Duniam,the opposition’s education spokesperson,said:“Net zero at any cost is something that only stupid people would pursue.”
“If we just said net zero at any cost by 2050,I think you’d find there’d be a mass exodus[of frontbenchers and MPs].
“We have to get balance in this debate. We can say we want to save the planet by reducing emissions,great,but at what cost do we want to shut down the economy and that is what Labor is proposing to do here,” Duniam told Sky News.
Hastie said Ley had no choice but todemote Price last week because “Jacinta Nampijinpa Price didn’t express support for her leadership,and one of the conditions for serving in the shadow cabinet or the outer ministry is that you support the leader”.
Asked if Ley had his full support,Hastie said:“She has my support … I wouldn’t be sitting here speaking with you as the shadow minister for home affairs”.
The comments are likely to further stoke tensions within the Coalition over a policy that has divided the party for more than a decade.
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In 2009,then-opposition leader Malcolm Turnbull’s support of the Carbon Pollution Reduction Scheme led to a successful challenge by Tony Abbott.
As prime minister,Scott Morrison was able to negotiate with the Nationals to take a 2050 net zero target to the COP26 conference in Glasgow,and Peter Dutton largely quelled dissent on the topic during the last term of government.
The climate risk assessment report warned that climate change-fuelled heatwaves will kill thousands of Australians every year by 2050,wipe $611 billion from property values and put 1.5 million homes at risk of rising sea levels if greenhouse gas emissions continue rising.
Like many Coalition MPs,Hastie has been a critic of Australia’s commitment to net zero,which was first made by Abbott as prime minister a decade ago and which every subsequent Liberal leader has maintained.
Credit:Matt Golding
Hastie has been seen as a potential future leader of the Liberal Party since entering politics in 2015,and is a leading light in its hard right or conservative faction.
A spokesman for Ley said,“we are committed to the process” of reviewing Coalition climate policy.
But a colleague and ally of Ley,who asked not to be named so they could speak freely,was scathing about Hastie’s intervention.
“For a bloke who thinks that he can be a future leader,he has picked a hell of a day to say he will die on the hill of net zero,” that person said.
“Millions of Australians were just warned about the potentially catastrophic impacts of climate change,and he is saying to them ‘I don’t give a stuff’.”
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