Labor Left weighs up plan for ‘drastic’ climate policy

Mark Butler signals he won’t back down to Joel Fitzgibbon’s plea for Labor to adopt a more moderate climate agenda.

Labor senator Deborah O’Neill and resources spokesman Joel Fitzgibbon at Kooragang Island. Picture: Milan Scepanovic

Opposition energy spokesman Mark Butler has signalled he will not back down to Joel Fitzgibbon’s plea for Labor to adopt a more moderate climate change agenda, with the Left faction heavyweight urging environmental activists to push the party to be “more ambitious and more courageous” on the issue.

Mr Butler, a rival to Mr Fitzgibbon in the party’s climate debate, also warned Australia could be hit with “carbon tariffs” if Joe Biden was elected US president because of the Coalition’s emissions policies.

His comments, made at a “climate and environment virtual town hall event” on Wednesday night, were praised by Labor MP Ged Kearney as showing the party was committed to “drastic action” in combating climate change.

“I think you can hear from Mark’s comments there that he is all for drastic action, absolutely, to fight climate change,” said Ms Kearney, who organised the event for climate change activists in her inner Melbourne electorate of Cooper.

Senior Labor Left MPs on Thursday criticised Mr Fitzgibbon, the Right faction convenor, for warning Labor could split into two separate parties if it failed to bring together its working-class and socially progressive supporter bases.

Mr Fitzgibbon, who has labelled Labor’s focus on climate change as “almost obsessive”, is pushing for the party to adopt the Coalition’s 2030 emissions targets in an effort to bolster the party’s stocks with working-class and regional areas.

Mr Butler was the architect of Labor’s pre-election climate policies, including the contentious target to reduce carbon emissions by 45 per cent of 2005 levels by 2030.

The South Australian MP told activists on the zoom event, which also featured environment spokeswoman Terri Butler, the Labor Party did “not want an easy time” in developing green policies.

“We want to be pushed, continue to be encouraged and prodded, to be more ambitious and more courageous,” Mr Butler told the meeting.

Anthony Albanese. Picture: Dylan Coker

“I’m not going to pretend I don’t have dark days in this policy area. There are many of them because this is deeply serious and we are failing generations and the rest of the world terribly in a rich country like this for so many greenhouse gases coming out of our economy. We are just not living up to what we should.”

Mr Fitzgibbon has attacked the influence of environmental activists within the party from the Labor Environment Action Network.

With Labor in an internal debate over whether to back the Coalition’s proposal for a gas-led recovery from the COVID-19 crisis, Mr Butler told the meeting that Anthony Albanese supported a renewables-led recovery.

He said Mr Biden was campaigning on “the most progressive climate package platform anyone has ever taken to a US election”.

“And one of the elements of that platform is the US president will impose carbon tariffs on countries, frankly like Australia, that don’t have adequate climate policies,” Mr Butler said.

Playing down Mr Fitzgibbon’s concerns about a split, the Opposition Leader on Thursday declared the party could unite its divergent bases by being “true to our values”.

The Opposition Leader said Labor was a “modern party” that needed to be serious about taking strong action on climate change.

“The Labor Party has changed over a period of time. There were once people in the Labor Party who supported the White Australia policy, it was one of our founding planks. We changed,” Mr Albanese said.

Opposition education spokeswoman Tanya Plibersek said Mr Fitzgibbon should not have raised the prospect of a split during the COVID-19 pandemic.

“It’s beyond me why anyone’s talking about this when we have vulnerable people dying in nursing homes. People need to get their priorities straight,” Ms Plibersek said.

Opposition financial services spokesman Stephen Jones, from the regional NSW electorate of Whitlam, said there was nothing new about Labor needing to appeal to inner-city and bush voters.

“We do best when we focus on the issues that unite these groups: income, cost of living, and a plan to bring the whole country forward,” Mr Jones tweeted.