Liberal Senator Andrew Bragg slams push within Coalition to dump net zero
Liberal Senator Andrew Bragg has confirmed he will resign from the Coalition’s front bench if the parties move away from the Paris Agreement and oppose the Liberals’ move to follow the National Party in abandoning net zero.
Speaking to the ABC, Bragg said: “You cannot give a fatwa in two words.” insider. “That’s the international standard. So trying to act like you won’t say two words is absolutely ridiculous.”
Arguing that rising energy prices were the fault of the Labor Party’s “catastrophic” policies, Bragg said that moving away from the emissions agreement signed by the Turnbull government in 2016 would align Australia with “pariah states” such as Syria and Iran.
Senator Andrew Bragg has argued that net zero could reduce energy prices over time.Credit: Alex Ellinghausen
Pressed on whether he would abandon his role as opposition housing spokesman if the coalition moves away from the Paris Agreement and net zero, as the United States has done twice under President Donald Trump, Bragg said he would do so but doubted that was likely.
“Of course,” he said repeatedly when asked what he would do if the Coalition took a hard line, “but I don’t think we’ll ever leave Paris. We’re not sideliners. Most Australians want us to play our fair part in mitigation, so I don’t think we’ll leave the Paris Agreement.”
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Bragg argued that net zero could reduce energy prices over time if “done right”, and emphasized that it was Labor policies that were keeping prices high and that it would not achieve the targets set by the government.
“We must do net zero better than Labor. Labor’s net zero has been an absolute disaster for everyone in Australia and we can do it better than them,” he said.
While leading members of the right led by Ley, including former treasurer Angus Taylor and influential Victorian senator James Patterson, have abandoned their support for the target, Bragg is a prominent voice among moderates fighting to keep the word “net zero”, even if reaching it within 25 years becomes an aspiration rather than a statutory target.
