We spoke to Barnaby Joyce, and this is what he had to say about net zero

The Advertiser

4 days ago

When Barnaby Joyce caught up with this masthead in Parliament House last week, the former deputy prime minister was in fine form.
After being relegated to the backbench by Opposition Leader Sussan Ley, Mr Joyce was clearly enjoying the attention while talking up his private member's bill to abolish Australia's climate target.
The member for New England, who says Ms Ley's predecessor Peter Dutton wanted to sack him for refusing to say nuclear energy would bring down electricity prices and opposing net zero, has gone rogue with his bill - which will be top of the agenda when politicians return to Canberra in three weeks' time.
It's putting a spotlight on the Coalition's longstanding divisions over climate and energy, just as Ms Ley seeks to unite the opposition after its electoral wipe-out.
Mr Joyce calls the pursuit of net zero a "lunatic crusade" and wants Australia to go with the cheapest possible energy - even if that is coal - and rails against renewables like solar and "swindle factories" (wind farms).
And he's not the only one, with Coalition frontbencher Andrew Hastie taking aim at new Western Australian Liberal leader Basil Zempilas for supporting net zero this week, ahead of Ms Ley's upcoming visit.
The Albanese government is seeking to extract as much political capital as possible from the issue, even as it comes under pressure over its own climate policy ahead of the United Nations General Assembly meeting in September.
Labor passed a procedural motion on Thursday scheduling Mr Joyce's private member's bill for debate in the House of Representatives on the first sitting day back, August 25.
It was a tactical play, aimed at dialling up the pressure on Ms Ley as she grapples with the longstanding conflict among her MPs over climate.
The motion was opposed by all Coalition members except for Mr Joyce.
His bill seeks to dismantle the 2050 net zero target - which the Coalition supported before the election but is now reviewing - by overturning or amending climate legislation.
Ms Ley sought to downplay the divisions this week while vowing to allow all views to be considered as the Coalition reviews net zero through a working group led by energy and emissions spokesperson Dan Tehan.
"It's going to flesh out the different perspectives," she said. "Everything is on the table."
While conservatives want to ditch the target, some moderate Liberals say that without it, the Coalition, which has been reduced to just 43 lower house seats and 27 in the Senate, cannot form a credible alternative government or win back inner-city seats lost to teal independents.
Climate Council chief executive Amanda McKenzie says the "centre of gravity in Australia now is for strong targets", with the majority of civil society and business groups supporting the clean energy transition, describing Mr Joyce as a "lone voice in the community".
"[His] policy position is let it rip, like let the climate crisis get as bad as it can, because we're not going to do anything about it," Ms McKenzie told this masthead.
"The science shows that we can if we let climate change go unchecked, that's a $4 trillion hit to the economy. That's the death of the Great Barrier Reef and the Queensland tourism industry ... Nearly 10 per cent of properties ... would be uninsurable."
On Monday, One Nation Leader Pauline Hanson took up Mr Joyce's cause with an urgency motion in the Senate calling for Australia to abandon its net zero target.
While it failed, Liberal senator Alex Antic and Nationals senator Matt Canavan joined One Nation's four senators and United Australia Party senator Ralph Babet in voting for it.
When asked if she or her office directed Liberal senators to abstain from the vote, Ms Ley said only: "We're regularly in touch with senators, and we're regularly in touch with members via the whip, via the managers of both opposition business in the House and the Senate."
Senator Canavan, one of the Coalition's most vocal critics of net zero, said there was no hurry to reach an agreed position this far out from the next election, telling reporters: "We're irrelevant right now, who cares what it looks [like] right now ... It doesn't have to be neat or tidy or pretty".
When asked about the comment, Mr Tehan said it was "incredibly important that we have an alternative to put to the Australian people" and that work would continue "over the next nine to 12 months".
