Speaker 1: From Schwartz Media. I'm Scott Mitchell. This is seven am.
Speaker 1: Two years ago. On the very first day after the
Speaker 1: Labor Government was sworn into office, the new Minister for
Speaker 1: Climate Change and Energy, Chris Bowen, called a press conference.
Speaker 1: In those very first remarks, he said the climate wars
Speaker 1: were over. Some scoffed at the time there were still
Speaker 1: plenty of political fights to be had over how Australia
Speaker 1: would reach net zero, but there was nonetheless a belief
Speaker 1: that Australia would move forward with climate policy. Well, this
Speaker 1: week that changed. Today columnist for the Saturday paper Paul
Speaker 1: Bonjorno on the week Peter Dutton promised to tear up
Speaker 1: emission targets for twenty thirty and why the next election
Speaker 1: will be a climate election after all It's Friday, June fourteen, Paul.
Speaker 1: This week we saw what some people thought we might
Speaker 1: never see again. Climate change could actually be the issue
Speaker 1: that both major parties are putting at the center of
Speaker 1: the next election. Where did this all start?
Speaker 2: Well, Scott, I think it all started from Peter Dutton's
Speaker 2: desperation to grab attention and in taking everyone's breath away
Speaker 2: at the same time. It's a crash or crash through
Speaker 2: tactic and I've got to say it reminded me immediately
Speaker 2: of Tony Abbott. It all began on the weekend was
Speaker 2: Peter Dutton using an interview with The Weekend Australian to
Speaker 2: say for the first time that if elected, he would
Speaker 2: ditch Australia's emissions reduction target for twenty thirty something the
Speaker 2: Labor government has legislated as one of its first acts
Speaker 2: after coming to power. The Murdoch owned broadsheet we'd had
Speaker 2: no doubt about what Dutton was up to. In its editorial,
Speaker 2: the paper gave the policy It's backing under the headline
Speaker 2: climate wars are Back with a nuclear twist.
Speaker 3: On Opposition leader Peter Dutton has pledged to ditch Labour's
Speaker 3: twenty thirty climate target in exchange for a focus on
Speaker 3: nuclear power and met zero by twenty fifty if he
Speaker 3: wins the next election.
Speaker 2: The initial reporting gave the impression Dutton was ditching interim
Speaker 2: targets and adopting quote a radically different energy policy to
Speaker 2: Anthony Albanisi that prioritizes more gas in the short term
Speaker 2: and nuclear in the long term. But Scott, it appears
Speaker 2: this toughening of Coalition climate policy. Well, it didn't go
Speaker 2: to his shadow cabinet or his party room, and I
Speaker 2: can tell you the announcement caught several of his backbench
Speaker 2: off guard and as we got into the weak things
Speaker 2: started to unravel even further.
Speaker 1: And Paul, we've seen Peter Dutton speaking about it almost
Speaker 1: every day this week. So why is that, Paul? Why
Speaker 1: is he having to speak about it again and again.
Speaker 2: Well, it's become more politically complicated than he probably thought,
Speaker 2: and the Opposition leader has found he's had to make
Speaker 2: clarification after clarification, especially on his commitment to the Paris
Speaker 2: Accord and interim targets.
Speaker 4: So can you just clear this up for us? Will
Speaker 4: the Coalition scrap Australia's twenty thirty climate target? Well, what
Speaker 4: we've done is state the obvious, David, which is the
Speaker 4: twenty thirty targets not going to be met.
Speaker 2: Shadow Communications Minister David Coleman, Well, he was left floundering
Speaker 2: and struggling to answer questions about it when he appeared
Speaker 2: on the ABC's Insiders program on Sundays. Wrong.
Speaker 4: Let's come back to the question though, will the Coalition
Speaker 4: scrap the twenty thirty target? Well, we'll have more to
Speaker 4: say about targets. It did before the election. But so
Speaker 4: Keeter Dunny, you might have a different twenty thirty target. Well, well,
Speaker 4: Peter Dutton made very clear on Saturday that that target
Speaker 4: is not going to be mad.
Speaker 2: The first issue was identified by Climate Change Minister Chris
Speaker 2: Bowen on Saturday. He was quick to point out that
Speaker 2: any reduction of target ambition would be a breach of
Speaker 2: the Paris Accord, and he quoted the coalition's own Angus Taylor,
Speaker 2: who made this point when he was Morrison's Energy Minister.
Speaker 2: The Paris Accord's very clear.
Speaker 5: You can't backslide, you can't reduce your commitments. So is
Speaker 5: mister Dutton proposing to leave the Paris Accord or is
Speaker 5: he just hoping no one notices?
