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SCOTT:

From Schwartz Media. I’m Scott Mitchell. This is 7am.

Two years ago, on the very first day after the Labor government was sworn into office, the new minister for climate change and energy Chris Bowen called a press conference.

In those very first remarks, he said the climate wars were over.

Some scoffed at the time, there were still plenty of political fights to be had over how Australia would reach net zero, but there was nonetheless a belief that Australia would move forward with climate policy. Well, this week that changed.

Today, columnist for The Saturday Paper Paul Bongiorno, on the week Peter Dutton promised to tear up emission targets for 2030 and why the next election will be a climate election after all.

It’s Friday, June 14.

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SCOTT:

Paul, this week we saw what some people thought we might never see again. Climate change could actually be the issue that both major parties are putting at the centre of the next election. Where did this all start?

PAUL:

Well, Scott, I think it all started from Peter Dutton's desperation to grab attention and in taking everyone's breath away at the same time; it's a crash or crash through tactic. And I’ve got to say, it reminded me immediately of Tony Abbott. It all began on the weekend, with Peter Dutton using an interview with The Weekend Australian to say for the first time that if elected, he would ditch Australia's emissions reduction target for 2030, something the Labor government has legislated as one of its first acts after coming to power. The Murdoch owned broadsheet had no doubt about what Dutton was up to, you know, territorial. The paper gave the policy its backing under the headline ‘Climate wars are back with a nuclear twist’.

Audio excerpt — News Host (Sky News):

“Opposition Leader Peter Dutton has pledged to ditch Labor’s 2030 climate target in exchange for a focus on nuclear power and net-zero by 2050, if he wins the next election.”

PAUL:

The initial reporting gave the impression Dutton was ditching interim targets and adopting, quote, a radically different energy policy to Anthony Albanese that prioritises more gas in the short term and nuclear in the long term. But Scott, it appears this toughening of coalition climate policy. Well, it didn't go to his shadow cabinet or his party room. And I can tell you the announcement caught several of his backbench off guard. And as we got into the week, things started to unravel even further.

SCOTT:

And Paul, we've seen Peter Dutton speaking about it almost every day this week. So why is that, Paul? Why is he having to speak about it again and again?

PAUL:

Well, it's become more politically complicated than he probably thought. And the opposition leader has found he's had to make clarification after clarification, especially on his commitment to the Paris accord and interim targets.

Audio excerpt — David Speers (ABC):

“So can you just clear this up for us? Will the coalition scrap Australia's 2030 climate target?”

Audio excerpt — David Coleman:

“What we've done is state the obvious, David, which is the 2030 target’s not going to be met.”

PAUL:

Shadow communications minister David Coleman. Well, he was left floundering and struggling to answer questions about it when he appeared on the ABC's Insiders program on Sunday.

Audio excerpt — David Speers (ABC):

“Let's come back to the question, though. Will the coalition scrap the 2030 target?”

Audio excerpt — David Coleman:

“Well, look, we'll have more to say about targets before the election, but…”

Audio excerpt — David Speers (ABC):

“So you might have a 20...a different 2030 target?”

Audio excerpt — David Coleman:

“Well, Peter Dutton made very clear on Saturday that that target is not going to be met.”

PAUL:

The first issue was identified by Climate Change Minister Chris Bowen. On Saturday he was quick to point out that any reduction of target ambition would be a breach of the Paris accord. And he quoted the coalition's own Angus Taylor, who made this point when he was Morrison's energy minister.

Audio excerpt — Chris Bowen:

“The Paris accord is very clear. You can't backslide. You can't reduce your commitments. So is Mr Dutton proposing to leave the Paris accord, or is he just hoping no one notices?”

PAUL:

Well, by Monday, The Australian newspaper had to do some backtracking of its own. Clearly after Dutton urged it to give him another go. It ran a new piece headlined ‘Peter Dutton won't quit Paris Agreement and net zero’. It reported that Dutton would live up to the overall Paris target, which is to reach net zero by 2050, even though he was scrapping the 43 per cent emissions reduction by 2030. Which, is of course meant to be a key stepping stone to getting to net zero. Well, by Tuesday, Peter Dutton was spinning these clarifications as what he always meant anyway. But at a press conference fittingly held in a darkly draped hotel conference room, Dutton refused five times to say whether the coalition's 2030 and 2035 targets would be higher or lower than the government's.

