‘Practical and balanced’: Coalition unifies in pitch for new energy policy
After scrapping net zero, the Coalition has emerged from a joint party meeting with a raft of changes in its new climate policy, pledging to reduce energy prices and emissions.
The Coalition has presented a united front to announce its new energy policy, including scrapping net zero, following weeks of turmoil.
Emerging from a joint party room meeting on Sunday afternoon in Sydney, Opposition Leader Sussan Ley and Nationals Leader David Littleproud announced their energy policy following the decision to scrap net zero.
Speaking to reporters, Ms Ley said the 2050 net zero target was “not responsible”, and Labor’s plans were “hurting Australian families and small businesses”.
“As a grandmother, I think about the world we are leaving to the next generation,” she said.
“Right now we risk handing our children and grandchildren worse living standards than we inherited.
“That’s not fair on the next generations.”
In a policy document shared by Ms Ley, the Coalition said their new approach would be “practical and balanced”, by introducing a raft of proposed measures.
These include preventing the closure of coal plants, “removing the prohibition on zero-emissions nuclear technology”, relying on natural resources, and scrapping Labor’s 43 per cent 2030 emissions reduction target and its net zero by 2050 target.
Coalition ‘not anti-renewables’
Ms Ley said despite ditching net zero, the Coalition were “not anti-renewables” and would look to reduce emissions. However, they would “have to be in the right place” and “have to be balanced by baseload power”.
The policy would support new and existing technologies, including gas, hydro, batteries, coal and “renewables in the right place”.
She said Labor “demonised” gas and was not bringing it into the system to drive down prices.
“We have to have a government that look back four years,” she said.
“They demonised gas. They didn’t want anything to do with it. The energy minister sort of washed his hands of gas in our system. Reluctantly they’ve had to come back to gas because they know that it’s vital.”
Under the new policy, the Coalition pledged to “support more gas supply by unlocking investment in new gas supply and infrastructure, streamlining regulations and committing to an annual offshore acreage release”.
Coalition policy a ‘clear contrast’ to Labor
Liberal energy spokesman Dan Tehan said the Labor’s energy policy was a “clear contrast” to the Coalition’s, which would take “technology neutral approach”.
“It’s all about doing the responsible thing when it comes to emissions reduction, and we’re looking forward to getting out and selling our plan because there is now a very, very clear contrast when it comes to this debate,” he said.
Coalition to focus on economy, not ‘science of climate change’
Mr Littleproud said the Coalition’s focus would be on the economy rather than the environment.
“This debate is not one predicated on science,” he said.
“It is one predicated on economics.
“The Albanese government wanted to hold this country back and continue to throw sledges at the Coalition about a 2015 debate about the science of climate change. We’ve moved on to the economics of it.”
When asked about prices, Ms Ley said voters would “welcome” the plan outlined by the Coalition.
“(Australians will) have a look at our plan and they’ll see that it will work … because they’ll know that immediately it starts to put downward pressure on prices by being technology agnostic about baseload power, injecting more gas supply into the system, opening up gas fields in Australia,” she said.
Originally published as ‘Practical and balanced’: Coalition unifies in pitch for new energy policy
