12 June 2024
Topics: Labor’s energy policy shambles, retirement of Gavin Pearce MP
E&OE
Kieran Gilbert:
The Shadow Environment Minister Jonno Duniam joins us from Hobart. Senator Duniam, thanks for your time as always. Explain how this this emerged, this policy, did it go through shadow cabinet? Were there deliberations on whether you should renege or cancel that 2030 target?
Senator Duniam:
I’m not going to commentate on what goes through shadow cabinet or partyroom, for that matter, but suffice it to say that certainly there have been long and ongoing conversations right through our Coalition party around what our policy should be coming to the next election and climate targets certainly are part of that. And so, you know, Australians could rest assured that there is a very robust process we go through to come up with the policies we’ll be taking to the next election because we want to win.
Kieran Gilbert:
How does this sort of approach go down, though, in those seats that you probably have to get back to win, those lost at the last election like the Teal seats?
Senator Duniam:
Well, I think there’s a couple of things being conflated here and frankly if we’re to talk about this climate target, the emissions reduction target that Labor set which I think we should remind your viewers, they’re not going to meet, even with the most rosy and planets-aligned modelling that they’ve brought into the public domain over the last day or two, they’re not going to meet their target. And so yeah, sure, it’s an important issue, but what astounds me about this debate, Kieran, is that the Prime Minister is virtually frothing at the mouth about what our policy may or may not be come the next election around emissions reductions targets, putting aside the fact that Labor won’t meet their own target, the one they’ve set, the one they’re not going to meet because of their policy settings. But he won’t even touch on something that is affecting Teal voters as well as Labor, Greens, Liberal voters, and that is the cost of living. Not once in this debate has the Prime Minister acknowledged his broken promise, the target that they’re missing around reducing power prices by $275 a year by next year. And the fact is those power prices have come up because of Labor’s energy policies and their blind pursuit of ideologically charged policies when it comes to emissions reductions, so we’re not going to sign up to their failed plan. We will develop and announce our own over the course of the next while in the lead up to the election and Ted O’Brien, Peter Dutton and others will have more to say about that including on nuclear.
Kieran Gilbert:
The Government’s adamant they will get to that 2030 target. I don’t want to get bogged down in that because you you’re obviously saying that won’t happen. They believe it will, but just on the broader issue, do you think there needs to be clarity from the Opposition on what their vision is to get to that net zero? Do you need to flesh that out in terms of the pathway there even if it doesn’t involve targets necessarily before the election. You need to give a bit of clarity, don’t you as to how you get there and what the implications are for the energy system?
Senator Duniam:
We aren’t going to treat voters like mugs like Labor will and do. Targets are great, but they have to be sustainable, they have to be well thought through and they have to be achievable. Labor have now demonstrated on so many fronts they can’t meet their targets. The emissions reductions target is just one of them. And I might just add, there is no country with a credible pathway to net zero in the world that doesn’t have nuclear as part of the mix and that’s something I’m sure your viewers are aware will be part of our policy offering come the next election. But again; targets – targets on power price reduction, they’re not going to make their $275 power price reduction; new houses – 1.2 million houses to be built – there’s barely a foundation laid out there. So, look, we will have robust ways of demonstrating to Australians that we take these issues seriously, including to Teal voters, every Australian matters here. But when it comes to emissions reductions, power price reductions, affordable housing, all of these things, we will have solid and sustainable and more importantly, achievable and serious targets and ones that we think Australians need and want but by comparison and contrast, you’ve got a Labor Prime Minister running this ridiculous analogy around a mystery plane flight. Well, he can run that analogy all he likes, but on their plane flight the fuel tank’s only half full. It won’t get them to their destination.
Kieran Gilbert:
Your colleague in the seat of Braddon has announced he’s not going to recontest the next election. Does that open up the prospect of a closer fight with the Labor Party when we go to the polls?
Senator Duniam:
Gavin is a massive loss for us and he, you know, you’re going to every nook and cranny of Braddon and that’s where I’m from originally and the locals loved him, they called him the big unit for a reason and he was very much part of the Braddon family so yeah, we have a tough job ahead of us to make sure that we can hold that seat and we need to in order to win government at the next election. But Labor I think are going to struggle because it is Labor who are hanging the axe over nearly one thousand jobs on the West Coast, the economic powerhouse of Braddon. The MMG tailings dam – Tanya Plibersek refuses to sign off on that, so 120 year old mine may not be able to continue. There’s around 400 jobs in the salmon industry in the town of Strahan which Tanya Plibersek refuses to sign off on. I know local Labor MPs and Senators are very, very concerned about the Minister’s inaction here but the fact that they haven’t approved it means Labor don’t get Braddon. So they’ve got a very, very, very steep mountain to climb to get there. But we know our work is cut out for us.
Kieran Gilbert:
Jonno Duniam, thank you very much, we’ll talk to you soon.