seven years later.

“A political settlement would also restore investment con­fidence and for the first time in six years, we could have some downward pressure on energy prices.

“Nowhere would this be more welcomed than in rural and ­regional Australia where the drought is biting and where coal jobs are so important.”

The Australian revealed in September that senior Labor figures were moving to drop the 45 per cent emissions reduction target, amid concerns that an Albanese government would not have time to achieve such a reduction if elected at the next poll, due in 2022. The focus would instead be on a net zero emissions target by 2030.

Opposition climate change spokesman Mark Butler said in September that while the 45 per cent target would be reviewed, Labor’s target would be higher than the Prime Minister’s Paris Agreement aim of 26 to 28 per cent.

“It’s clear 26 to 28 per cent is fundamentally inconsistent with the obligation to keep global warming … below 2C,” he said.

In the days after Labor’s election loss, Mr Fitzgibbon blamed Mr Shorten’s equivocation over the Adani coalmine for a loss of support in regional areas, including in his own seat where there was a 14 per cent primary-vote swing against Labor.

He will say on Wednesday night that Labor had stopped talking to its blue-collar base.

“Labor can’t win an election without dramatically improving its performance in the bush,” Mr Fitzgibbon will say.

“That, as I’ve argued in my submission to Labor’s election review committee, will require new thinking and significant cultural change. We need to respond to a changing world but also learn to be patient and pragmatic. We need to take the electorate with us; that’s what strong leadership is all about.

“Leadership is also about remembering who we represent: working people, first and foremost, those who built our great movement. We must check our progressive instincts when they risk offending people of faith.”

Mr Fitzgibbon will say Labor’s agenda “confused and scared the electorate” and made the fatal mistake of not taking Mr Morrison “sufficiently seriously”.

“There was certainly no substantial repositioning after Morrison took the leadership of his party,” he will say.

“So in May we were fighting the wrong bloke.”