While Hastie’s statement about the necessity of Price resigning is factually accurate because of the need to maintain shadow cabinet solidarity, it will also be interpreted by some MPs as provocative and unnecessary just days after the NT senator’s sacking.
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The comments are likely to further stoke tensions within the Coalition over a policy that has divided the party for a decade.
The Albanese government is just days away from unveiling its interim emissions reduction target for 2035 and released the first National Climate Risk Assessment report on Monday, which painted a grim future for the country if global warming continues unabated.
The report warned that climate change-fuelled heatwaves will kill thousands of Australians every year, 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 an outspoken critic of the Australia’s commitment to net zero, which was first made by Tony Abbott as prime minister a decade ago and which every subsequent Liberal leader has maintained.
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The home affairs spokesman 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. Hastie declined to comment.
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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