As the Coalition pursued Labor in parliamentary question time over power bill costs on Thursday, Climate Change and Energy Minister Chris Bowen hit back with: "They are triggered every time we mention renewable energy."
While Ms Ley seeks to mend the Coalition's climate rift, the government is pushing ahead with efforts to reduce Australia's carbon emissions through a transition to renewable energy.
UN climate chief Simon Steele - who met with Mr Bowen in Canberra this week - has urged the government to "go big", saying the new target will be a "defining moment" for Australia, while Independent ACT senator David Pocock called it "the biggest test of the moral courage of the Albanese government".
The Climate Council wants a commitment to slash emissions by 75 per cent by 2030 and reach net zero by 2035, saying this is the level required to "do our fair share to hold global warming well below 2 degrees Celsius" - the level scientists warn will tip global warming into catastrophic and irreversible territory - while the Greens say anything less would breach the Paris Agreement.
Ms McKenzie said Australia had for years been a pariah on the international stage when it came to climate, but that things were turning around.
"It was embarrassing to go to these international negotiations and say you're Australian ... But that has changed substantially," she said.
READ MORE:
"If there's a trade negotiation, we should be in the room. And the only way to get in the room is to have skin in the game ... You only have skin in the game in climate if you are acting, then you have credibility."
Mr Bowen told the ABC: "We'll be setting our target in terms of our national interest, what's good for Australia, what comes out of the modelling as the right balance [and] as the Climate Change Act demands, [with] consideration of the science and all the evidence before us."
The CSIRO, which this week released its annual GenCost report for 2024-25, says firm renewables backed by transmission are the lowest-cost new form of electricity generation technology, while small modular nuclear reactors are the most expensive.
The Coalition is yet to decide if it wants to retain the policy Mr Dutton took to the election to build nuclear power plants to meet Australia's energy needs, but wants to lift the moratorium on nuclear as a starting point.
When asked by Mr Tehan if the government would meet its target of achieving 82 per cent renewables by 2030 target, Mr Bowen said it took "some temerity from those opposite to ask this side of the house about meeting our targets, when they can't agree on whether they have a target".
When Barnaby Joyce caught up with this masthead in Parliament House last week, the former deputy prime minister was in fine form.
After being relegated to the backbench by Opposition Leader Sussan Ley, Mr Joyce was clearly enjoying the attention while talking up his private member's bill to abolish Australia's climate target.
The member for New England, who says Ms Ley's predecessor Peter Dutton wanted to sack him for refusing to say nuclear energy would bring down electricity prices and opposing net zero, has gone rogue with his bill - which will be top of the agenda when politicians return to Canberra in three weeks' time.
It's putting a spotlight on the Coalition's longstanding divisions over climate and energy, just as Ms Ley seeks to unite the opposition after its electoral wipe-out.
Mr Joyce calls the pursuit of net zero a "lunatic crusade" and wants Australia to go with the cheapest possible energy - even if that is coal - and rails against renewables like solar and "swindle factories" (wind farms).
And he's not the only one, with Coalition frontbencher Andrew Hastie taking aim at new Western Australian Liberal leader Basil Zempilas for supporting net zero this week, ahead of Ms Ley's upcoming visit.
The Albanese government is seeking to extract as much political capital as possible from the issue, even as it comes under pressure over its own climate policy ahead of the United Nations General Assembly meeting in September.
Labor passed a procedural motion on Thursday scheduling Mr Joyce's private member's bill for debate in the House of Representatives on the first sitting day back, August 25.
It was a tactical play, aimed at dialling up the pressure on Ms Ley as she grapples with the longstanding conflict among her MPs over climate.
The motion was opposed by all Coalition members except for Mr Joyce.
His bill seeks to dismantle the 2050 net zero target - which the Coalition supported before the election but is now reviewing - by overturning or amending climate legislation.
Ms Ley sought to downplay the divisions this week while vowing to allow all views to be considered as the Coalition reviews net zero through a working group led by energy and emissions spokesperson Dan Tehan.
