Big-swing Nationals MP Colin Boyce urges Coalition ‘to dump net zero’

The Queensland Coalition MP who secured the state’s largest swing to him at the federal election says the party should dump the net zero emissions target but keep nuclear.

Flynn MP Colin Boyce in Biloela with Peter Dutton.

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Nuclear power should remain at the centre of the Coalition’s energy policy but net zero should be scrapped, according to the Queensland Liberal National Party MP who secured the state’s largest swing to him at the federal election.

Flynn MP Colin Boyce bucked the nationwide swing to Labor, attracting a 6 per cent, two-party-preferred swing to him in his regional Queensland seat.

Mr Boyce was one of only three Coalition MPs to get a swing to them in Queensland, where Labor has won at least six additional seats on top of the five held before Saturday’s poll.

Anthony Albanese could add an extra three to his tally in the 30-seat state as counting continues in Longman, Ryan and Petrie.

Mr Boyce – who sits in the Nationals’ partyroom in Canberra, and whose electorate includes Gladstone and is almost twice the size of Tasmania – said it would be a “tragedy for future generations of Australians” if nuclear energy were stripped from the Coalition’s policy platform.

“If you’re really serious about carbon emissions, nuclear energy is emissions-free and it is far, far more reliable than renewables,” he said.

He said the world was “slowly waking up to the fact that the whole net zero argument … simply can’t and won’t work”.

Mr Boyce said if the Coalition had dumped its policy to reach net zero emissions by 2050, it could have had a positive impact at the ballot box on Saturday. “If it was articulated properly and correctly, and the wider public understood the issue, it may very well have,” he said.

He said the Coalition erred in the way it rolled out its nuclear energy policy. “I said this at the time and questioned the logic of actually going out and nominating sites (for the nuclear power plants). I argued it would be far better policy to get rid of the moratorium on nuclear first, as a policy, and then see what happens,” he said.

Dawson MP Andrew Willcox on election day. Picture: Fergus Gregg

Dawson MP Andrew Willcox – whose coastal Queensland electorate runs from Mackay north to just south of Townsville – agreed that nuclear should remain part of the Coalition’s energy policy.

Mr Willcox said he backed renewables such as rooftop solar but not large-scale wind farms on valuable agricultural land, and a high-efficiency, low-emissions coal-fired power station should be built at Collinsville, just outside his electorate.

He said voters in Dawson were particularly concerned about the cost of living and Peter Dutton’s proposed cut to the fuel excise resonated positively in his electorate, where there is very little public transport and his constituents often have to drive long distances.

Asked whether the Coalition should shift further to the centre to become more electable, Mr Willcox said he didn’t care about “left or right, only right and wrong”.

“What I do know is we see that the Nationals seem to be on the right track in what they’re doing. We never lost a seat … we’re more of a grassroots party, we’re dealing with the real Australia, rural and regional Australia.”

Mr Willcox received a swing of 1.7 per cent towards him and is leading Labor candidate Neil Wallace 62 per cent to 38 per cent, on a two-party-preferred basis.

The only other Queensland Coalition MP to secure a swing towards him was Phillip Thompson in the Townsville-based seat of Herbert, who attracted a 1.8 per cent swing and is leading Labor on a two-party-preferred basis by 64 per cent to 36.5 per cent.