National Party Federal Council votes to compel the party to formally abandon the position when it next meets on Sunday

“There’s no point in slitting our own throats to pursue something that’s bad for Australia.”

Only two delegates spoke against the motion, both from South Australia.

One of them, Young Nationals delegate Perrin Rennie, said: “Regional Australians will pay the price for increasing natural disasters.”

“They will lose their livelihoods to floods. They will lose their homes to fires. We will have more droughts. It is crucial that Australia plays its part to ensure climate change does not seriously impact our regions.”

Rennie said abandoning the net zero rate could see the National Party lose votes to Labor as extreme weather events affect regional and rural Australia.

The text of the motion urges the parliamentary party to “abandon support for a net zero mandate”, containing almost identical language to the Queensland LNP motion passed a few months earlier; The text of this motion was agreed by Littleproud, Ley and then LNP leader Lawrence Springborg to disguise the Coalition’s lax ambition for net zero.

The motion also demanded that the moratorium on nuclear energy in Australia be lifted and that nuclear energy be “enabled to develop in an open electricity market”. A subsequent motion for the party to withdraw from the Paris Agreement was canceled after the net zero motion was passed.

At a press conference in Sydney following the vote, Climate Change and Energy Minister Chris Bowen suggested citizens should “get with the programme”.

“The National Party is betraying future generations, but it is also betraying farmers and people in regional communities who could benefit from this massive transformation. They appear to be stuck in the past and, despite any encouragement we can give them in parliament, they appear determined to stay there,” Bowen said.

Speaking before the vote, Nationals Senator Bridget McKenzie described the party as an “obstacle” supporting Liberal Party votes, “not engaging”, before reaffirming that the parties were separate and dominant.

“We are bolder in advocating for our community and opposing bad policies. We have members who are sent back here because they are hyper-local. They are connected to their communities and supported by a strong grassroots membership,” McKenzie said.

McKenzie also spoke about the upcoming 50th anniversary of Whitlam’s dismissal and the formation of the Fraser-Anthony government, saying there were “echoes of Whitlam in Albania’s left-wing Labor government that grow defiantly by the day”.

“It’s worth remembering that for the first part of that period in opposition, the then Country Party and the Liberal Party were not in coalition. That success, that election, was determined as a result of not being in coalition for a large part of the previous parliamentary term,” McKenzie said.

Loading

Speaking at the meeting, deputy leader Kevin Hogan also congratulated Littleproud’s leadership over the brief Coalition split following the May election.

“It might seem a little chaotic, but we all sit there and say ‘we know what we’re doing. We know why we’re doing this. We know the four reasons why we’re doing this. We’re all united on this.’

“Having that collective bargaining agreement and that transparency meant that, you know, we overwhelmingly supported David through this process, and we’re going through a similar process right now,” Hogan said.

About 30 Liberal supporters gathered at Parliament House on Friday morning to voice support for emissions reductions but also backed away from concrete commitments to support a net-zero emissions policy by 2050.

But division within the party remains, with some members choosing not to attend the meeting, a small group calling for net zero to be abandoned altogether and questions surrounding the use of “net zero” terminology.

Cut through the noise of federal politics with news, views and expert analysis. Subscribers can sign up for our weekly Inside Politics newsletter.