One Nation leader Pauline Hanson brands majority of Liberals 'gutless' and 'cowards' after net zero motion fails on Senate floor
Ms Hanson's motion was held on Monday afternoon and sought to place additional pressure on the Coalition to dump the initiative. However, it was rejected 39 votes to seven.
Speaking to Sky News on Monday night, Ms Hanson commended the handful of Coalition members who backed her and scolded the two Liberals who sided with Labor and the Greens – Jane Hume and Andrew McLaughlin.
'The rest of them were out of the Chamber, they abstained from voting. They're gutless and they're cowards because they couldn't put their name to it and they didn't want to,' Ms Hanson said.
'I take my hat off to Matt Canavan and to (Ralph) Babet, and also to Alex Antic, who actually supported the motion.'
Labor, the vast majority of the Coalition, the crossbench and the Greens all voted against Ms Hanson's motion.
Speaking about why she put forward the initiative, Ms Hanson said One Nation "are fighting for the Australians out there, the families, the small businesses, the farming sector, everyone that's doing it tough because net zero is seeing them go under with high electricity costs."
"Every family out there - everyone who's watching this program - knows that the electricity costs have gone up by hundreds of percent under this farce of this net zero ... We're destroying our economy, our manufacturing industry, businesses, they're going overseas."
Earlier, Nationals Leader David Littleproud claimed the Coalition's decision on net zero is likely still a 'couple of months' away but that he wanted to validate the eventual decision with 'some hard economics".
Speaking to Sky News, Mr Littleproud assured Chris Kenny that the Coalition were 'not going to kick [net zero] down the road,' but said there would be no imminent call – instead waiting for the findings of a Coalition review into the policy.
Mr Littleproud said a review into the net zero by 2050 policy will be led by Senator Matt Canavan, whose background in economics would be leveraged to best inform the partyroom.
'I expect in the coming couple of months we should be able to leverage off that independent economic analysis so that our party room will get to a position,' he told Chris Kenny.
' Matt's been the most consistent and passionate about this, but he's an economist, and I think what we want to do is draw on his expertise, but also others in this room, like Ross Caddel .'
Mr Littleproud said if the National Party arrives at a position that 'changes our outlook', it would be honest to the Australian people about why and 'what it looks like in moving forward'.
'One of the reasons why the National Party left the Coalition [was] because we couldn't get a guarantee after the election about nuclear energy being part of the grid moving forward,' Mr Littleproud said.
'We want to be sensible about what our energy grid looks like because we're the ones that are bearing the burden of this. Even [in] my electorate, I'm seeing communities torn up, I am seeing families torn apart because of this reckless race to all renewables.'
Mr Littleproud said he was not going to be drawn into a timeline for a decision by Barnaby Joyce's Private Member's Bill, which seeks to scrap the net zero goal from Australian economic policies.
'I understand the eagerness of Barnaby Joyce to bring forward a Private Member's Bill. That's his right, but I have to lead a partyroom,' he said.
' I've got to bring everybody with us, but I don't intend to kick it down the road. I think we'll get that information, and as a group, I think we'll to a decision sooner rather than later.'
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