‘The Federal Nationals Council have just voted to abandon Net Zero,’ announced Senator Matt Canavan.
This decision, handed down during a meeting in Canberra today, is a formality for the Nationals. Since the beginning, they have been dragged begrudgingly by their Coalition partner into Climate Change policy knowing full well it would damage their reputation in rural and regional areas.
Remember in 2021 when Barnaby Joyce looked as though he was chewing glass while agreeing to Morrison-era 2050 targets?
Their rushed decision was forced on the Nationals by the Liberal Party who were preparing to send Scott Morrison to the (now meaningless) COP26 conference in Glasgow where the deeply regrettable Glasgow Climate Pact was signed.
Lesson to the Liberals: Morrison got his headlines but they were all negative with Labor accusing him of not doing enough for the climate. You cannot win this PR war.
As is so often the case, Net Zero was a decision made on an arbitrary deadline for a meaningless conference so that a leader would feel better shaking the hands of world leaders who no longer hold office.
All that hubris has fossilised Net Zero into a sacred stone that moderates worship on their way to the party room believing it holds the divine power to deliver rich city seats.
At the time of the Net Zero mistake, David Littleproud described the Nationals as ‘the last line of defence for regional and rural Australia’. Unfortunately, they allowed that line to buckle and now the Nationals are racing to repair the fences before voters scamper off to One Nation.
‘I don’t think that people realise when they hear Net Zero that means they want to transition you to be a vegan…’ said Senator Canavan.
The conflict of interest between Liberal inner-city election prospects and regional Nationals’ strongholds reached breaking point a while ago.
Regional towns and communities have been torn apart by monstrous industrial projects. Tourist areas fear they are next, terrified their beaches and ocean vistas will be corrupted by skyscraper-sized blades.
Being in a Coalition doesn’t mean the Nationals are duty-bound to follow the Liberals into ruin.
That said, the detail of this motion is not the all-out rejection of climate ideology that many are looking for. The Nationals are maintaining their commitment to ‘emissions reductions’ albeit with a protective buffer around industries critical to regional Australia.
Their chief concern is shielding the mining, agricultural, and manufacturing sectors from Net Zero targets and intrusive green policy.
At the same time, the Nationals continue to seek ‘a balanced energy mix, including coal, gas, and renewable energy sources’.
They also support the Liberals in their quest to have the moratorium on nuclear energy dropped.
Once again, nuclear is a self-made mess after John Howard introduced the ban in 1998 instead of publicly fighting it out with the Greens who were trying to prevent the Lucas Heights replacement reactor.
It was half an hour of debate which crippled Australia’s future.
As Senator Canavan said:
‘We got this ban because of a deal in the middle of the night between Labor and the Greens. There was no committee process, there was no consultation. The bill was to produce new medicines for all Australians. There was no prospect of nuclear power being generated at the time and that’s why our government eventually accepted the amendment because it was a difference between people having access to nuclear medicines or not. We have an accidental ban on nuclear power, not something that was well considered or thought through. The Australian people never voted on whether to have a ban on nuclear power.’
There were two bills that condemned us, one in 1998 and the other in 1999.
They contained hyperbolic fantasies about radiation and environmental harm which is today mimicked by Net Zero legislation. They were wrong then and they are wrong now.
In reality, Australia’s pending apocalypse is both an engineering problem and a geopolitical trap.
China is so heavily invested in subjugating Australia’s energy grid with Chinese-made renewable technology built with Chinese-mined rare earths that there isn’t a single Labor state or federal leader who would dare defy Beijing by unlocking domestic nuclear power.
Sure, politicians pretend the conversation is about three-eyed fish, but it’s not.
Labor is determined to keep these communist chains around our necks and prevent Australia from becoming a nuclear powerhouse of plentiful, reliable, fully-domestic energy.
And don’t ask Chris Bowen how many nuclear power plants there are in Asia (145) or how many are being built (45) and how many are planned (60).
Nuclear matters, because it is being pitched as the way for the Liberals to hold onto their Net Zero policy while walking back some of their wind, solar, and battery support in regional areas.
The Liberals met on Halloween to discuss this, but as far as anyone can tell, little has changed except they want to drop the ‘Net Zero’ branding without actually dropping Net Zero.
Which feels a bit dishonest.
‘Our energy policy is about much more than the Net Zero target,’ said Sussan Ley. ‘It is about delivering … a stable, reliable grid that delivers affordable energy, and Australia playing its role in reducing global emissions, responsibly as we should.’
Tony Pasin said: ‘We can’t adopt the nomenclature of Net Zero, that is [Labor’s].’
While Dan Tehan, whose area of ‘listening’ centres around energy, insisted the party was ‘working through it’.
As reported by the Sydney Morning Herald:
Ley has said she wants to return to the centre of the political landscape and challenge Teal MPs for the seats they have won from the Liberals. She and her allies are pushing for a compromise position that would retain the goal for Net Zero but remove the target from legislation.
If that is what Sussan Ley truly thinks, the Liberal Party cannot be saved. Trying to de-radicalise a Teal is like arguing with a Flat-Earther … the idiocy of the debate pushes everyone else away.
‘The message from the [Liberal Party] meeting is: watch out Labor,’ said one MP.
Delusional.
