Nationals members have pulled support for a federal net zero goal, heaping pressure on the party’s federal MPs to follow. \u00a0<\/p>\n
The Nationals’ Federal Council met in Canberra on Saturday to deliberate their climate stance and vote through a motion cementing their opposition to a net zero target. \u00a0<\/p>\n
The group does not control the federal party room; however, MPs are speculated to affirm their members\u2019 position within the next week.<\/p>\n
The motion called on the party to \u201cabandon\u201d support for reducing emissions to net zero. \u00a0<\/p>\n
It did, however, support \u201cemissions reduction\u201d, balanced with \u201cgrowing and protecting key industries such as the mining, agriculture and manufacturing sectors\u201d. \u00a0<\/p>\n
Members want to see a \u201cbalanced energy mix, including coal, gas and renewable energy sources\u201d, and also support removing the standing moratorium on nuclear energy. \u00a0<\/p>\n
Leader of the Nationals David Littleproud said the party was there for \u201cthose that live outside the capital cities\u201d.\u00a0<\/p>\n
“Australia cannot put its head in the sand,\u201d he said addressing the council on Saturday, labelling the renewables transition a \u201creckless\u201d path. \u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cYou are experiencing already, this reckless race to an all-renewables approach in Australia, we\u2019re feeling that not just through our power bills but through our communities being torn apart,\u201d he said. \u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cWe believe in reducing emissions, but not at any cost, and not at regional Australia\u2019s cost, not at our people\u2019s cost.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n
He said Net Zero was \u201cnot the only way\u201d.<\/p>\n
Nationals Senate Leader Bridget McKenzie said the party had never shied from \u201cmaking the tough decisions\u201d. \u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cToday you saw democracy in action as every single Nationals Party state voted for a motion for Australia to get out of these aggressive targets,\u201d she said. \u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cThat\u2019s obviously going to be a matter that our party room will discuss in terms of having our discussions informed by a serious piece of work done by our research centre.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n
She said that evidence would be considered in tandem with the decision of the council for the parliamentary party\u2019s decision. \u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cClimate change is real, emissions need to be reduced, [but] it should never be at any cost, it shouldn\u2019t be a harm to humanity\u2019s wellbeing, the environment or indeed our economy,\u201d she said.\u00a0<\/p>\n
It comes after 35 Liberals gathered on Friday to discuss their energy policy. \u00a0<\/p>\n
It is unclear when the Liberals will be able to reach a consensus.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Liberal MP Andrew Wallace tried to temper Australians’ expectations earlier in the week on Sky News.<\/p>\n
“I understand that Australian want to know what our policy is on net zero, but we’re going through a very, very detailed process that’s being led by Dan Tehan,” he said.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cWe can\u2019t rush this. We\u2019ve got to get it right so don\u2019t expect an outcome next Friday… We need to make sure, of all policies, we land this one right, so we don\u2019t want to rush it.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n
The Prime Minister weighed in on the fractured Coalition from South Korea, while attending the APEC Summit.<\/p>\n
Anthony Albanese said the Opposition’s net zero process had been a “circus”.\u00a0<\/p>\n
“The world is getting on with the transition to net zero,” he said.\u00a0<\/p>\n
“Overwhelmingly, the world sees that the transition to net zero [and] climate change is real.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Nationals members have pulled support for a federal net zero goal, heaping pressure on the party’s federal MPs…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":254545,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[150503,64,63,2467,9568,40589,110275,19182,44,1463,25026,35241],"class_list":["post-254544","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-australia","tag-abandon","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-council","tag-meeting","tag-nationals","tag-net","tag-net-zero","tag-news","tag-no","tag-vote","tag-zero"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/254544","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=254544"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/254544\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/254545"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=254544"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=254544"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=254544"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}