A Liberal senator believes the Coalition should not even be debating net zero and says he is prepared to support an ambitious 2035 emissions reduction target, warning that only a “brave soul” would defy whatever number the Climate Change Authority recommends later this month.
Andrew McLachlan, a self-described conservationist from South Australia, also suggests market interventions such as carbon pricing should be considered to force the scale of change needed to rapidly decarbonise the economy.
The Climate Change Authority’s advice on a 2035 emissions target will be submitted to the Albanese government within days, with cabinet expected to endorse a goal before the prime minister departs for the UN general assembly leaders’ summit in New York later this month. The authority’s preliminary advice suggested a reduction target of between 65% and 75% on 2005 levels would be ambitious but achievable.
McLachlan would not preempt the report by committing to a preferred number, but signalled he would be comfortable with whatever goal it put forward.
Supporting such a target would put the backbencher on a collision course with a growing rump of Liberal and National colleagues, who either do not support interim emissions targets, or want net zero to be abandoned entirely.
“I think [the CCA advice] will be a strong report and I think it will make a compelling case for [2035] targets – and I have no fear in engaging in with other targets,” McLachlan told Guardian Australia.
“I think it would be a brave soul to defy the advice you’re given – we don’t defy the RBA on interest rates.”
A conservative conservationist
As hardline Liberal and Nationals escalate a highly public campaign to force the opposition to abandon its climate commitments, the low-profile McLachlan is quietly mounting the case for the Coalition to pivot the other way.
The two camps’ contrasting approaches were evident in parliament on Tuesday.
At the Coalition’s party room meeting, the Nationals senator Matt Canavan confirmed plans to introduce another bill to repeal net zero by 2050, mirroring colleague Barnaby Joyce’s attempt to dump the target in the House of Representatives.
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Later that evening, in a short speech to a near-empty Senate chamber, McLachlan made an intervention of his own.
Highlighting the algal bloom devastating marine life in his home state, McLachlan said “I fail to see how anyone could not accept the necessity of targets to encourage the economic conditions that will reduce emissions”.
“The debate over [climate] targets is, in reality, a debate on the extent of our obligation to the following generations. To be a good steward today is to be a revered ancestor tomorrow,” he said. “We need our patriots to hear the call to action and stand up and fight for the next generation.”
It was McLachlan’s second unashamedly pro-climate, pro-environment speech in as many weeks, after he criticised Jim Chalmers’ productivity roundtable for not giving “nature a voice”. The speeches turned the heads of Labor, Greens and independent MPs, who were surprised – and curious – to hear a conservative speak so passionately about climate and nature.
McLachlan at Parliament House: ‘I’m a conservationist, and nature sustains us.’ Photograph: Lukas Coch/AAP
McLachlan hasn’t hidden his love for the environment – he describes himself as a “conservationist” on social media – but nor, during his five years in Canberra, has he previously voiced it so pointedly and publicly.
The former lawyer and state politician this week said the Covid-19 pandemic, and then his role as Senate deputy president, restrained him from pushing his nature advocacy after entering federal parliament in 2020.
No longer in that parliamentary position, and with the opposition’s climate, energy and environment policies up for debate, McLachlan wants to speak up – to help shape the Coalition’s positions and to demonstrate that conservatives can be conservationists.
“I think the cornerstone of my personal political beliefs are that I’m a conservationist, and nature sustains us, and I don’t see the philosophical complexity that others may have about preserving the very planet that sustains us,” he said.
“What’s been missing is that looking after the environment has been an afterthought, or something we should do after we’ve sort of decided our industry policy, as opposed to: it’s our core fundamental belief, and then it informs what we do.”
McLachlan said the Coalition was largely uninterested in the environment under Peter Dutton, something that “showed” as voters handed the Liberal party its worst defeat in 80 years at the May federal election.
Insisting the Coalition “should not even be touching” its Scott Morrison-era commitment to net zero by 2050, McLachlan said the debate should focus on the taxpayer subsidies needed to manage the transition.
Should a carbon price – a policy repealed under the Abbott government in 2014 and not revisited by either major in the decade since – be on the table?
“We need to have a debate,” he said. “I mean, it’s probably not an issue that any Liberal likes going near – but it is being mooted.”
This outspokenness carries a political risk for McLachlan, whose Senate preselection for the next election depends on the support of a South Australian Liberal branch that voted in June to oppose net zero.
The state’s dominant Liberal factional powerbroker Alex Antic is among the Coalition’s most strident anti net zero campaigners.
“I don’t have any hesitation in speaking out – I come from a party that values free speech,” McLachlan said.
He can count on support from one prominent, albeit polarising, Liberal figure.
Matt Kean, the former New South Wales state politician and now chair of the Climate Change Authority, is the outspoken flag bearer for pro-climate Liberals.
Kean is a divisive figure among conservatives in Canberra, frequently using his platform and profile to admonish his own side for pursuing policies such as nuclear energy.
“It is encouraging to see Liberal MPs standing up for traditional liberal values – preserving our planet for future generations while laying the groundwork for a stronger economy,” Kean said of McLachlan, describing him as a Liberal in the Menzies mould.
“The Liberal party should be the natural party of climate action because it is the economically rational thing to do.
“Just as we have always sought to leave less financial debt for future generations, we should also aim to leave a smaller environmental debt.”