But amid a flurry of proposed amendments,points of order,assertions of wrong procedure and mass confusion,the motion was gutted to remove any reference to abolishing net zero with majority support from the floor.
Joyce,who was backed by Nationals senator Matt Canavan in objecting to the motion being changed,argued on the conference floor that the move to net zero was the “most substantive change to the economics of this nation”.
”I think we have an obligation to discuss it. We can’t be hiding from our own shadow. We know what’s going on. What is happening is our lives,especially in New England,have been turned upside down,” Joyce,the MP for the NSW electorate of New England,said.
However,several delegates raised furious objections to the push to jettison the climate change target,saying it would undermine the Coalition’s push to embrace nuclear energy and scupper its chances of winning the next election.
“In the eyes of many Australians,we will look indecisive and even recalcitrant if we flip on net zero now,and if we do,if we’re really that careless,we would hand the Albanese government a quiver of arrows that they would fire on us again and again and again,” Mitchell Dickens,a delegate from the Sunshine Coast in Queensland,said.
The conference will instead continue debating on Sunday a re-worked motion that called for a “practical approach to lowering carbon emissions as a substantive move to nuclear power is made”.
Speaking earlier on Saturday to media,Nationals Leader David Littleproud dismissed rampant speculation that the original Joyce-backed motion was designed to destabilise his leadership. Asked whether he supported abandoning net zero,Littleproud said,“not at this stage unless there’s some other alternative”.