Sussan Ley promises ‘immediate’ cut to power prices under new policy

Coalition MPs have backed a climate and energy policy that closely mirrors the one agreed by the Liberals last week, with leader Sussan Ley promising an “immediate” reduction in power prices if she wins the next election.

A fortnight after the Nationals met and agreed to walk away from Australia’s previously bipartisan net zero by 2050 target, the Coalition jointly settled its policy.

It would scrap the legislated commitments to cut or neutralise emissions by 2050 and interim targets, open up financing to include coal, gas, carbon capture and storage, and nuclear, and pay to keep ageing power stations – mostly coal – open until replacement supply is ready.

“It is all about affordability when it comes to energy prices and playing our part responsibly with emissions reductions,” Ms Ley on Sunday said.

She said that emissions cuts had flatlined under Labor, but also that the Government “has raced ahead” of comparable countries with its rate of cuts and this would have to increase to meet the 2035 targets unveiled in September.

“That’s not responsible emissions reduction. That’s not doing our fair share,” she said.

The Coalition is now promising to reduce Australia’s emissions every year, but only in line with the level other OECD countries are cutting.

However, it appears to have rejected the Nationals’ proposal to reinstate the Tony Abbott-era Emissions Reduction Fund to pay large polluters to cut.

Instead, the policy includes a market mechanism where large facilities have to report their emissions against a baseline, and if they come under this, they will earn credits to trade with other participants.

Ms Ley said bringing new gas fields online, including the Browse and Scarborough basins, would be the main way to cut electricity prices for users.

After refusing to say last week when households would see lower bills, she said on Sunday that prices would drop “immediately”.

“They’ll have a look at our plan, and they’ll see that it will work … because they’ll know that immediately it starts to put downward pressure on prices by being technology agnostic about baseload power, injecting more gas supply into the system, opening up gas fields in Australia, so we have Australian gas for Australians,” she said.

The Government claims the Opposition’s new policy amounts to walking away from the Paris Agreement because the international deal forbids “backsliding” on targets.

But senior Liberal frontbencher Jonno Duniam insisted ahead of Sunday afternoon’s meeting the new plan would still comply with the Paris Agreement.

There was scope within the agreement for taking the economic impact of the green transition into account, he said.

“The economic impact on our country of Labor’s blind pursuit of net zero by 2050, and their targets between now and then, have cost us dearly,” he told Sky News.

“And so we need to factor all of the elements of the Paris Agreement in. You can’t read one paragraph of Article 4 separate from others, all of them need to be read together. And our belief is we are not in breach.”

The section of the agreement he cited says that countries should take into consideration the “concerns of parties with economies most affected by the impacts of response measures, particularly developing country parties”.

Australia is not considered a developing country.

It accounts for about 1 per cent of global emissions, despite having about 0.3 per cent of the world’s population.

Foreign Minister Penny Wong – who was Australia’s first climate minister – accused the Coalition of being “overrun by the fringes” and trying to be “more Pauline than Pauline” Hanson, the One Nation leader.