Hastie rebukes Liberals ‘living in Howard era’ as opposition weighs net zero rebrand

Liberal MP Andrew Hastie has launched a defence of “so-called populist” movements and renewed his push against Australia’s net zero target as Coalition MPs warn their colleagues about the costs of entirely dumping climate goals and consider sticking with Labor’s pledge by a different name.

Sussan Ley’s opposition has been heading towards a potential compromise on net zero, as revealed in this masthead, that would involve stripping the target and 2050 date from legislation to make it aspirational and exempting heavy industries.

But the Liberal Party is still wrestling with how to settle on a new policy in the face of opposition to any net zero pledge from MPs including Hastie and Jacinta Nampijinpa Price and others.

A wide group of conservative and moderate MPs including Dan Tehan, returned member for Goldstein Tim Wilson, senator Jane Hume and Victorian senator James Paterson have been attempting to forge a compromise on climate.

In the first of two private Liberal meetings to talk about climate policy this week, MPs presented third-party polling to their colleagues which showed 52 per cent of voters wanted the 2050 target watered down, while 32 per cent wanted it retained.

Only about 15 per cent wanted it scrapped, meaning the vast majority wanted a target of some sort; this view aligns with the model being spruiked by a group of MPs, including senior right-wingers and moderates aligned with Ley.

This masthead was briefed verbally about the results by MPs who were not authorised to speak publicly, but has not seen the polling documents nor spoken to its authors. Poll results can be driven by the questions asked or the type of people surveyed.

A survey of 1800 people for this masthead’s Resolve Political Monitor this month found 44 per cent of voters support a net zero target, 22 per cent oppose it and 35 per cent are unsure.

Hastie, who quit Ley’s frontbench over immigration and net zero this month, said in a previously unreported speech that voters’ concerns about historically high migration inflows and climate rules were legitimate but being “derided by some as populist or far-right”.

“Most so-called populists don’t want to tear down the government,” Hastie said in a speech to a Liberal Party group in Perth last week, arguing the centre-right was undergoing a global revolution across the West.

“They don’t share the libertarian impulse of small government, as if government is the problem and we can all live happily along without it.”

Most of those voters, Hastie said, wanted governments to protect their living standards.

“Yet their concerns around net zero are dismissed as climate denial, and their concerns around mass migration are dismissed as racist,” he said.

“To that end, they want the Australian parliament to be sovereign in its decision-making, not beholden to climate zealots at the United Nations.”

Hastie delivered his lengthy speech after complaints from Liberal moderates that the party must not drift to the right. It also followed interventions from conservatives Angus Taylor and James Paterson, who urged the party to re-embrace historic strengths such as fiscal restraint and revamp John Howard’s broad church, marrying the party’s moderate and conservative flanks.

In the internal briefing on Monday, academics from the right-leaning Centre for Independent Studies also delivered a presentation. The briefings are being used to underpin an internal push to reframe the political debate on Labor’s 2050 target.

The MPs are floating the idea of branding the Coalition’s looming policy as “net zero cost” to emphasise economics before emissions, which the same polling showed was voters’ priority.

Hastie made a point of saying he was not criticising any colleagues. Yet what he described as his political “roadmap” stood in contrast to Paterson and Taylor’s more conventional arguments.

“I want to make clear that we are no longer living in the same world of the Howard, Abbott, Turnbull or Morrison years. The world has changed,” Hastie said, declaring the era of post-Cold War liberalism dead.

“The world is vastly different to 2005, but our party has unthinkingly hung on to most of the same beliefs and policies.

“Yes, we can talk about tax and economic reform. They are good areas to focus on. But many people are crying out for a new political vision that places the Australian people at the centre of its orbit.”

Hastie rebuked those speaking in abstract terms about the party’s philosophical identity after the May election defeat, arguing voters did not care and were left asking, “What the hell are you talking about?”

“Most Australians have never read [economists] Milton Friedman or Friederick Hayek. Most Australians don’t know the difference between a classical liberal or a Burkean conservative,” he said.

Many opposition MPs are staying in Canberra this Friday, a non-sitting day in parliament, to talk about the climate policy that has dogged it since its crushing election loss. Hastie will not attend.

He told this masthead: “Normally, I’d attend this meeting to discuss net zero. But I injured my shoulder learning ju-jitsu at the Mandurah Combat Sports Academy and have an appointment to see a surgeon.”

Cut through the noise of federal politics with news, views and expert analysis. Subscribers can sign up to our weekly Inside Politics newsletter.