Speaker 2: Well? By Monday, the Australian newspaper had to do some
Speaker 2: backtracking of its own. Clearly after Dutt urged it to
Speaker 2: give him another go, it ran a new piece headlined
Speaker 2: Peter Dutton won't quit Paris Agreement and net zero. It
Speaker 2: reported that Dutton would live up to the overall Paris target,
Speaker 2: which is to reach net zero by twenty fifty, even
Speaker 2: though he was scrapping the forty three percent emissions reduction
Speaker 2: by twenty thirty, which of course is meant to be
Speaker 2: a key stepping stone to getting to zero. Well. By Tuesday,
Speaker 2: Peter Dutton was spinning these clarifications as what he always
Speaker 2: meant anyway, But at a press conference fittingly held in
Speaker 2: a darkly draped hotel conference room, Dutton refused five times
Speaker 2: to say whether the coalition's twenty thirty and twenty thirty
Speaker 2: five targets would be higher or lower than the governments.
Speaker 6: We'll make our announcements in relation to our targets are
Speaker 6: in due course. But look in terms of announcements, will
Speaker 6: make them in due course. But on the next.
Speaker 2: Deal, he said the Coalition would only reveal that after
Speaker 2: the next election when it wins, saying he needed the
Speaker 2: resources of being in government to make an accurate assessment.
Speaker 6: Australian families are struggling under this cup at the moment,
Speaker 6: and I think we have a better way forward and
Speaker 6: we're laying that plan out to the public.
Speaker 2: Not Despite all of this, Scott Peter Dutton wasn't backing down. Midweek.
Speaker 2: He made it very clear he still intends to make
Speaker 2: this an election issue.
Speaker 6: We want to make sure that we've got an energy
Speaker 6: policy that's working for Australians, not against them. I'm not
Speaker 6: going to sign up to an arrangement that destroys our
Speaker 6: economy and sends families and small businesses into bankruptcy.
Speaker 1: Okay, Paul, But if Peter Dutton is so confident in
Speaker 1: this as an election issue, why all of this mystery,
Speaker 1: all this equivocation about what the coalition's position actually is
Speaker 1: and what emissions reduction they will commit to.
Speaker 2: Well, Scott, I have no doubt it's because of the
Speaker 2: internal politics within the opposition. On one hand, you have
Speaker 2: moderate liberal MPs who believe climate skepticism has been toxic
Speaker 2: with voters for the coalition. The most outspoken this week
Speaker 2: was Bridget Archer. She openly defy Dutton, saying any weakening
Speaker 2: of the current twenty thirty climate target would be regressive.
Speaker 2: She says the twenty thirty target should be kept and
Speaker 2: any alteration should be put to the voters transparently before
Speaker 2: the election. On the other hand, you have people like
Speaker 2: Barnaby Joyce who's called for Australia to ditch the Paris
Speaker 2: Agreement entirely. Well, that's something Donald Trump did last time
Speaker 2: he was in the White House, and he would certainly
Speaker 2: do it again if he returns as US President in November.
Speaker 2: And some say Dutton has his eye on that possibility
Speaker 2: and would take his cues from Washington. It would give
Speaker 2: him and the climate skeptics in the ranks some cover,
Speaker 2: or so they think. But Scott the ructions in the
Speaker 2: coalition are unlikely to convince Dutton to drop the issue.
Speaker 2: And prompting that thought was author and journalist Nicky Sava's
Speaker 2: response to the Courtly Essays profile on Peter Dutton. She
Speaker 2: writes the Dutton was a keen observer of Tony Abbott
Speaker 2: destroying the Gillard and Rudd governments by never taking his
Speaker 2: foot off their throats. Dutton is motivated by Abbot's template
Speaker 2: of never taking a backward step, always moving forward, and
Speaker 2: always on the attack. Severa reveals that Abbott continues to
Speaker 2: teutor Dutton and involve himself deeply in party pre selection
Speaker 2: for the right Conservative candidates. Well, she's dubbed Tony Abbott
Speaker 2: Terminator one and Peter Dutton Terminator two. You know it's
Speaker 2: a down under political version of Haste la vista baby.
Speaker 1: After the break, I'll be back and so will Paul.
Speaker 1: So Paul, we know Peter Dutton is going to pursue
Speaker 1: climate as an issue right up until the election. There's
Speaker 1: no doubt about that now. But how the government feeling
Speaker 1: about that, because they've seen the damage that can be
Speaker 1: done to a labor government with this line of attack before.
Speaker 2: Well, Albernizi believes times have changed and he has no
Speaker 2: intention of being Dutton's patsy on this.
Speaker 5: The first time I spoke from here in the Prime
Speaker 5: Minister's courtyard was when we legiscided Australia's twenty thirty target.
Speaker 2: The Prime Minister was quickly out of the block with
Speaker 2: a news conference on the King's Birthday holiday to go
Speaker 2: on the counter attack.
Speaker 5: Peter Dutton is walking away from climate action. His decision
Speaker 5: to abandon the twenty thirty target means him walking away
Speaker 5: from the paris A court.
Speaker 2: You know, Kevin Rudd and Julia Gillard both fell victim
Speaker 2: to Abbot's assaults on climate policy. But Albernizi believes that
Speaker 2: the issue there was more of the disunity with in
Speaker 2: the Labor government and being unable to present a united
Speaker 2: front in defense of itself and its policies.
