The veteran Liberal MP Warren Entsch says he is open-minded about Labor’s bill to enshrine a 43% emissions reduction target if he can be convinced the Albanese government has a concrete plan to achieve the cut without driving up power prices.
Ahead of the first substantive Coalition party room meeting of the 47th parliament on Tuesday, Entsch told Guardian Australia he was seeking advice on the bill and might lend support if there was evidence to suggest the number wasn’t a “brain fart”.
“I have an open mind on the bill,” Entsch said. “I’m not concerned about the number, I just want to be convinced there’s an absolute pathway to do it.”
Debate on Labor’s climate targets legislation is expected to begin on Wednesday in the House of Representatives, and discussions are continuing between the climate change minister Chris Bowen and the Greens leader Adam Bandt.
There are a spectrum of views inside the Greens about whether or not to support Labor’s proposal. The Greens party room will meet again on Tuesday before an appearance by Bandt at the National Press Club on Wednesday.
Labor has the numbers to pass the legislation in the lower house but will need the support of the Greens and one crossbencher in the Senate.
Peter Dutton has already locked the Coalition into opposing Labor’s legislation – which some colleagues view as a controversial captain’s call given the electoral rout in the Liberal party’s progressive metropolitan heartland on 21 May.
The Liberal leader’s decision to double down on the climate wars forces Labor to court parliamentary support from the Greens to pass legislation that will enshrine the 2030 and 2050 targets.
Labor’s legislation was discussed by the shadow cabinet on Monday night. While the Liberals have locked in behind Dutton to oppose the package, the Tasmanian Liberal Bridget Archer has signalled on a number of occasions she could cross the floor and support the new legislation in the lower house.
But while confirming he had an open mind, Entsch, who holds a north Queensland electorate adjacent to the Great Barrier Reef, said given surging inflation the government needed to tread carefully to ensure the target did not become an “impost on the community”.
Liberal MPs did not expect the issue to boil over in Tuesday’s party room meeting, with widespread acceptance that the opposition would vote against the bill, despite several Liberal MPs expressing support for the legislation.
The few moderate voices on Dutton’s frontbench are unlikely to oppose the leader’s publicly stated position. There are more conservatives in Dutton’s executive than moderates, and the cabinet solidarity that applies in government also binds the shadow cabinet.
Moderate MPs are instead looking to the party’s medium-term emission reduction targets for 2030 and 2035, and are hopeful that they will be able to secure more ambitious targets before the election due in 2025.
The deputy Liberal leader, Sussan Ley, told Guardian Australia in June the Coalition was correct to oppose Labor’s 43% target, but had an opportunity over the coming term to reassess its policy stance. “I’m comfortable with our position, but I also accept over the next few years as we get the results of the campaign review and get an opportunity to talk to people, we have the opportunity to introduce new policy,” Ley said.
Dutton flips on fuel excise
The jockeying comes as the Liberals attempt to increase political pressure on the Albanese government over rising consumer prices. In parliamentary question time on Monday, the opposition backflipped on a decision it made in government to make a cut in fuel excise temporary.
The Morrison government cut fuel excise in the March budget as one of its cost of living relief measures. Scott Morrison and then treasurer Josh Frydenberg said that cut would end in September because continuing that measure in perpetuity was not fiscally responsible.
But Dutton abruptly switched positions this week, asking the government whether or not it planned to “compound the pressure on household budgets by not extending the fuel excise relief?”
It was accompanied by questions about whether or not the government stood by pre-election modelling of its climate policy that pointed to cheaper power prices during the transition to renewables.
Anthony Albanese accused Dutton of hypocrisy. “I point to the fact that [Dutton] was in the cabinet that put together the budget,” the prime minister said.
“It had the end date for the measure he talks about”.
The government also blasted the Coalition for delaying an important electricity pricing update until after the election, which left Australian voters in the dark about looming increases in their power bills.
Thus far, Labor has signalled it will end the fuel excise cut in September as scheduled.
