The deputy prime minister, Barnaby Joyce, says it is “morally prudent” for Australia to build new coal-fired plants and he would have no problem if taxpayers provided support.



Joyce told the ABC that subsidising new coal plants was not on the agenda right now but, if it emerged on the agenda, “it wouldn’t worry me in the least.”

Asked what role the government should play in coal-fired power, Joyce said: “I think we should be building new coal-fired power stations.”

He said that, when Australia was the biggest exporter of coal, “it is morally prudent upon us to be at the forefront of the technology ... so that poor people can turn on the lights like we do”.

“The best way to do that is build the plants and investigate ways of making them as efficient as possible and the more efficient we make it, the more carbon efficient we make it, now why wouldn’t we want to do that?”

Joyce’s comments late on Wednesday followed Malcolm Turnbull opening the door on the debate during a scene-setting address at the National Press Club.

As well as putting a question mark over whether the federal renewable energy target would continue in perpetuity, the prime minister lamented the fact $590m had been spent on clean coal trials and demonstration, yet Australia lacked a an efficient, low-emissions, coal-fired power plant with carbon capture and storage.

“Who has a bigger interest than us? We are the biggest [coal] exporter. And yet we don’t have one power station that meets those requirements,” Turnbull said on Wednesday.

The prime minister declared it was time to develop a technology neutral approach to the energy market and “strip the ideology out of this debate.”

The prime minister said he had also asked two agencies, the Clean Energy Finance Corporation and Arena (the Australian Renewable Energy Agency), to develop a plan for storage that would address the intermittency problems created by renewable technologies such as wind and solar.

He said gas was also important to deliver reliable base load power. Turnbull said he was prepared “to sit down with the states to determine the right incentives to enable desperately needed sustainable onshore gas development.”

The Coalition has entered the new political year determined to make energy a point of political difference between the Coalition and Labor, and the prime minister is attempting to position the Coalition as the party of lower power prices.

Energy prices and energy security are hot political issues in South Australia, which is a heavily contested state in Australian politics, and the government has also been attempting to push state governments off their ambitious renewable energy targets.

There is a campaign on by conservatives to dump the federal RET and climate politics inside the Coalition will heat up if the US president, Donald Trump, follows through with a threat to withdraw from the Paris climate agreement.

The prime minister has consistently signalled that the government remains committed to the Paris climate targets regardless of what the US does.

Before Christmas, Australia’s chief scientist, Alan Finkel, warned explicitly that current federal climate policy settings would not allow Australia to meet its emissions reduction targets under the Paris agreement.

Finkel also argued that an emissions intensity scheme – a form of carbon pricing in the electricity market – was a desirable vehicle to manage the transition in the electricity market from emissions intensive sources to low emissions sources.

He said such a scheme would integrate best “with the electricity market’s pricing and risk management framework” and “had the lowest economic costs and the lowest impact on electricity prices”.

The government has ruled out an intensity scheme, despite having credible evidence that such a scheme would allow Australia to conform with our international emissions reduction commitments, with the least impact on household power bills.

The Climate Institute’s chief executive, John Connor said on Wednesday: “It is clear that ultra supercritical coal, without carbon capture and storage, won’t cut it in modernising and decarbonising our electricity system.

“Its emissions are still higher than gas and analysis by business groups shows there is no economic reason to invest in this technology, absent significant government subsidy.”

After the prime minister’s press club speech, the treasurer, Scott Morrison, declined to rule out providing taxpayer support for a lower emissions, coal-fired power plant.

“If we are talking about next generation, new generation technologies that provide lower emissions energy production, whether it is coal or whether it is wind or whether it is any of the other sources, why would you limit yourself to a particular resource and that is the question the prime minister was putting today,” Morrison told Sky News.

Morrison said it was not acceptable to see power plants close “with nothing on the other side”.

“Obviously there needs to be transition arrangements and there needs to be a greater acceptance of the many other alternatives that are out there.”

Pressed on whether the government was prepared to provide taxpayer support, Morrison said: “We need to have an energy future that is inclusive of what has been one of our greatest energy advantages for 100 years.”