Face of Nation : A Labor frontbencher’s call to match the Morrison government’s carbon emissions target has exposed divisions within the party on climate change policy. Opposition resources spokesman Joel Fitzgibbon believes Labor should aim for a 28 per cent reduction of 2005 emissions by 2030, in line with the higher end of the coalition’s target.
But Labor’s climate change spokesman Mark Butler slapped down the proposal, telling media outlets it would breach Australia’s Paris climate change agreements. He said the government’s targets were dreamed up by former prime minister Tony Abbott and if adopted worldwide would lead to global warming of three degrees.
Labor backbencher Peter Khalil, whose seat of Wills is in Melbourne’s inner-north, also warned against watering down climate change commitments. “I know that my electorate wants action on climate change, wants to actually tackle this problem,” he told Sky. Energy Minister Angus Taylor was keen to capitalise on the split.
“Labor went to the last election with a 45 per cent emission reduction target which was going to slash jobs, slash wages and slash the economy,” he told reporters in Sydney. “The are clearly now recognising the error of their ways, but they’re in chaos. There are different points of view coming out from different people in Labor every day.”
Greens MP Adam Bandt said Mr Fitzgibbon was a Labor factional warlord and usually got his way within the party. “What you’ve heard from Joel Fitzgibbon today is what Labor will do if it wins the next election,” he told reporters. Mr Fitzgibbon copped a hefty swing away from him at the last election in his NSW regional seat of Hunter, a significant coal mining region.
In his speech, he will also say Labor’s economic policies opened the party up to a scare campaign at the May election. He believes the ALP’s “path to success” at the next federal election in 2022 will not be “a track to the right, but back to the sensible centre”.
