Prime minister reverses position on visit where coal was expected to feature heavily, just hours after saying trip was ‘still the plan’

Just hours after saying it was “still the plan” to go to India later this month for trade and defence talks, Scott Morrison now says he is “inclined not to proceed” with the visit.

Australia’s coal exports were expected to feature heavily on the Indian trip agenda, but shortly after telling media he still planned on attending, depending on the fire conditions, Morrison reversed course and said he now did not believe he would go.

“The national security committee is going to hook up in the morning on this,” he said.

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“I’m inclined not to proceed on that visit. There are issues I need to resolve formally when working through issues of that nature. That is my inclination on that issue. We’ll make a further announcement and arrangement on that accordingly.”

Morrison was due to travel to India on 13 January, before heading on to Japan during the five-day trip. Speaking to Melbourne radio 3AW on Friday morning, Morrison said it was an “important meeting”, and that the plan to attend was “still in place.”

“But, you know, when you are dealing with these issues, you need to consider the relative merits of the choices,” he said.

The prime minister announced he had accepted Indian prime minister Narendra Modi’s invitation to visit back in October, where he was also due to deliver the inaugural Raisina Dialogue address, which aims to discuss the biggest challenges to the global economy.

For Australia, one of those challenges is its fractious relationship with China, with coal exports seen as one of the flashpoints.

Australia has increasingly looked to India as a potential buttress against any economic fallout with China, with Morrison making strengthening his relationship with Modi one of his priorities since becoming prime minister.

The Coalition has also been an unwavering supporter of the Adani Carmichael mine in central Queensland, with minister for resources and northern Australia Matt Canavan a vocal supporter. Canavan attended a lunch with Adani executives during an official visit to Calcutta in August last year.

The government has often pointed to the 1.3% of global carbon emissions Australia is responsible for, when answering criticisms over its climate policies. A report by the Australian Conservation Foundation, released mid last year, found Australia was responsible for at least 5% of global greenhouse gas emissions, if the pollution from the nation’s fossil fuel exports was included.

Once the pollution from proposed projects was factored in, which included the Adani mine, that number had the potential to jump to 17% by 2030.

Morrison has held firm to his view the government had its climate policy settings right, despite admitting the link between climate change and worsening bushfire seasons.

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“Let me be clear to the Australian people: our emissions reductions policies will both protect our environment and seek to reduce the risks and hazards that we are seeing today and at the same time, it will seek to ensure the viability of people’s jobs and their livelihoods all around the country,” he said on Thursday.

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“What we will do is ensure that our policies remain sensible, that they don’t move towards either extreme and stay focused on what Australians need for a vibrant and viable economy, as well as a vibrant and sustainable environment. Getting the balance right is what Australia, I think, has always been able to achieve.”

The Labor leader, Anthony Albanese, who has also been supportive of Australia’s coal industry, said the decision of whether to go to India or not was one for the prime minister.

“The prime minister will have to weigh up whether it’s appropriate for him to go or not,” he said.

Albanese said he believed people were now seeing the warnings scientists had issued about the worsening impacts climate change would wreak against Australia, and wanted action.

“One of the reasons why we have seen, I think, some frustration expressed by people on the ground, they don’t want to be told it’s a natural disaster,” he said.

“Yes, Australia’s had natural disasters in the past. We haven’t, in my lifetime, had people on beaches waiting to be evacuated in life jackets, sending boats out to sea like it’s a peacetime version of something that we have seen during wartime. We have not seen that.

“This is not business as usual. And it requires national leadership and response. This is a national emergency and it’s important that the response be appropriate to the scale of this emergency.”