"It's going to flesh out the different perspectives," she said. "Everything is on the table."
While conservatives want to ditch the target, some moderate Liberals say that without it, the Coalition, which has been reduced to just 43 lower house seats and 27 in the Senate, cannot form a credible alternative government or win back inner-city seats lost to teal independents.
Climate Council chief executive Amanda McKenzie says the "centre of gravity in Australia now is for strong targets", with the majority of civil society and business groups supporting the clean energy transition, describing Mr Joyce as a "lone voice in the community".
"[His] policy position is let it rip, like let the climate crisis get as bad as it can, because we're not going to do anything about it," Ms McKenzie told this masthead.
"The science shows that we can if we let climate change go unchecked, that's a $4 trillion hit to the economy. That's the death of the Great Barrier Reef and the Queensland tourism industry ... Nearly 10 per cent of properties ... would be uninsurable."
On Monday, One Nation Leader Pauline Hanson took up Mr Joyce's cause with an urgency motion in the Senate calling for Australia to abandon its net zero target.
While it failed, Liberal senator Alex Antic and Nationals senator Matt Canavan joined One Nation's four senators and United Australia Party senator Ralph Babet in voting for it.
When asked if she or her office directed Liberal senators to abstain from the vote, Ms Ley said only: "We're regularly in touch with senators, and we're regularly in touch with members via the whip, via the managers of both opposition business in the House and the Senate."
Senator Canavan, one of the Coalition's most vocal critics of net zero, said there was no hurry to reach an agreed position this far out from the next election, telling reporters: "We're irrelevant right now, who cares what it looks [like] right now ... It doesn't have to be neat or tidy or pretty".
When asked about the comment, Mr Tehan said it was "incredibly important that we have an alternative to put to the Australian people" and that work would continue "over the next nine to 12 months".
As the Coalition pursued Labor in parliamentary question time over power bill costs on Thursday, Climate Change and Energy Minister Chris Bowen hit back with: "They are triggered every time we mention renewable energy."
While Ms Ley seeks to mend the Coalition's climate rift, the government is pushing ahead with efforts to reduce Australia's carbon emissions through a transition to renewable energy.
UN climate chief Simon Steele - who met with Mr Bowen in Canberra this week - has urged the government to "go big", saying the new target will be a "defining moment" for Australia, while Independent ACT senator David Pocock called it "the biggest test of the moral courage of the Albanese government".
The Climate Council wants a commitment to slash emissions by 75 per cent by 2030 and reach net zero by 2035, saying this is the level required to "do our fair share to hold global warming well below 2 degrees Celsius" - the level scientists warn will tip global warming into catastrophic and irreversible territory - while the Greens say anything less would breach the Paris Agreement.
Ms McKenzie said Australia had for years been a pariah on the international stage when it came to climate, but that things were turning around.
"It was embarrassing to go to these international negotiations and say you're Australian ... But that has changed substantially," she said.
READ MORE:
"If there's a trade negotiation, we should be in the room. And the only way to get in the room is to have skin in the game ... You only have skin in the game in climate if you are acting, then you have credibility."
Mr Bowen told the ABC: "We'll be setting our target in terms of our national interest, what's good for Australia, what comes out of the modelling as the right balance [and] as the Climate Change Act demands, [with] consideration of the science and all the evidence before us."
The CSIRO, which this week released its annual GenCost report for 2024-25, says firm renewables backed by transmission are the lowest-cost new form of electricity generation technology, while small modular nuclear reactors are the most expensive.
The Coalition is yet to decide if it wants to retain the policy Mr Dutton took to the election to build nuclear power plants to meet Australia's energy needs, but wants to lift the moratorium on nuclear as a starting point.
When asked by Mr Tehan if the government would meet its target of achieving 82 per cent renewables by 2030 target, Mr Bowen said it took "some temerity from those opposite to ask this side of the house about meeting our targets, when they can't agree on whether they have a target".
