From Schwartz Media. I'm Ashlin McGee. This is seven am. The members of the Federal Labor government have been pretty disciplined about not publicly criticizing party policy, so it raised a few eyebrows when MPs in inner city seats took aim at the government's Future Gas strategy. The plan pumps up gas as a vital part of the energy transition through to twenty fifty and beyond, which is at odds
with moves to get households off gas as quickly as possible. Today, the Saturday Paper is Mike second on what's behind the gas plan and my little sanctioned descent might be part of a broader electoral strategy. It's Thursday, May twenty three, so Mike. Earlier this month Labor released what it's calling the Future Gas Strategy. Tell me a bit about the plan.
Well, it came out the Thursday before the budget and it was released by the Resources Minister madal And King. It's one hundred and ten page document entitled the Future Gas Strategy. I have to say my initial thoughts were
that this could have been written by Angus Taylor. I mean, it is very very pro gas could almost have been written by the industry itself actually, you know, more exploration, more production, And the key quote that got a lot of people agitated was that gas would continue to be vital to their transition through to twenty fifty and beyond.
There has to be a discussion and an assessment of how all energy sources fit within that journey to net zero by twenty fifty. We know that cole is retiring, lowering emissions, renewables are growing, and we're investing in that our government.
She also said that it would be crucial to one of the government's key economic reforms, the Future Made in Australia policy. It paid lip service to reaching net zero by twenty fifty, but keeping gas in the mix and affordable during that transition.
But even so, we will need other energy sources to make sure that we keep the economy going, that we give consumers choice and access to affordable energy and heating.
It also said that we would need new sources of gas supply to meet demand during the transition. It promised consumers' freedom of choice to continue using gas in their homes, something which is at odds with a lot of policies that various states are pursuing to try and get people off gas.
They will need gas to power those operations until there are substitutes, and the usual gas strategy is encouraging of those substitutes.
So it ran counter to a fair part of I guess you would call it the narrative, the labor narrative of dealing with climate change, because you know the use of gas to support transition remains very controversial. You won't be surprised to know that this was spectacularly an instantly unpopular with a lot of people outside the gas industry,
particularly all the environment groups. But not only that, and this was more interesting in political terms, it actually sparked assent within Labour's own ranks.
So tell me a bit more about that. Who's been speaking, Adam, what have they been saying.
Well, the most notable and pointed was Josh Burns, who's a Labor backbencher from Victoria, and he appeared on R and Breakfast the next morning and his opening gambit was I didn't get into politics to be a support mechanism for the fossil fuel industry.
When I got into Parliament, I was one of the youngest MP's in the House of Representatives. I'm still relatively young and I feel a sense of responsibility that I stand up for not only my generation and the generations after me and my daughter, that we do everything we can to try and transition our economy from higher missions fossil fuels to lower missions technology.
And it wasn't just what he was saying publicly. Also suggested that he was going pretty hard in private. He said, I think the most important conversation are often done behind closed doors.
My responsibility is to be a strong voice for McNamara in government, and I take that responsibility extremely seriously. I think I think everyone in government knows that both myself and my electorates wants stronger action on climate change.
Victoria at a state level, has shown its determination to reduce the role of gas and the energy mix. In twenty twenty one, the state labor government actually saw the insertion of a ban on gas fracking into the state constitution. In January this year, the state government banned new gas connections for new homes.
We speak to each other obviously in a we're colleagues, and because there's quite a few of.
You, I mean, this is the biggest revolt I've seen since covering your government.
Well, I would say a couple of points. One is that there are.
Josh Burns electorate. McNamara is one of the most progressive in and already progressive state. So Josh Burns is probably more aware than any other Labor member that his electoral survival could depend on climate change and the support of voters who are very concerned about climate change. You know, the figures tell the story. I think at the last election he only won on preferences. He got less than
thirty two percent of the first preference vote. The Greens candid got twenty nine point seven, so only a few points behind. You know, had just another two thousand of McNamara's you know, ninety seven thousand odd voters put a number one against the Greens candidate instead of Labor. He wouldn't be the member for McNamara today, so hence his great concern that he doesn't lose any more voters to the Greens.
He's surely not the only voice feeling that way about the Greens, as anyone else within the party spoken out. Has it been a bigger division within the party over the gas statement.
