Nationals senator Matt Canavan has claimed the Coalition is “on the cusp of walking away from net zero”, urging Sussan Ley to campaign against the emissions reduction target by taking inspiration from Peter Dutton’s opposition to the Indigenous voice referendum.
The conservative political conference Cpac has heaped more pressure on Ley to dump the climate target, with a host of rightwing Liberal and National politicians calling for the 2050 aspiration – agreed by the former Coalition prime minister Scott Morrison – to be scrapped immediately.
“I think we’re on the cusp of the Liberal and National parties walking away from net zero,” Canavan told the Cpac conference, claiming the “the last rites [are] being administered right now.”
“It’s got to go through this process, maybe it’ll take 12 months, but we took two hours to come up and oppose the emission target this week, so that’s good.”
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Shadow energy minister Dan Tehan is leading an internal process to set the Coalition’s energy policy, including its position on net zero. That process is ongoing but has no timeline for reporting or finalising policies; Ley last week said the party was “not going to be pinned down on timelines” but “taking the time to get that right”.
“We do take climate action seriously and we do believe that Australia should play its part in reducing emissions, but not at any cost,” she told a press conference.
Ley indicated the Coalition wouldn’t set a 2030 or 2035 climate target while in opposition, saying her party didn’t support pledging emissions goals unless they return to government.
Some net zero sceptics including Canavan and Abbott have argued that not setting 2030 or 2035 targets would necessitate scrapping the 2050 goal, because not setting shorter-term goals would mean even more drastic reforms would be needed to meet the longer-term aspiration.
Canavan, in a live broadcast at Cpac of the Sky News opinion program Outsiders, called on his colleagues to have “the guts and courage to point out the emperor, the net zero emperor, has no clothes”, and suggested emulating Dutton’s strategy from the Indigenous voice referendum.
“The Australian people didn’t change their mind on the voice until Peter Dutton came out and showed leadership. As soon as he took a position, the polls on the voice went off a cliff. The same thing will happen here,” Canavan said of net zero.
In Cpac speeches on Saturday, Abbott joined recently demoted Liberal senator Jacinta Nampijinpa Price, senator Alex Antic and the Cpac chair, Warren Mundine, in urging the dumping of net zero. The Liberal deputy leader, Ted O’Brien, was heckled several times during his speech by audience members calling for the Coalition to scrap the target.
Ley was not on the speaker’s lineup at Cpac. Angus Taylor, who she defeated in a leadership ballot, sent a short video message; Andrew Hastie, another potential leadership aspirant, was mentioned several times in glowing terms by speakers and attenders. Canavan, in a separate speech on Saturday, strongly praised Hastie for his threat to quit the shadow frontbench if the Coalition stuck by net zero, which received a standing ovation and loud applause from many in the audience.
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The energy minister, Chris Bowen, told the ABC’s Insiders on Sunday there was “people of bad faith in Australian politics exploiting this issue”. He accused the National party of “betraying regional Australia” by downplaying the alarming projections in this week’s climate risk assessment, voicing alarm about climate “disinformation … from so many on the right of politics.”
Abbott claimed Labor’s 62-70% emissions reduction target by 2035 could be the government’s “political death warrant”, and would be “national economic suicide”, calling on the Liberals to wage an election campaign on climate issues.
“I also want to remind my former colleagues that every time the Coalition has fought an election on climate and energy – in 2010, 2013, and 2019 as well – we have succeeded. And every time we have ‘me too-ed’ Labor, we have done badly.”
“I think this week, an opportunity has opened for us to take back Australia.”
Price labelled the climate target “communism”, saying: “It’s time the Liberals pushed back against this freedom-eroding nonsense.”