Audio excerpt — Peter Dutton:

“Well, we'll make our announcements in relation to our targets, in due course…”

Audio excerpt — Peter Dutton:

“Look, in terms of announcements, I’ll make them in due course…”

Audio excerpt — Journalist:

“But don’t voters deserve to know what your alternate target is?”

Audio excerpt — Peter Dutton:

“I’ve…I’ve…I’ve dealt with the question.”

PAUL:

He said the coalition would only reveal that after the next election when it wins, saying he needed the resources of being in government to make an accurate assessment.

Audio excerpt — Peter Dutton:

“Australian families are struggling under this government at the moment and I think we have a better way forward and we're laying that plan out to the public.”

PAUL:

But despite all of this, Scott, Peter Dutton wasn't backing down midweek. He made it very clear he still intends to make this an election issue.

Audio excerpt — Peter Dutton:

“We want to make sure that we've got an energy policy that's working for Australians, not against them. I'm not going to sign up to an arrangement that destroys our economy and sends families and small businesses into bankruptcy.”

SCOTT:

Okay, Paul, but if Peter Dutton is so confident in this as an election issue, why all of this mystery, all this equivocation about what the coalition's position actually is and what emissions reduction they will commit to?

PAUL:

Well, Scott, I have no doubt it's because of the internal politics within the opposition. On one hand, you have moderate Liberal MPs who believe climate scepticism has been toxic with voters for the coalition. The most outspoken this week was Bridget Archer. She openly defied Dutton, saying any weakening of the current 2030 climate target would be regressive. She says the 2030 target should be kept and any alteration should be put to the voters transparently before the election. On the other hand, you have people like Barnaby Joyce who's called for Australia to ditch the Paris Agreement entirely. Well, that's something Donald Trump did last time he was in the White House and he would certainly do it again if he returns as US President in November. And some say Dutton has his eye on that possibility and would take his cues from Washington. It would give him and the climate sceptics in the ranks some cover, or so they think. But Scott, the ructions in the coalition are unlikely to convince Dutton to drop the issue and prompting that thought, was author and journalist Niki Savva's response to the quarterly essay’s profile on Peter Dutton. She writes that Dutton was a keen observer of Tony Abbott destroying the Gillard and Rudd governments by never taking his foot off their throats.

Dutton is motivated by Abbott's template of never taking a backward step, always moving forward, and always on the attack.

Savva reveals that Abbott continues to tutor Dutton and involve himself deeply in party preselection for the right conservative candidates. Well, she's dubbed Tony Abbott, ‘Terminator one’ and Peter Dutton ‘Terminator two’. You know, it's a down under political version of Hasta la vista, baby.

SCOTT:

After the break, I’ll be back…and so will Paul.

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SCOTT:

So, Paul, we know Peter Dutton is going to pursue climate as an issue right up until the election. There's no doubt about that now. But how are the government feeling about that? Because they've seen the damage that can be done to a Labor government with this line of attack before.

PAUL:

Well, Albanese believes times have changed and he has no intention of being Dutton's patsy on this.

Audio excerpt — Anthony Albanese:

“The first time I spoke from here in the Prime Minister's Courtyard was when we legislated Australia's 2030 target.”

PAUL:

The Prime Minister was quickly out of the bloc with a news conference on the King's birthday holiday to go on the counter-attack.

Audio excerpt — Anthony Albanese:

“Peter Dutton is walking away from climate action. His decision to abandon the 2030 target means him walking away from the Paris accord.”

PAUL:

You know, Kevin Rudd and Julia Gillard both fell victim to Abbott's assaults on climate policy. But Albanese believes that the issue there was more the disunity within the Labor government when being unable to present a united front in defence of itself and its policies.

