Hanson tests Coalition resolve on net zero

The Age

4 days ago

'We are the Reform of [Australia] because everything that Nigel Farage stands for, I've been talking about for years, for nearly 30 years.'
Hanson's anti-immigration party, which has courted controversy for decades for its stances on minority groups, added two senators at the May election, doubling its number of seats.
Joyce's campaign has gained support from backbenchers Garth Hamilton, Tony Pasin, Alex Antic, a slew of Nationals, and the expanded right-wing Senate bloc of One Nation and United Australia Party's Ralph Babet. Frontbencher Andrew Hastie has also been fighting internally to overturn the net zero pledge, with the policy currently under review within the Coalition.
Liberals have also spoken out about Indigenous welcome ceremonies after Ley indicated support for the practice. And in another sign of internal angst, former frontbencher Sarah Henderson argued in last week's private party room meeting that the Coalition should adopt as formal policy a push by Antic to enshrine in law the existence of only two genders. Henderson declined to comment.
Taken together, the thrusts underline the depth of feeling among right-wing Coalition MPs as Ley aims to correct course from the perceived failings of the Dutton era.
Institute of Public Affairs deputy head Daniel Wild said in Australia, as in the UK, there was a growing gap between the wishes of right-wing voters and the offerings of centre-right parties on cultural issues, immigration and green energy.
'What you're now seeing is a new bloc, whether it's people from One Nation or Barnaby Joyce, and others, giving voice to those concerns in a way that they haven't before,' Wild said.
'I don't think Liberals are going to die out, but I think the risk of irrelevancy is increasing.'
Hume, one of only two Liberals to vote against Hanson's motion, pushed back against the One Nation leader, saying voters 'made it clear at the ballot box that they expect serious, credible action on climate change'.
'How can we keep the seats we have and win back the seats we've lost, without hearing that message?' she said.
The UN's chief climate diplomat has urged Australia to continue its push towards net zero, warning that failure to stabilise the climate would cut living standards $7000 per person per year by 2050.
'Climate disasters are already costing Australian home owners $4 billion a year – and that figure is only going one way,' said Simon Stiell, executive secretary of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change.
Outspoken conservative backbencher Hamilton warned of the risks of a Labor-lite agenda.
'We need to be wary of what's happened to our sister party in the UK,' he said, cautioning that Australia's preferential and compulsory system provided some protection from a third-party takeover.
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Hamilton said public debate on the Coalition's direction should not be silenced, arguing Dutton did not lose because Australians rejected conservative values, but rather because of the Coalition's deficient policy agenda.
Hanson said she was open to picking off Coalition MPs who felt uncomfortable with Ley's more centrist approach that has seen her spruik the case for quotas for preselecting women, dump the idea of building nuclear plants, and install Paul Scarr – who on Monday highlighted the positives of migration – into the immigration portfolio.
The Nationals and Liberal Party briefly split after the election. During that period, Liberal MPs discussed privately the prospect of creating a new city-based party to espouse small-l liberal values unencumbered by conservative regional MPs. Scott Morrison canvassed the idea among his close colleagues after the 2022 election, according to several sources involved in those talks who did not want to be identified.
Political historian Paul Strangio, an emeritus professor at Monash University, said Ley's message of modernising the party risked her being received 'as a kind of apostate'.
'Diagnosing what needs to be done doesn't mean Ley can magic away a quarter of a century of a conservative populist creep by the Liberals dating back to the Howard era that in essence has involved the party fighting a rearguard action against the evolving direction of Australian society,' he said.
'The resistance she will inevitably encounter is already evident in the incipient revolt within the Coalition against a net zero carbon emissions target.
'A major question looms over whether Ley has the requisite network of allies, intellectual and rhetorical force, strategic nous and fortitude to perform the diabolically difficult task of reversing 25 years of rightwards Liberal drift.'