Greens heat on MPs hiding from climate

Greens leader Adam Bandt will exploit pressure for Australia to do more on climate change ahead of the next election and target inner-city and tree-change electorates.

Greens leader Adam Bandt enjoys a beer outside The Evelyn Hotel in Fitzroy, which is in his electorate of Melbourne. Picture: Jay Town

Greens leader Adam Bandt will exploit domestic and inter­national pressure for Australia to do more on climate change ahead of the next election and target the inner-city and tree-change electorates of Labor and Liberal MPs he has accused of going “missing in action”.

Mr Bandt, the first Greens MP elected to the lower house, is trying to isolate Labor MPs on ­climate as Anthony Albanese pursues a smaller-target, mainstream agenda to improve the ALP’s prospects in Queensland, Western Australia and ­Tasmania.

Scott Morrison last week stuck to the Coalition’s emissions reduction strategy of backing low-emissions technologies over taxes at US President Joe Biden’s climate leaders’ summit, despite pressure from US officials, and climate and business groups to announce a new 2030 target.

With Labor eyeing seats in key battleground states, including the Queensland resources electorates of Dawson, Capricornia and Flynn, Mr Bandt said the Greens would target MPs who presented as progressive on climate but “fail to show up when it counts”.

He listed some of those MPs as Josh Frydenberg and Katie Allen, who hold the Melbourne seats of Kooyong and Higgins, and Labor MPs Terri Butler, ­Alicia Payne and Justine Elliot.

“Concerned voters expect their MPs to speak up and support urgent climate action, but Labor and Liberal MPs are staying silent on 2030 targets,” Mr Bandt told The Australian.

“There are Liberal and Labor voters who desperately want ­action before 2030, but their MPs are MIA. On the most crucial issue of our time, instead of backing Joe Biden’s criticism of Scott Morrison, Labor MPs have gone AWOL.”

With the Greens’ primary vote remaining stable since the 2019 federal election at about 10-11 per cent, Mr Bandt is hopeful the party can hold the balance of power in the next parliament by picking off electorates where voters are unhappy about the climate change ambitions of Labor and the Coalition.

“2030 is the new 2050, as French President Emmanuel Macron said at Biden’s climate summit. The US is doubling its 2030 targets and Canada and Japan aren’t far behind. Instead of taking on the PM for failing to lift his 2030 game, MPs are staying silent and letting Scott Morrison off the hook,” he said.

“Labor MPs won’t push Scott Morrison to take the climate ­action Joe Biden is asking for, but the Greens will.”

The Greens said Labor could not find an MP to appear on the ABC’s Q+A program last week, which focused on climate, politics and “fossil fools” and included Resources Minister Keith Pitt and Greens senator Sarah Hanson-Young as panellists.

In a speech to the Business Council of Australia’s annual dinner last week, the Prime Minister said net-zero emissions would not be achieved in the “cafes, dinner parties and wine bars of our inner cities” and that his government would never penalise regional communities and heavy industries.

Mr Albanese told a Clean Technology Jobs summit last week that Labor would back the future of resources exports, including coal, based “upon global demand”.

Mr Bandt accused Mr Morrison and Mr Albanese of dumping on inner-city voters and backing coal, saying “everyone’s safety and hundreds of thousands of jobs are at risk”.

Responding to the speeches last week, Mr Bandt said: “Liberal and Labor are both trying to tell Australians coal-powered bedtime stories instead of committing to proper science-based 2030 targets.

“They won’t be able to get away with this for much longer. The rest of the world is leaving Australia behind, voters in the inner-city and across the country can see it and the spin from the old parties won’t cut it.”

The Greens election strategy is based on analysis by the Parliamentary Library suggesting it could hold the balance of power in a minority parliament scenario if there was a 0.5-3.88 per cent swing against the government.