Nationals’ mavericks ensure the Coalition is the issue in parliament’s first week

For almost as long as anyone can remember, the Nationals have caused the Coalition grief on climate and energy policy. Still, for Barnaby Joyce to bring on a fresh load of trouble - with a private member’s bill to scrap Australia’s commitment to net zero emissions by 2050 – in Sussan Ley’s first parliamentary week as opposition leader was beyond provocative.

And for Michael McCormack to support him reinforced the impression the Nationals don’t give a fig about the wider interests of a Coalition confronting very dark days.

The bill will go nowhere but the issue will tear at the opposition.

Both Joyce and McCormack are former leaders, and they are former rivals. In 2021 Joyce overthrew McCormack as leader. McCormack used to be a supporter of net zero. Joyce, as deputy prime minister, did a deal with then prime minister Scott Morrison for the Nationals to back net zero before Morrison went to the Glasgow COP conference in 2021. The Nationals are their own game of snakes and ladders.

Now Joyce says he never supported the net zero target – which is sort of correct, because his own position during that deal (involving the trade off of promised huge infrastructure spending) was near impossible to fathom.

On why stir the issue in the first parliamentary week, Joyce says, “Now is the time, when the agenda has not been set”.

McCormack says he supported net zero in 2021 because Australia was suffering the trade restrictions imposed by China and needed to expand its exports to Europe, where many countries required the commitment. The farmers in his Riverina electorate wanted him to support it, he says.

Despite disclaimers, this undermines the authority of Nationals leader David Littleproud, already weakened by the events around the temporary split in the Coalition after the election. The Nationals obtained their several policy demands (that didn’t relate to net zero) but Littleproud came in for a good deal of criticism.

The Nationals are split over net zero, but it is looking increasingly difficult for those who want to preserve the commitment to hold the line. Joyce says he hopes the numbers are there in the party room to ditch it, and he suspects they are but “I don’t know”. McCormack believes the numbers are there.

While Littleproud says he is waiting for the party’s own review, under net zero opponent senator Matt Canavan, he suggested the net zero commitment was “trying to achieve the impossible rather than doing what’s sensible”.

The Liberals are divided too, but those wanting to end the commitment are in a minority. Former frontbencher Jane Hume spoke out on Wednesday, stressing how important the commitment was. “Over and over, the electorate has told us that they want to see a net zero energy future,” she told Sky. “My personal opinion is that this is profoundly important for not just the electorate, but also for our country.”

But if the Nationals repudiated the net zero target, that would embolden the Liberal critics and probably add to their number. It would drive a wedge into the Coalition, and might be serious enough to split it.

The Ley critics within the Liberals won’t be shedding any tears over the damage, now and later, that this issue will do her. Neither will Littleproud – it’s well known the two are not close.

Ley herself can only say the opposition has a working group looking at energy and emissions reduction policy. But she knows this is simply a holding position. It’s impossible to think that the working group, headed by energy spokesman Dan Tehan, can come up with any policy position that unites two diametrically opposed positions.

Tehan said of Joyce and McCormack, “They’re two steers fighting in the neighbour’s paddock”. The flaw with this dismissal is that the steers are actually part of the broad Coalition herd.

In the first question time of the new parliament, the opposition wasn’t able to score any hits on the government. The prime minister and other ministers were able to shrug off questions about Labor’s proposed tax on unrealised capital gains on big superannuation balances, and other issues. Energy Minister Chris Bowen had been handed ammunition to deploy against the opposition.

The overwhelming message of the day was that the opposition had made itself the issue. From the Coalition’s point of view, the problem is this damaging conversation will go on a long time.