As the Liberals continue to ramp up rhetoric around a net-zero road map, their political bedfellows are dragging the chain.
Federal Member for Nicholls Damian Drum says the Nationals are still waiting to look at the plan and are discussing their options.
“This is a very serious issue and we’d prefer to talk in person,” Mr Drum said.
“We’re expecting to have a debate in the next few weeks ... the bulk of the (party) room are actually very open to the idea.”
Based in Shepparton, Mr Drum said decision making within the Nationals was being slowed down by COVID-19 travel restrictions.
“We have to see how it’s going to happen ... I want to see the detail before I say ‘yep that’s good’,” Mr Drum told ABC Bendigo.
“I’m happy to have a target, a goal, an aspiration. It’s a total other thing to sign up to a policy which binds you to get there.”
The lack of a decision is in stark contrast to the Victorian Nationals and NSW Nationals, with both publicly backing climate change targets and the slashing of emissions.
Mr Drum said Australia was in a different position to many European countries, because when renewable power failed they couldn’t flick a nuclear power plant on.
“Countries like to come out here and lecture us, but we need to make sure we don’t leave our vulnerable people behind,” he said.
“It is 29 years to 2050. I think technology will get us there (net-zero) quite easily, but we need to make sure it’s not going to increase the electricity bill.”
Mr Drum said Australia was leading the world in rooftop solar and was on track to meet its 2015 Paris Agreement commitments.
“What annoys me about the climate change debate is that the arguments put forward by both extremes are as ridiculous as each other,” he said.
These extremes are: pro-coal and gas diehards who refuse to accept new technologies and the massive emission-based trade conditions Australia will be subjected to in the near future; and those who don’t care about the price of electricity or how the power network works.
After Prime Minister Scott Morrison shared details of his clean energy transition plan, Federal National Party deputy leader David Littleproud assured journalists the Nationals loved clean energy and coal equally.
“I think everybody wants to have a healthier environment,” Mr Littleproud told ABC Triple J Hack.
“I’m probably the most impacted (by the road map) MP in Federal Parliament.
“I have four coal-fired power stations, I have coal seam gas right across my electorate. The coal that’s actually dug up in my electorate isn’t exported.
“It (coal) could still be used in our country so long as we adopt technology like carbon capture storage.”
Carbon capture storage is when carbon dioxide emissions from large industrial facilities (such as power stations) are captured and piped below ground, permanently stored under geological formations.
In an opinion piece to the Australian Financial Review, Victorian Senator Bridget McKenzie criticised the Liberal Party for adopting a net-zero target.
The Wodonga-based Nationals senator said if rushed and done wrong, any Australian contributions to lower emissions won’t make a “jot of difference if we are simply outsourcing our emissions to developing nations”.
“It is easy for a member for Kooyong (inner Melbourne) or the member for Wentworth (inner Sydney) to publicly embrace a net-zero target before the government has a position, because there would be next to zero real impact on the way of life of their affluent constituents,” Senator McKenzie said.
Australia has been under increasing international pressure to implement stronger net-zero policies.
In late October, Mr Morrison is expected to attend the COP26 Climate Change Conference alongside United States President Joe Biden and British Prime Minister Boris Johnson.
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