The Coalition appears to be divided on their net zero emissions policy by 2050 this week.
Queensland Nationals Senator Matt Canavan has said this week the policy is “dead”, but the Prime Minister said the policy is what will happen, end of story.
A deal between the Nationals and the Liberal Party was struck in the lead up to the Climate Summit in Glasgow for the Coalition to agree to the target.
Coalition colleagues have told the former Resources Minister to “pull his head in” and that his comments are “unhelpful” and “frustrating”.
One Nation have been campaigning hard in the Hunter this week and believe the only way to protect coal mine jobs in the Hunter Valley is to vote them in at the Federal Election.
They are also against the net zero emissions reduction target the Coalition has committed to.
Mark Latham, One Nation Member in the NSW Legislative Council and NSW Leader of the party said their message is simple, zero emissions targets mean zero jobs.
“You can’t wipe out the coal industry and carbon jobs in this region without having a devastating impact economically and socially,” he said.
“They’ve [Labor] got a policy that hasn’t gotten much scrutiny, called the safeguard mechanism which basically means that if any company emitting more than 100,000 tonnes of carbon dioxide equivalent in a year has to pay the equivalent of a carbon tax by purchasing carbon credits,”
“The companies, mainly coal mines that are being targeted in the Hunter, would be paying an extra $35 million a year in these carbon credits. There’s 38 of these companies targeted by Labor in NSW, over half of them are here in the Hunter Valley. The 18 coal mines plus Orica and Tomago and all up its over 9000 jobs that are targeted by Labor’s safeguard mechanism,” he said.
Candidate for the Hunter electorate Dale McNamara said the Hunter Valley can’t lose coal mining.
“There’s no clearer way to saying that,”
“The dynamics of the Hunter Valley just won’t be the same.”
“I’m not against what’s next, when we’ve got something that’s better, more reliable and cheaper for the people, I”m not against that. But, we haven’t got that and we’re nowhere near that,” he said.
Pauline Hanson has been campaigning in the region as well and said Scott Morrison and the like are taking everyone for a ride.
“The thing is that we haven’t had a proper debate on it. If you look at the parliament there’s only I’d say about five people at the most who really understand about carbon dioxide and what’s happening and emissions,” said Pauline Hanson.
“If you ask a person to define what is 2050 net zero emissions, there’s no definition to it. Everything they’re putting to us is computer modeling. It’s not based on true science and that’s where we need to have the debate.”
“Have a diverse power supply by all means but do not shut down our 24 coal fired power stations to give us cheap power when the rest of the world will have over 5000 coal fired power stations.”