When Barnaby Joyce caught up with this masthead in Parliament House last week, the former deputy prime minister was in fine form.
After being relegated to the backbench by Opposition Leader Sussan Ley, Mr Joyce was clearly enjoying the attention while talking up his private member's bill to abolish Australia's climate target.
The member for New England, who says Ms Ley's predecessor Peter Dutton wanted to sack him for refusing to say nuclear energy would bring down electricity prices and opposing net zero, has gone rogue with his bill - which will be top of the agenda when politicians return to Canberra in three weeks' time.
It's putting a spotlight on the Coalition's longstanding divisions over climate and energy, just as Ms Ley seeks to unite the opposition after its electoral wipe-out.
Mr Joyce calls the pursuit of net zero a "lunatic crusade" and wants Australia to go with the cheapest possible energy - even if that is coal - and rails against renewables like solar and "swindle factories" (wind farms).
And he's not the only one, with Coalition frontbencher Andrew Hastie taking aim at new Western Australian Liberal leader Basil Zempilas for supporting net zero this week, ahead of Ms Ley's upcoming visit.
The Albanese government is seeking to extract as much political capital as possible from the issue, even as it comes under pressure over its own climate policy ahead of the United Nations General Assembly meeting in September.
Labor passed a procedural motion on Thursday scheduling Mr Joyce's private member's bill for debate in the House of Representatives on the first sitting day back, August 25.
It was a tactical play, aimed at dialling up the pressure on Ms Ley as she grapples with the longstanding conflict among her MPs over climate.
The motion was opposed by all Coalition members except for Mr Joyce.
His bill seeks to dismantle the 2050 net zero target - which the Coalition supported before the election but is now reviewing - by overturning or amending climate legislation.
Ms Ley sought to downplay the divisions this week while vowing to allow all views to be considered as the Coalition reviews net zero through a working group led by energy and emissions spokesperson Dan Tehan.
"It's going to flesh out the different perspectives," she said. "Everything is on the table."
While conservatives want to ditch the target, some moderate Liberals say that without it, the Coalition, which has been reduced to just 43 lower house seats and 27 in the Senate, cannot form a credible alternative government or win back inner-city seats lost to teal independents.
Climate Council chief executive Amanda McKenzie says the "centre of gravity in Australia now is for strong targets", with the majority of civil society and business groups supporting the clean energy transition, describing Mr Joyce as a "lone voice in the community".
"[His] policy position is let it rip, like let the climate crisis get as bad as it can, because we're not going to do anything about it," Ms McKenzie told this masthead.
"The science shows that we can if we let climate change go unchecked, that's a $4 trillion hit to the economy. That's the death of the Great Barrier Reef and the Queensland tourism industry ... Nearly 10 per cent of properties ... would be uninsurable."
On Monday, One Nation Leader Pauline Hanson took up Mr Joyce's cause with an urgency motion in the Senate calling for Australia to abandon its net zero target.
While it failed, Liberal senator Alex Antic and Nationals senator Matt Canavan joined One Nation's four senators and United Australia Party senator Ralph Babet in voting for it.
When asked if she or her office directed Liberal senators to abstain from the vote, Ms Ley said only: "We're regularly in touch with senators, and we're regularly in touch with members via the whip, via the managers of both opposition business in the House and the Senate."
Senator Canavan, one of the Coalition's most vocal critics of net zero, said there was no hurry to reach an agreed position this far out from the next election, telling reporters: "We're irrelevant right now, who cares what it looks [like] right now ... It doesn't have to be neat or tidy or pretty".
When asked about the comment, Mr Tehan said it was "incredibly important that we have an alternative to put to the Australian people" and that work would continue "over the next nine to 12 months".
As the Coalition pursued Labor in parliamentary question time over power bill costs on Thursday, Climate Change and Energy Minister Chris Bowen hit back with: "They are triggered every time we mention renewable energy."
