\u201cIf we just said net zero at any cost by 2050 I think you\u2019d find there would be a mass exodus,\u201d the shadow education minister told Sky News.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe reality is that most members of our frontbench and most of the members of our party room are interested in making sure that whatever we do, if it is to retain \u2026 net zero by 2050, doesn\u2019t come at whatever the cost might be, unlimited cost.<\/p>\n
Duniam said he was confident his colleagues, including the opposition leader, Sussan Ley<\/a>, understood that net zero \u201cat any cost\u201d was \u201cbad policy\u201d.<\/p>\n Sign up: AU Breaking News email<\/a><\/p>\n The warnings of a potential net zero rebellion threaten to create further headaches for Ley less than a week after she sacked Jacinta Nampijinpa Price for refusing to support her leadership or apologise<\/a> for her comments about Indian migrants.<\/p>\n Ley pledged to review the Liberals\u2019 commitment to net zero by 2050 after winning the leadership, setting up a messy internal fight between supporters and detractors of the target.<\/p>\n Asked on Monday what it would mean if Ley re-committed the Liberals to the target, Hastie said it would leave him \u201cwithout a job\u201d.<\/p>\n The comments are particularly significant, given the West Australian MP has put on record his aspiration to one day lead the party.<\/p>\n \u201cI\u2019ve nailed my colours to the mast \u2026 Like if I go out with the tide in two-and-a-half years, that\u2019s great, you know, I\u2019ll get a lot more time with my kids back,\u201d Hastie told ABC Perth.<\/p>\n \u201cMy primary mission in politics is to build a stronger, more secure, more competitive Australia. Energy security is a vital input to that.\u201d<\/p>\n The shadow home affairs minister\u2019s comments drew praise from the Nationals senator and anti-net zero campaigner, Matt Canavan, as well as Price.<\/p>\n The latest flare-up in the Liberals\u2019 ongoing internal fight over net zero comes as the Albanese government prepares to unveil its 2035 emissions reduction target after receiving the Climate Change Authority\u2019s advice on Friday.<\/p>\n The government has been widely expected to announce a target range \u2013 rather than a single number \u2013 after the authority\u2019s preliminary advice put a span of 65% to 75% on the table.<\/p>\n Appearing on Tuesday at a parliamentary inquiry into the new national climate risk assessment<\/a>, Treasury officials revealed the government had asked it to model the economic implications of one specific target, rather than a range.<\/p>\n Senior Treasury official Alex Heath would not reveal the number but indicated the work had been under way for months \u2013 possibly since before the federal election in May.<\/p>\n skip past newsletter promotion<\/a><\/p>\n Sign up to Breaking News Australia<\/p>\n Get the most important news as it breaks<\/p>\n Privacy Notice: Newsletters may contain information about charities, online ads, and content funded by outside parties. If you do not have an account, we will create a guest account for you on theguardian.com<\/a> to send you this newsletter. You can complete full registration at any time. For more information about how we use your data see our Privacy Policy<\/a>. We use Google reCaptcha to protect our website and the Google Privacy Policy<\/a> and Terms of Service<\/a> apply.<\/p>\n after newsletter promotion<\/p>\n Heath said Treasury examined a specific number due to the \u201cdifficulty\u201d in modelling a range.<\/p>\n The Greens leader, Larissa Waters, said the decision to ask Treasury to examine a specific number indicated Labor had \u201cpre-determined\u201d its 2035 target well in advance of receiving the Climate Change Authority advice.<\/p>\n Government sources confirmed Treasury had modelled the economic impact of a specific figure within the 65% to 75% range to inform \u2013 not pre-empt \u2013 cabinet deliberations.<\/p>\n The prime minister, Anthony Albanese, and the climate change minister, Chris Bowen, are expected to announce the 2035 target on either Thursday or Friday after cabinet meets to sign off on the new climate goal.<\/p>\n The parliamentary inquiry also heard that Australian Climate Service officials did not personally brief Albanese on the findings of the climate risk assessmentbefore its release on Monday.<\/p>\n The first-of-its-kind report warned no Australian would be immune to the climate crisis as global heating threatens to cause a major increases in heat-related deaths and put millions at risk from rising sea levels.<\/p>\n The head of the climate service, Vicki Manson, said her team briefed the prime minister\u2019s office and the Department of Prime Minister & Cabinet (PM&C) \u2013 but not the prime minister himself.<\/p>\n Waters said the fact Albanese had not been briefed on the report by its authors was \u201cabsolutely appalling and needs to be rectified\u201d.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A senior Liberal has warned of a mass exodus from the frontbench if the party pursues a policy…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":147365,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[43,44,41,39,42,40],"class_list":["post-147364","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-headlines","tag-headlines","tag-news","tag-top-news","tag-top-stories","tag-topnews","tag-topstories"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/147364","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=147364"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/147364\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/147365"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=147364"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=147364"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=147364"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"Landmark](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/09\/1758025212_379_5665.jpg\")
Landmark climate report shows ‘every Australian has a lot at stake’, minister says \u2013 video<\/p>\n