A senior figure in the Nationals says she will push the Turnbull government to amend its signature energy policy to encourage investment in new coal-fired power stations.
The remarks come as the Coalition grapples with an internal divide on energy policy, with a group of backbenchers openly calling for changes to encourage new investment in coal.
Nationals MP Michelle Landry wants more coal fired energy. Source: AAP
“I am keen to see coal-fired power stations in this country,” Nationals whip Michelle Landry told reporters on Wednesday.
“I have spoken to the minister in a lot of detail about this. I do think that coal … is still a major part in this, and that negotiation is still ongoing.”
Ms Landry said she sympathised with former prime minister Tony Abbott’s calls to follow the lead of US President Donald Trump and withdraw from the global Paris agreement on climate change.
She said “99 percent” of Australians would not know what the Paris agreement was.
“I understand that we have agreements with other nations, but I have feelings at times – why are we involved in that, when Australia is a very clean country? And I, at times, feel that we should be running our own race on this.”
Mr Abbott used a speech on Tuesday night to call for Australia to withdraw from the deal.
That’s despite the fact Mr Abbott was the one who signed the deal when he was prime minister in 2015, promising Australia would cut carbon emissions by 26 percent by the year 2030, off 2005 levels.
Tony Abbott has again criticised the Coalition’s National Energy Guarantee policy. Source: AAP
But now Mr Abbott says the agreement, which has been signed by almost every country in the world, will damage the Coalition’s chances at the next election.
He said he would never have signed up if he knew the United States would eventually pull out.
“Our 2015 target, after all, was set on the basis that the agreement would be 'applicable to all ... parties'. Absent America, my government would not have signed up to the Paris treaty, certainly not with the current target,” he said.
Mr Abbott ramped up his ongoing attacks on the Turnbull government’s energy policy, the , which has in the Coalition.
"Withdrawing from the Paris agreement that is driving the National Energy Guarantee would be the best way to keep prices down and employment up, and to save our party from a political legacy that could haunt us for the next decade at least,” he told the Australian Environment Foundation.
“It’s the emissions obsession that’s at the heart of our power crisis and it’s this that has to end for our problems to ease.”
Mr Abbott was ousted as Liberal leader by prime minister Malcolm Turnbull, who justified the move by pointing out the Coalition had lost 30 consecutive Newspolls to the Labor party under Mr Abbott’s leadership.
But Mr Turnbull has now lost 35 in a row. Mr Abbott has been using consistent radio interviews, usually with Sydney’s Radio 2GB, to offer his own government advice on how to win the next election – often
Mr Abbott said Paris targets that were “aspirational” in his hands had become “binding commitments”.
A number of Coalition backbenchers, including George Christensen and Craig Kelly, have said their support for the National Energy Guarantee would be conditional on policy changes that encourage new investment in coal-fired power.
