Groom MP Garth Hamilton feels 'vindicated' as Liberals scrap net zero target

A Queensland MP who fought his own party for four years has declared victory after the Liberals abandoned their climate target.

Toowoomba’s federal MP Garth Hamilton says he feels “vindicated” by the Liberal’s decision to scrap its net zero emissions commitment by 2050, but stopped short of articulating what the party’s new climate policy would look like going forward.

Mr Hamilton, who has been a longstanding opponent to the commitment, celebrated the move announced by federal opposition leader Sussan Ley two weeks ago away from a fixed target to instead focus on lowering power prices.

The Liberals join the Nationals and One Nation in opposing a net-zero policy, essentially consolidating the right wing of federal politics against it as a way of combating the impacts of climate change.

Groom MP Garth Hamilton believes Australia can combat climate change without a net-zero commitment.

“For four years I’ve questioned this policy — I wasn’t questioning the science, I was questioning the government’s ability to handle a policy of this size,” Mr Hamilton said.

“I feel vindicated that after four years, the party is now with me — at times, I felt like ‘Horatius on the bridge’, but today I’m just so happy to see that I’ve won that room over, and I think it vindicates my decision to stay on the back bench and push policies that I believed in.

“I pushed those very hard this term during this policy debate, which our leader wanted us to bring on.

“I’m very happy that the Liberal Party now stands separate from Labor and the Teals when it comes to the issue of net zero.”

The shift is also an apparent demonstration of Queensland conservatives’ influence on the national scene, with the Sunshine State remaining one of the LNP’s few bastions left after May’s federal election rout by Labor.

However, many of the Coalition’s state branches such as New South Wales have kept net zero for now, with the debate creating fresh leadership implications for both the Liberals and Nationals there.

Mr Hamilton maintained his belief in man-made climate change, a break from known sceptics in Queensland like Nationals senator Matt Canavan.

When pressed on how the Liberals would approach what has been called by scientists as a global existential crisis, the MP said communities like Toowoomba should consider local action around environmental conservation.

“People are very right to care about the environment, and I want Australia with clean rivers, clean forests, clean oceans, clean beaches,” Mr Hamilton said.

“We should be focusing on local action – just think around our neck of the woods here, walk up the escarpment, look at all the Lantana, we’ve got wild dogs running through that area, killing off koalas when they come down from tree to tree.

“That’s happening in our area – I could point to Oakey Creek that is silted up because of water run-off across parking lots that has changed that water flow.

“There are heaps of things that we should be doing locally and I think people want to see that direct action, that tangible action, because sadly, what we’ve seen with the net zero policy is other countries not taking it as seriously as us.”

Mr Hamilton also argued against subsidising the import of “Chinese EVs”, believing the money could be directed “towards practical action here in Australia”.

“The policy setting simply isn’t working, we’re seeing emissions rise across the world — what I want us to do is focus locally and I think that we need to be able to do that,” he said.

“We want to remain in the Paris Agreement (and) I think that’s a perfectly reasonable position.”

Mr Hamilton also said the majority of Groom residents agreed with his position, circulating an internal survey his office commissioned of more than 1000 residents — about 76 per cent of which said they opposed net zero.

The ABC’s Australia Talks survey found more than half of Groom residents want more action on combating climate change.

Mr Hamilton won his seat at May’s election with 55.7 per cent of the vote after preferences, with more than 44 per cent supporting independent challenger and net zero advocate Suzie Holt.