Steggall would favour Liberals in a hung parliament

Zali Steggall has declared she would be more likely to support the Coalition forming a government if there was a hung parliament.

Zali Steggall and Tony Abbott face off at the Sky News/The Manly Daily debate at the Queenscliff Surf Club in Sydney yesterday. Picture: Damian Shaw

Zali Steggall has declared she would be more likely to support the Coalition forming a government if there was a hung parliament after the election, but conceded that she views Labor’s emissions reduction goal of 45 per cent by 2030 as a minimum target.

The barrister and former Olympic skier rated a chance of defeating former prime minister Tony Abbott in Warringah said she would be inclined to support the Morrison-led Coalition on budget supply and motions of no-confidence, over and above Labor.

But she tempered her comment­s, made during a one-on-one debate with the former Liberal prime minister yesterday, by saying­ she wanted Scott Morrison to “come to the table and address climate change”.

Ms Steggall said she supported Labor’s emissions reduction target of at least 45 per cent by 2030 — an apparent moderation of her previously expressed support for a 60 per cent target.

In a spirited, largely evenly matched debate at the Queenscliff Surf Club near Manly, in the heart of the electorate, aired on Sky News and co-sponsored by local newspaper The Manly Daily, both candidates agreed on local issues, chiefly the need to construct a new Middle Harbour tunnel to ease chronic traffic congestion.

But while Ms Steggall qualified her support by saying the tunnel planned by the NSW government must include filtration stacks to ensure clean local air, and driverless trams, Mr Abbott said cost had to be considered.

The two candidates were also in firm agreement in opposing Labor’s tax policies to wind back negative gearing and end the franking tax credit on investments.

For anyone thinking that support for Ms Steggall might offer change but make little real difference, Mr Abbott said voters should be aware that a protest vote against him was more likely to hand government to Labor if the election result depended on the outcome in Warringah. Mr Abbott was sceptical about Ms Steggall’s support for Labor’s proposed emission target, saying that a “lot of people” on Sydney’s north side who supported her position were those who could afford to do so.

The target, he said, did not take account of lower-income earners who were struggling with power bills and could not afford electric cars.

At one point, Mr Abbott appeare­d to support a revival of Australia’s now defunct car industry to build electric vehicles, saying Australia could create its own cars.

He repeated his past expressed view that Australia running ahead of the rest of the world on climate change action was a “futile gesture­” when it contributed to just 1.3 per cent of global emissions.

Ms Steggall disputed the estim­ate, saying she wanted to take climate change out of the hands of politicians with the creation of a climate change commission that would take independent decisions.

Mr Abbott disagreed, saying decisions should not be “subcontracted out to experts” ahead of the people’s elected representatives.