Yes, there certainly has, and you know he was I think he would say the strongest, But there have been a number of others seven or eight I've kind of lost count have made public statements. I gather there are quite a lot of others who are similarly displeased with Madeline King, but expressing in private.
Six backbenches have told the ABC the government should be speeding up the transition away from fossil fuels.
What's interesting about this is if you have a look at where their seats are, almost all of those speaking out come from electorates where the Greens vote could be decisive. You know, I mentioned Macnamara Burns seat. But let's take another example from a person who had a bit to say. That's another Labor back bench of Michelle and Ander Raja.
One of those backbenches is Higgins MP, the Victorian seat of Higgins doctor Michelle Ananda Raja. Now, she said the announcement caught her by surprise. She said that she felt like she was blind sided by the announcement and.
She's a first term member of Parliament and she said that there was a total lack of consultation on this. It's a similar story a couple of seats to the north in an electorate of Jagga Jagger. The member there Kate twaits Jagger.
Now she says that her focus and the focus of the government has been on the transition to renewable energy, not prolonging fossil fuels. So certainly was some of the concerns raised by those back benches now.
Them to cite just a couple more Jed Carney and Peter Khalil, a couple more Melbourne seats. So I guess the point is here the Greens are breathing down Labour's neck in a number of seats. All of these members that are speaking out, they would all be very well aware that a key appeal of the Greens to these inner city voters is based in substantial measure on the concerns some voters have that Labor is not moving fast enough to exit fossil fuels.
So, Mike, with a number of Labor and PA speaking out like this, could this be a bit of a headache for the government.
I mean, for a start, Labor has the strongest rules of any of the parties on maintaining the party line. So even the fact that we're getting this commentary from backbenches at all is unusual. Even more unusual, I might say, is the fact that Jed Carney was one of them because she's not a backbencher, she's a minister as well
as a former president of the ACTU. But I think the bigger issue here is not so much the fact that people are speaking out as the political reality behind it, which is that on the gas issue in particular, Labor is trying to appeal to a couple of very different constituencies, you know, those in these progressive, mostly inner city electorates who are very concerned about climate change on the one hand, and then on the other hand, constituents in the big
mining states like Western Australia and Queensland. I think it's also interesting that many of those that went public used similar and somewhat vague rhetoric about moving to renewables as soon as possible, you know, that sort of thing. They didn't actually challenge the idea that gas might be around to twenty fifty or beyond. Also interesting is the fact
that they weren't slapped down by the leadership. Some people I spoke to suggested this and it was a nice phrase one used, sanctioned dissent, which is that the leadership knew that these MPs had to kick over the traces a little bit for the sake of their own future electoral survival, which of course ultimately means the survival of
the government as well. I guess so, you know, I want to be unduly cynical here, but I get the impression that, as one labor source put it to me, there are quite a lot of people in the party who are genuinely and this is a direct quote, pissed off at King for needlessly undermining the party's narrative on energy policy.
After the break. If it's causing internal headaches, what does the government get out of giving gas a future.
Mike?
It seems like the Greens are gearing up to fight labor over climate at the next federal election, which you know, no massive surprise there, but it seems like they might have a bit of new ammunition with this future gas strategy. So what are the Greens been saying?
Well, you're absolutely right. Last week Adam band, the Greens leader, held a press conference. Whatever one might think of Adam Bant's political views, he's a pretty cunning politician. I think, probably the most cunning politician that the Greens have had leading them, and he straight up challenged the lay Brean peace he'd spoken out. He called them grand standards.
This is a chance now to put your money where your mouth is and be on the right side of history. Stop approving you coal and gas mines. Come and vote with those of us in the Greens and on the cross bench who know the science, who want to stop seeing this climate crisis get worse. And if you don't, if they don't leave you, if your party doesn't let you, then quit your party, because it is crystal clear now.
He also fed the narrative. I think that they had engaged in a bit of expedy and authorized descent to use that phrase again, you know, he said, wasn't it a coincidence that they all coined their lines and that no one had come down on them for doing it?
Here I move that so much of standing in sessional orders be suspended as would prevent the Member from Melbourne from moving the following motion.
Adam mad the next day in Parliament moved a motion noting that the world was on track for two point five degrees of warming, and then he called for the House to condemn the future gas strategy.
