When the former PM signed in 2015, he said Australia made a ‘definite commitment’

This article is more than 2 years old

This article is more than 2 years old

Tony Abbott has claimed he was misled by bureaucrats before he signed Australia up to the Paris international climate agreement in 2015 during another sortie by government conservatives against the national energy guarantee.

Opponents of the government’s energy policy used the opportunity of the regular Coalition party room to resume their attacks on the policy that goes to a critical meeting of state and territory energy ministers in early August.

With these two parliamentary sitting weeks the last remaining window for internal opponents to try and blow the policy off course, Abbott raised objections, as did Eric Abetz, Andrew Gee, Ian MacDonald and the voluble Liberal Craig Kelly.

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Kelly, who is the chair of the government’s backbench committee, continued to insist that emissions reduction in the electricity sector should be delayed, and that large energy users shouldn’t be part of the putative system.



According to people present, Abetz, the Tasmanian Liberal, attempted to argue during Tuesday’s meeting that Abbott hadn’t given hard commitments when he took the decision to sign the government up to the Paris agreement – that Australia’s undertakings were always aspirational.

Abbott then told colleagues he’d been misled by bureaucrats during the Paris commitment process about the impact of the commitment.

At the time he took the decision Abbott said something quite different. In announcing Australia would adopt an emissions reduction target for 2030 of 26% to 28% on 2005 levels, Abbott said: “There’s a definite commitment to 26% but we believe under the policies that we’ve got, with the circumstances that we think will apply, that we can go up to 28%.”

Materials circulated to the Coalition party room at the time also made it clear that Australia would need to reduce its projected emissions by around 900m tonnes in order to hit the 26% to 28% target.

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The government said at the time an emissions budget approach should be used “that is, achievement of our target should be measured in terms of emissions over the period 2021-30 and not simply at our emissions at a point in time in 2030”.

Abbott, the former prime minister, also argued on Tuesday that the owners of the Tomago aluminium smelter were opposed to the Neg, which imposes reliability and emissions reduction obligations on power retailers and some large energy users from 2020.

The energy minister, Josh Frydenberg, begged to differ, noting they were supportive of the policy, as were several other big corporates.



During the discussion, the Queensland National Scott Buchholz raised concerns about high energy prices. The New South Wales Liberal Trent Zimmerman rose to support the policy.

Tuesday’s skirmish in Canberra followed a phone hook-up of state and territory energy ministers last Friday. During that conversation, Frydenberg told his Coag counterparts the emissions reduction trajectory in the national energy guarantee would be steady over 10 years, not back-end loaded as some of his conservative party room opponents have demanded.

The policy moves into its decisive phase of consideration over the coming weeks, with Frydenberg determined to stare down internal opponents and get wavering Labor states over the line.

The 10 August meeting will either make or break the Neg. Any single state or territory has the power to veto the policy, and a number are concerned about the lack of ambition in the emission reduction target.

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Federal Labor is declining to offer Frydenberg much political cover.

The Labor leader, Bill Shorten, on Tuesday pointed to persistent government in-fighting on the issue. Shorten noted an “insurgency from the right” and he said the Neg had “fairly lame targets”.

The Turnbull government will not be able to land the policy in the federal arena without Labor’s support, and the opposition is yet to say what it will do.

For months the shadow climate change minister, Mark Butler, has pointed to the lack of ambition in the Neg emissions reduction target as being a significant problem, and he has argued Labor would need to scale it up significantly in the event it ultimately accepted the mechanism.