Audio excerpt — Anthony Albanese:

“It is remarkable that the lesson that Peter Dutton appears to have got from the last election is to be worse on climate than Scott Morrison was.”

PAUL:

The Prime Minister says that even if everything went Dutton's way on nuclear, it couldn't happen before 2040. And is eight times the cost of renewables.

SCOTT:

And so, Paul, I want to talk about that a bit. What do the policies of each of the parties actually mean for the economy, for the climate crisis? What's the choice that's going to be in front of us here?

PAUL:

Well, Scott, economically and in terms of attracting investment, among other things, Dutton has made a mess of things with even owners of Australia's coal and gas fired power plants, along with the major business groups. Well, they're critical of the uncertainty he's creating, and they're all urging him to stick with the legislated target so they can plan for the energy transition, which is happening and is inevitable. The projections of the energy regulator, that power costs will come down as more renewables come online, spurred on by targets being set. And indeed, Labor is under pressure to set even more ambitious targets. As far as the climate crisis goes, the choices are clear. Greens Leader Adam Bandt, for example, in response to this latest climate imbroglio, cited work done by the international think tank Climate Analytics. It found that the target taken by the liberals to the last election of 26 to 28 per cent, is consistent with a catastrophic 3 to 4 degrees of global warming by 2050. Labor's 43 per cent does a bit better at two degrees, something that still would have dire consequences, but only the Greens and the teal independents, with their 74 or 60 per cent target, would see warming contained to 1.5 degrees. And that presupposes, of course, that the other 194 signatories to Paris step up to the mark too.

SCOTT:

And so, Paul, I want to take a step back here, because I think what's so strange about this for so many people is that you know, nothing about the last election or opinion polling would suggest that the public are about to jump on board for slower action on climate change. And Peter Dutton is a smart politician, he’d know what that polling and what those results say. So is he taking a really big political risk here that he can make this a voting issue again through force of will and his rhetoric?

PAUL:

Well, there are some on the backbench that think that the leader, Peter Dutton, is delusional if he thinks he can win the election this way. But the recent European elections may be something of a harbinger of what might happen when Australians next go to vote. Unlike the last time, climate change is not the dominant concern. It wasn't in Europe as it was previously. Cost of living and high energy prices, especially with the Ukraine war. Well, that was making the Europeans think much more about their security.

But Scott, here in Australia, it would only take another summer of catastrophic weather, as we saw before the 2022 election, to see climate change action roar back to the top of voters' worries and concerns. The fact is, the planet is heating dangerously and it's a looming catastrophe that can't be ignored.

SCOTT:

Paul, thank you so much for your time. It's always a pleasure.

PAUL:

Thank you, Scott. Bye.

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SCOTT:

Also in the news today,

Two New South Wales police officers have been charged with assaulting a 92-year old man, following an incident in the southwest of Sydney earlier this year.

The two officers went to the home after two triple-0 calls were made indicating a domestic violence situation. The 92-year old was handcuffed, suffered a fractured arm and significant bruising to the head. No domestic violence charges have been filed.

And ABC Chair Kim Williams told an audience at Sydney’s Vivid festival that the Coalition’s nuclear policy was, quote, “absent any of the normal fabric of policy formulation” but that he was entitled to express that view as a private citizen with an interest in public policy, according to reports from Crikey.

Williams, upon becoming chair earlier this year, warned in an interview that, quote: “If you don’t want to reflect a view that aspires to impartiality, don’t work at the ABC.”

7am is a daily show from Schwartz Media and The Saturday Paper.

It’s produced by Kara Jensen-Mackinnon, Cheyne Anderson and Zoltan Fesco.

Our senior producer is Chris Dengate. Our technical producer is Atticus Bastow.

Our host is Ashlynne McGhee. Sarah McVeigh is our head of audio. Erik Jensen is our editor-in-chief.

Mixing by Travis Evans and Atticus Bastow.

And our theme music is by Ned Beckley and Josh Hogan of Envelope Audio.

I’m Scott Mitchell, the editor of 7am and we’ll see you next week. Thanks so much for listening.

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