While Ms Ley seeks to mend the Coalition's climate rift, the government is pushing ahead with efforts to reduce Australia's carbon emissions through a transition to renewable energy.
UN climate chief Simon Steele - who met with Mr Bowen in Canberra this week - has urged the government to "go big", saying the new target will be a "defining moment" for Australia, while Independent ACT senator David Pocock called it "the biggest test of the moral courage of the Albanese government".
The Climate Council wants a commitment to slash emissions by 75 per cent by 2030 and reach net zero by 2035, saying this is the level required to "do our fair share to hold global warming well below 2 degrees Celsius" - the level scientists warn will tip global warming into catastrophic and irreversible territory - while the Greens say anything less would breach the Paris Agreement.
Ms McKenzie said Australia had for years been a pariah on the international stage when it came to climate, but that things were turning around.
"It was embarrassing to go to these international negotiations and say you're Australian ... But that has changed substantially," she said.
READ MORE:
"If there's a trade negotiation, we should be in the room. And the only way to get in the room is to have skin in the game ... You only have skin in the game in climate if you are acting, then you have credibility."
Mr Bowen told the ABC: "We'll be setting our target in terms of our national interest, what's good for Australia, what comes out of the modelling as the right balance [and] as the Climate Change Act demands, [with] consideration of the science and all the evidence before us."
The CSIRO, which this week released its annual GenCost report for 2024-25, says firm renewables backed by transmission are the lowest-cost new form of electricity generation technology, while small modular nuclear reactors are the most expensive.
The Coalition is yet to decide if it wants to retain the policy Mr Dutton took to the election to build nuclear power plants to meet Australia's energy needs, but wants to lift the moratorium on nuclear as a starting point.
When asked by Mr Tehan if the government would meet its target of achieving 82 per cent renewables by 2030 target, Mr Bowen said it took "some temerity from those opposite to ask this side of the house about meeting our targets, when they can't agree on whether they have a target".
When Barnaby Joyce caught up with this masthead in Parliament House last week, the former deputy prime minister was in fine form.
After being relegated to the backbench by Opposition Leader Sussan Ley, Mr Joyce was clearly enjoying the attention while talking up his private member's bill to abolish Australia's climate target.
The member for New England, who says Ms Ley's predecessor Peter Dutton wanted to sack him for refusing to say nuclear energy would bring down electricity prices and opposing net zero, has gone rogue with his bill - which will be top of the agenda when politicians return to Canberra in three weeks' time.
It's putting a spotlight on the Coalition's longstanding divisions over climate and energy, just as Ms Ley seeks to unite the opposition after its electoral wipe-out.
Mr Joyce calls the pursuit of net zero a "lunatic crusade" and wants Australia to go with the cheapest possible energy - even if that is coal - and rails against renewables like solar and "swindle factories" (wind farms).
And he's not the only one, with Coalition frontbencher Andrew Hastie taking aim at new Western Australian Liberal leader Basil Zempilas for supporting net zero this week, ahead of Ms Ley's upcoming visit.
The Albanese government is seeking to extract as much political capital as possible from the issue, even as it comes under pressure over its own climate policy ahead of the United Nations General Assembly meeting in September.
Labor passed a procedural motion on Thursday scheduling Mr Joyce's private member's bill for debate in the House of Representatives on the first sitting day back, August 25.
It was a tactical play, aimed at dialling up the pressure on Ms Ley as she grapples with the longstanding conflict among her MPs over climate.
The motion was opposed by all Coalition members except for Mr Joyce.
His bill seeks to dismantle the 2050 net zero target - which the Coalition supported before the election but is now reviewing - by overturning or amending climate legislation.
Ms Ley sought to downplay the divisions this week while vowing to allow all views to be considered as the Coalition reviews net zero through a working group led by energy and emissions spokesperson Dan Tehan.