Speaker 5: It is remarkable that the lesson that Peter Dutton appears
Speaker 5: to have got from the last election is to be
Speaker 5: worse on climate than Scott Morrison was.
Speaker 2: The Prime Minister. Says that even if everything went Dutton's
Speaker 2: way on nuclear, it couldn't happen before twenty forty and
Speaker 2: is eight times the cost of renewables.
Speaker 1: And so Paul I want to talk about that a bit.
Speaker 1: What do the policies of each of the parties actually
Speaker 1: mean for the economy, for the climate crisis. What's the
Speaker 1: choice that's going to be in front of us here.
Speaker 2: Well, Scott economically and in terms of attracting investment, among
Speaker 2: other things. Dutton has made a mess of things with
Speaker 2: even owners of Australia's coal and gas fired power plants,
Speaker 2: along with the major business groups. Well, they're critical of
Speaker 2: the uncertainty here and they're all urging him to stick
Speaker 2: with the legislated target so they can plan for the
Speaker 2: energy transition which is happening and is inevitable. The projections
Speaker 2: of the Energy Regulator that power costs will come down
Speaker 2: as more renewables come online, spurred on by targets being set,
Speaker 2: and indeed labor is under pressure to set even more
Speaker 2: ambitious targets. As far as the climate crisis goes, the
Speaker 2: choice is are clear, Greens leader and and banned. For example,
Speaker 2: in response to this latest climate in Brolio cited work
Speaker 2: done by the international think tank Climate Analytics. It found
Speaker 2: that the target taken by the Liberals to the last
Speaker 2: election of twenty six to twenty eight percent is consistent
Speaker 2: with a catastrophic three to four degrees of global warming
Speaker 2: by twenty fifty. Labour's forty three percent does a bit
Speaker 2: better at two degrees, something that's still would have dire consequences.
Speaker 2: But only the Greens and the Teal Independence with their
Speaker 2: seventy four or sixty percent target, would see warming contained
Speaker 2: to one point five degrees. And that presupposes, of course,
Speaker 2: that the other one hundred and ninety four signatories to
Speaker 2: Paris step up to the mark too.
Speaker 1: And so Paul I want to take a step back
Speaker 1: here because I think what's so strange about this for
Speaker 1: so many people is that you know nothing about the
Speaker 1: last election or opinion polling would suggest that the public
Speaker 1: are about to jump on board for slower action on
Speaker 1: climate change. And Peter Dutton is a smart politician, he'd
Speaker 1: know what that polling and what those results say. So
Speaker 1: is he taking a really big political risk here that
Speaker 1: he can make this a voting issue again through force
Speaker 1: of will and his rhetoric.
Speaker 2: Well, there are some on the back bench that think
Speaker 2: that the leader, Peter Dutton is delusional if he thinks
Speaker 2: he can win the election this way. But the recent
Speaker 2: European elections maybe something of a harbinger of what might
Speaker 2: happen when Australians next go to vote. Unlike the last time,
Speaker 2: climate change is not the dominant concern. It wasn't in
Speaker 2: Europe as it was previously. Cost of living and high
Speaker 2: energy prices, especially with the Ukraine War, well that was
Speaker 2: making the Europeans think much more about their security. But Scott,
Speaker 2: here in Australia, it would only take another summer of
Speaker 2: catastrophic weather as we saw before the twenty twenty two
Speaker 2: election to see climate change action raw back to the
Speaker 2: top of voters worries and concerns. The fact is the
Speaker 2: planet is heating dangerously and it's a looming catastrophe that
Speaker 2: can't be ignored.
Speaker 1: Paul, thank you so much for your time. It's boys
Speaker 1: a pleasure.
Speaker 2: Thank you, Scott.
Speaker 1: Buy also in the news today, two New South Wales
Speaker 1: police officers have been charged with assaulting a ninety two
Speaker 1: year old man following an incident in the southwest of
Speaker 1: Sydney earlier this year. The two officers went to the
Speaker 1: home after two triple zero calls were made indicating a
Speaker 1: domestic violence situation. The ninety two year old was handcuffed,
Speaker 1: suffered a fractured arm and significant bruising to the head.
Speaker 1: No domestic violence charges have been filed, and ABC chair
Speaker 1: Kim Williams told an audience at Sydney's Vivid Festival that
Speaker 1: the coalition's nuclear policy was quote absent any of the
Speaker 1: normal fabric of policy formulation, but that he was entitled
Speaker 1: to express that view as a private citizen with an
Speaker 1: interest in public policy. According to reports from Criichie, Williams,
Speaker 1: upon becoming chair earlier this year, warned in an interview
Speaker 1: that quote if you don't want to reflect a view
Speaker 1: that aspires to impartiality, don't work at the ABC. Seven
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Speaker 1: much for listening.