Nationals abandon net zero mandate ahead of party room meeting

Members of the National Party have withdrawn support for net zero mandates from their federal policy platform, and compelled their parliamentary party to do the same, a day before a party room meeting in which leader David Littleproud said its climate policy would be settled.

Liberal MPs left a meeting on Friday broadly united in favour of reducing emissions, while also watering down targets. But on Saturday, delegates at the National Party Federal Council’s annual meeting in Canberra voted to ditch any net zero plan after hearing speeches from parliamentary leaders that lauded the party’s resolve in its split from the Liberals.

On Saturday, Littleproud said he had called Opposition Leader Sussan Ley the night before to inform her that his parliamentary colleagues would meet at Parliament House on Sunday morning to consider their policy.

“There’s been no predetermined position taken by the National Party. That will be determined by the party room tomorrow and what the next steps are,” Littleproud told journalists after Saturday’s vote. “And that should be very clear to everybody, that no one should take for granted what the National Party room will do. But this is the next phase in that process.

“I believe in reducing emissions. I believe that man has had a contribution to climate change in this country – that should be the first premise of which we all work towards. But we should create an environment as political leaders to be able to say there is not just one way that we can actually address this,” he said.

Former Liberal prime minister Scott Morrison negotiated for the Coalition to support net zero emissions by 2050 in 2021. The target was legislated by the Albanese government in 2022.

On Saturday, federal Queensland MP Llew O’Brien introduced the motion to abandon net zero at a federal level after every state branch made the same move, saying the action was “not about whether you believe in climate change”.

“That’s a reality. We all know climate changes,” he said, calling net zero policies in Australia a “futile” measure when compared to the actions of China, India and the United States.

“It just makes no sense that we cut our own throat to pursue something that is bad for Australia.”

Only two delegates spoke against the motion, both from South Australia.

One, Young Nationals delegate Perrin Rennie, said “regional Australians will be paying the price for increased natural disasters”.

“They will be losing their livelihoods to floods. They’ll lose their homes to fires. We’ll be experiencing more droughts. It is key that Australia does its part to ensure that climate change doesn’t severely impact our regions.”

Rennie said an abandonment of net zero could see the Nationals lose votes to the Labor Party as extreme weather events impact regional and rural Australia.

The wording of the motion compelled the parliamentary party to “abandon its support for a net zero mandate”, featuring almost identical language to a Queensland LNP motion passed several months ago, the wording of which was agreed upon by Littleproud, Ley and then LNP president Lawrence Springborg to provide cover for a loose aspiration towards net zero from the Coalition.

The motion also demanded a lifting of the moratorium on nuclear energy in Australia to “enable its development in an open electricity market”. A subsequent motion to see the party withdraw from the Paris Agreement was abandoned following the passing of the net zero motion.

During a press conference in Sydney after the vote, Climate Change and Energy Minister Chris Bowen suggested the Nationals should “get with the program”.

“The National Party is betraying future generations, but they’re also betraying farmers and people in regional communities who can benefit from this massive transformation. They seem to be stuck in the past, and despite any encouragement we can give them in the parliament, they seem to be determined to stay there,” Bowen said.

Speaking before the vote, Nationals Senator Bridget McKenzie described the party as the “ballast” supporting the Liberal Party’s vote, “not the drag”, later reaffirming that the parties were separate and sovereign.

“We’re more courageous to stand up for our community and against bad policy. We’ve got members that have been returned here because they’re hyper-local. They’re connected to their communities, and they’re backed by a powerful grassroots membership,” McKenzie said.

McKenzie also spoke on the upcoming 50-year anniversary of the Whitlam dismissal, and the installation of the Fraser-Anthony government, saying there were “echoes of Whitlam in the Albanese left-wing Labor government that grows in arrogance every single day”.

“It’s worth recalling that for the initial part of that period in opposition, the then Country Party and the Liberal Party were not in coalition. That success, that election, was determined as a result of not being in coalition for a large period of the preceding parliamentary term,” McKenzie said.

Also speaking at the meeting was deputy leader Kevin Hogan, who celebrated Littleproud’s leadership through the shortlived Coalition split following the May election.

“It might have looked a bit chaotic, but we were all sitting there going, ‘we know what we’re doing. We know why we’re doing this. We know the four reasons we’re doing this. We’re all but unified on this’.

“Having that collective agreement, that transparency, meant that we, you know, the overwhelming majority, were supporting David through that process, and we’re going through a similar process right now,” Hogan said.

On Friday morning, about 30 Liberal backbenchers met at Parliament House, offering support for emissions reductions while backing away from concrete pledges to support its net zero by 2050 policy.

However, there remains division within the party with some members choosing not to attend the meeting, a small group calling for a wholesale abandonment of net zero, and questions over the use of the “net zero” terminology.

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