"It's going to flesh out the different perspectives," she said. "Everything is on the table."
While conservatives want to ditch the target, some moderate Liberals say that without it, the Coalition, which has been reduced to just 43 lower house seats and 27 in the Senate, cannot form a credible alternative government or win back inner-city seats lost to teal independents.
Climate Council chief executive Amanda McKenzie says the "centre of gravity in Australia now is for strong targets", with the majority of civil society and business groups supporting the clean energy transition, describing Mr Joyce as a "lone voice in the community".
"[His] policy position is let it rip, like let the climate crisis get as bad as it can, because we're not going to do anything about it," Ms McKenzie told this masthead.
"The science shows that we can if we let climate change go unchecked, that's a $4 trillion hit to the economy. That's the death of the Great Barrier Reef and the Queensland tourism industry ... Nearly 10 per cent of properties ... would be uninsurable."
On Monday, One Nation Leader Pauline Hanson took up Mr Joyce's cause with an urgency motion in the Senate calling for Australia to abandon its net zero target.
While it failed, Liberal senator Alex Antic and Nationals senator Matt Canavan joined One Nation's four senators and United Australia Party senator Ralph Babet in voting for it.
When asked if she or her office directed Liberal senators to abstain from the vote, Ms Ley said only: "We're regularly in touch with senators, and we're regularly in touch with members via the whip, via the managers of both opposition business in the House and the Senate."
Senator Canavan, one of the Coalition's most vocal critics of net zero, said there was no hurry to reach an agreed position this far out from the next election, telling reporters: "We're irrelevant right now, who cares what it looks [like] right now ... It doesn't have to be neat or tidy or pretty".
When asked about the comment, Mr Tehan said it was "incredibly important that we have an alternative to put to the Australian people" and that work would continue "over the next nine to 12 months".
As the Coalition pursued Labor in parliamentary question time over power bill costs on Thursday, Climate Change and Energy Minister Chris Bowen hit back with: "They are triggered every time we mention renewable energy."
While Ms Ley seeks to mend the Coalition's climate rift, the government is pushing ahead with efforts to reduce Australia's carbon emissions through a transition to renewable energy.
UN climate chief Simon Steele - who met with Mr Bowen in Canberra this week - has urged the government to "go big", saying the new target will be a "defining moment" for Australia, while Independent ACT senator David Pocock called it "the biggest test of the moral courage of the Albanese government".
The Climate Council wants a commitment to slash emissions by 75 per cent by 2030 and reach net zero by 2035, saying this is the level required to "do our fair share to hold global warming well below 2 degrees Celsius" - the level scientists warn will tip global warming into catastrophic and irreversible territory - while the Greens say anything less would breach the Paris Agreement.
Ms McKenzie said Australia had for years been a pariah on the international stage when it came to climate, but that things were turning around.
"It was embarrassing to go to these international negotiations and say you're Australian ... But that has changed substantially," she said.
READ MORE:
"If there's a trade negotiation, we should be in the room. And the only way to get in the room is to have skin in the game ... You only have skin in the game in climate if you are acting, then you have credibility."
Mr Bowen told the ABC: "We'll be setting our target in terms of our national interest, what's good for Australia, what comes out of the modelling as the right balance [and] as the Climate Change Act demands, [with] consideration of the science and all the evidence before us."
The CSIRO, which this week released its annual GenCost report for 2024-25, says firm renewables backed by transmission are the lowest-cost new form of electricity generation technology, while small modular nuclear reactors are the most expensive.
The Coalition is yet to decide if it wants to retain the policy Mr Dutton took to the election to build nuclear power plants to meet Australia's energy needs, but wants to lift the moratorium on nuclear as a starting point.
When asked by Mr Tehan if the government would meet its target of achieving 82 per cent renewables by 2030 target, Mr Bowen said it took "some temerity from those opposite to ask this side of the house about meeting our targets, when they can't agree on whether they have a target".