It is vital that today we debate now and call on the government to stop approving new coal and gas mines, because what is crystal clear now after the announcement we've seen over the last few days, is that Labor wants coal and gas past twenty fifty. Past twenty fifty.
You know, it was just parliamentary theater, of course, but nonetheless it was very embarrassing in that it was a reminder that the Labor government really isn't all that different from its conservative predecessors in its willingness to open up more fossil fuel production. And so anyway, went to a vote and guess what, no Labor members voted for that
Greens motion. So in spite of the fact that they're speaking out, they're not taking the sort of action that the Greens would like and presumably that a lot of the constituents of their electorates would like to see.
Mike Labour's obviously given the Greens this kind of AMMO. But just play that out for me. What's in it for Labor, Like, what do they have to gain from this future gas strategy?
Well, let's have a look at the politics and understand what Madeline King's doing here. The first thing to notice that the future gas strategy it doesn't involve any new legislation or even really a change of policy, which is funny because it means we're having this big announcement in the first place. Seems like starting a fight for no reason, and a couple of the unhappy people put it to
me in exactly those terms. So you know, maybe you could say, being charitable about it, that Madeline King was trying to make the point that gas is an important bridge, a transition fuel on the path to renewables, and that she just communicated that clumsily. Possibly being a West Australian from one of the big fossil fuel states, she didn't fully appreciate the sensitivities on this issue elsewhere in the country. You know, Western Australia is a big resource state, Conservatives
tend to dominate. In fact, the probably the biggest surprise at the last election, the twenty twenty two election, was that Labour managed to gain so many seats in WA. If it wants to attain government, and remember it only holds government by a couple of seats, it will have to hold onto those gains in the West and it will have to pick up some in Queensland, the other big resource state. So you know, the future gas strategy has divided the country in a way and divided labor
along the way. It's toxic in the inner city seats in the Eastern States, but out in the provinces people are much more likely to support King's argument that fossil fuel resources are vitally important. And somewhere in the middle you have a lot of probably outer suburban seats where people are concerned about the climate but kind of like cooking on gas.
So, Mike, that's the political rationale for what's going on here. But what about the economic argument that gas is vital to transitioning to net zero, Because that's I mean, that's pretty much the policy position we're at now, does it stuck up?
Well, you're entirely right. It was the policy position before Madeline King put out her paper, and nothing's changed after the paper, which is what flummoxes me. I can't quite understand that necessity for it at all. The argument is that Australia needs access to reasonably priced gas to make the transition. But the truth here is that Australia has lots of gas, but we export eighty percent of the gas,
mostly to countries in Asia. China actually burns more Australian gas than Australias and now the solution that's being proposed is to dig up more gas. King lauded the fact that last financial year LNG liquefied natural gas exports were Australia's second largest export by value, and that they earned something like ninety two billion dollars and employed some twenty thousand people. Well, my first point would be twenty thousand people isn't really that many In the grand scheme of things.
Woolworth's employs ten times as many people as the gas industry. It is not very labor intensive. Meanwhile, China, Japan, South Korea are burning far more Australian gas than Australia does,
and global climate change continues apace. So if Madeline King is troubled by any of this, by the climate change consequences of mining lots more gas, by the fact that it is not want the economic bourn that it's portrayed to be, it certainly isn't apparent in her glowing portrayal of Australia's gas driven future in the strategy that she put out a week or so back.
Mike, thanks so much for your time today.
Thank you.
We'll have more after this break. Also in the news today, several Australians are still in hospital after a Singapore Airlines flight experienced major turbulence and was forced to land at Bangkok Airport. A seventy three year old British Man died and dozens more were injured, some seriously. Fifty six Australians were among the two hundred and eleven passengers and eighteen
crew on board the flight. There's a debate over whether climate change is contributing to more instances of severe turbulence. One recent study found turbulence in jetstreams may double or trouble over the coming decades. And Shadow treasurer Angus Taylor has unveiled the opposition's plans to bring down the cost of housing, putting immigration at the center of the coalition's policy.
During a speech at the National Press Club, Taylor promised a coalition government would temporarily ban foreign investors and temporary residents from buying existing homes. He also said that reduced permanent migration by twenty five percent for two years and cast out on economic modelings suggesting that could lead to a recession. That's all from the seven AM team for today. Thanks for listening. We'll see you again tomorrow.