Labor lost the next election after a fierce campaign by Liberal leader Tony Abbott for Gillard’s unfulfilled promise not to introduce the so-called carbon tax and the plan was repealed.
In response to the Prime Minister, Greens leader Adam Bandt said Labor’s goal was weak and they should not allow new coal and gas projects to start.
Adam Bandt said Labor’s goal was weak. Credit: Tash Sorensen
He said the 43% target would mean “worse flooding, worse drought and the death of the Great Barrier Reef.” The Labor vote went back to this election and they do not have a majority in the Senate.
“People want politicians to work together on something as important as the weather and the Greens are willing to do that, but the‘ my way or the motorway ’approach of Labor is the kind of furry politics that the public just rejected “.
Albanese said he would not return to “the game of figures ripped from the air.”
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Opposition leader Peter Dutton has said Liberal and national parties will vote against legislating the 43% target, meaning Labor needs the support of the 12 Green senators plus one more vote from the cross bank of the Senate.
ACT Sen. David Pocock and two network senators Jacqui Lambie have suggested they are 43% open to supporting the Labor proposal. Pocock has said he wants a higher target, but that the 43 per cent target of Labor should be treated as a floor, not a roof.
Minister for International and Pacific Development Pat Conroy said from Fiji on Tuesday that Australia’s 43% target was credible and that reaching it would be a challenge.
“But we will get there on the road to zero net emissions by 2050 … and, as the Prime Minister has said, 43 per cent is the land, we will get it and we will go from there,” he said.
Australia’s target is currently a 26 to 28 per cent reduction in emissions by 2030 from 2005 levels. If Labor cannot pass legislation, Climate Change Minister Chris Bowen has said which has designed much of the government’s political offer so that it can be implemented anyway.
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Albanese also announced more flood relief on Tuesday along with NSW Prime Minister Dominic Perrottet.
He said: “When we talk about the impact of floods and natural disasters, where we have events of every 1000 years that become one of every 100 years to become an annual event of every 10 years, I don’t know what is needed to awaken people, whatever their side of the political spectrum, to the fact that we must work together and stop the conflict and work in a way that works ”.
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