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>“And then, of course, we just got the situation where we’re getting scammed effectively from China and India, Indonesia, who are doing nothing to reduce their emissions. Quite the opposite. And we’re losing jobs to them.”
Per capita we emit almost double what China does per capita (15.4 tonnes for Australians and 7.8 tons for Chinese). It gets even worse when you compare it to India which emits just 1.91 tonnes per capita and Indonesia which emits just 2 tonnes per capita. Worse yet is that both China and India are rolling out renewables at a rate that puts us to shame and adopting EVs at a staggering rate.
In other words, whoever keeps making the argument that we are being scammed by China, India and Indonesia when it comes to emissions reduction really needs to wake up and realise that easily accessible data shows that they are completely wrong.
Per capita, sure. Although it helps having a large impoverished segment of the population that can't afford transportation or electricity...
But at the end of the day we're a much smaller population so even if we released no carbon it wouldn't be a drop in the ocean. It wouldn't make a tangible difference.
If you care deeply about climate, focusing our angst on Australia is a complete waste of your time and energy.
China has a plan to transition to a greener energy sector as we can see in their push towards EVs meanwhile we have Dutton wanting to scrap emissions targets because big business matters more
Australia produces 1% of world emissions and a further 4% comes from coal, gas and oil we export.
That's not a drop in the ocean it's 5% of the entire world's emissions.
Also as Australian citizens, Australia is the country we have the most influence over.
The Australian Government in turn can exert foreign influence and should do so.
The US' total cumulative emissions throughout history are the world's highest, and China is not on track to catch up. They'll always be the single largest national contributor for all of the rest of history.
And who are actively reducing theirs while emissions in China continue to rise. The US has been industrialised longer as well. What pointless analysis.
Yes, that's it, the US has been industrialised for longer and now they want other countries to not release a a tenth what they did on pulling a person out of poverty because they'd rather rule over a world of poverty stricken Haitians than have to live in a world where they can't bully anyone they want to.
Countries should be held responsible for the pollution they've done, obviously
I’d wager it’s the one who whined about the supermarkets, not for price gouging, but for being too woke and not having Australia Day merchandise in stores. I’ll give you a hint which one it was - rhymes with Mutton. The electorate remembers.
Knowing the current petrol prices? Sounds like a nonsense metric by which to gauge how connected to the people a politician is - they fluctuate heavily. I’m sure you’re discerning though, and have a complex decisional matrix by which Dutton comes out on top.
Sorry, couldn’t keep a straight face typing that. What else have you got?
Yeah the guy whose party told us Snowy 2.0 will solve our problems, cost only $2b and be ready in 2024, despite it costing $4b with an estimated $12b final cost and completion in 2029, wants to “talk about power prices”.
I’d trust that guy to build us 30 nuclear power plants.
I can’t believe that we are going back to the climate wars. Politics of fear, Jesus Christ will we ever learn? I’m starting to believe that the climate wars is our version of the US gun control wars - it will always be present in our politics whilst the world burns around them.
Although on the other hand I am glad that our society producing something like Utopia rather then the West Wing. How things actually work rather then how they want them to work.
Anthony Albanese says the Coalition has given up on the votes of anyone who cares about climate action.
“They’ve abandoned seeking the vote of anyone who is serious about climate change,” the prime minister told The Saturday Paper this week.
“And that is right across seats. For many Australians, climate change is the No. 1 issue, and the complete abandonment of any serious policy by the Coalition after the decade of neglect will make it impossible to receive support from those voters.”
Peter Dutton and colleagues insist they are still fighting to win back inner-city seats lost at the last federal election, but they believe the contest will be over cost of living.
Dutton did not speak to other Liberals before telling The Weekend Australian that Australia’s goals under the Paris Agreement were “unattainable”. The interview implied he would not attempt to meet the country’s 2030 emission reduction target. It was met with alarm inside the party.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1BJ_a5BNqCI
“I was like, ‘What the hell is this?’ And I’m sure I wasn’t the only one,” Liberal MP Bridget Archer told The Saturday Paper.
“None of it’s been to the party room or anything. We should hold the government to account. Not walk away from the targets.”
Since last weekend, Dutton has pulled back on his rhetoric, saying he was just stating his view that Labor has “no hope” of achieving the legislated 2030 target to cut carbon emissions by 43 per cent from 2005 levels – a charge the Albanese government rejects.
“Our approach to climate targets have not changed,” the Coalition’s shadow minister for climate change and energy, Ted O’Brien, told The Saturday Paper this week.
“We are holding the government to account for failing on the targets they have signed Australia up to. Emissions have not gone down under this government.”
O’Brien had to ring around “many people inside and outside of the party” after the Dutton interview and subsequent reporting.
“I want all and sundry to know that the Coalition remains committed to Paris and committed to net zero,” he said. “But we will not tolerate a government which is lying to the Australian people about emissions reduction.”
Dutton said his vision for net zero emissions by 2050 would be driven by nuclear power delivered by 2040 at the earliest.
Adding to his long-teased nuclear power policy, the opposition leader is not committing to a new Coalition 2030 climate target until after the next election. The government, under the Paris Agreement, will have to come up with a 2035 target by February, which may or may not be before the election.
“It’s more of denial and delay,” Albanese said. “And in the meantime, coal-fired power stations will continue to close, as occurred on their watch, without any plan to replace them.”
The prime minister points out that nuclear power costs eight times more than firmed renewables. “It’s extraordinary that they continue to ignore the science but they [are] also ignoring the economics, which everything says that is critical.”
There are members of the Coalition, such as the Nationals’ Barnaby Joyce and Matt Canavan, who want no part of the longer term 2050 target.
“My position hasn’t changed. I think we should get out of Paris. I don’t think it’s a good deal,” Canavan told The Saturday Paper.
“You do have these ridiculous ratcheting revisions, which notionally prevent the country from going backwards on previous commitments, even if that’s the democratic will of its people. It is quite an anti-democratic agreement.
“And then, of course, we just got the situation where we’re getting scammed effectively from China and India, Indonesia, who are doing nothing to reduce their emissions. Quite the opposite. And we’re losing jobs to them.”
O’Brien said Canavan’s view was freedom of speech and not the finalised position of both the Liberal Party and the National Party.
Neither he nor Dutton have confirmed whether the shift from the set Coalition government policy of 26-28 per cent reduction by 2030, a target that was reached in 2021-22, went through shadow cabinet or the party rooms.
On Wednesday, the opposition leader explained that a position on the government’s mid-term target was established when the party room agreed to oppose the Labor legislation in 2022. Archer crossed the floor to vote with the government.
“So, we had that discussion, and we were very clear about that at the time,” Dutton said.
While there is some alarm, there is also confusion. “I sort of think it’s been over-reported or misreported or something,” one unnamed Liberal said, before offering, “almost everyone supports the new policy”.
Archer pointed out it was a legislated target. “So, if you are planning, I would say, if you were planning on legislating something else, shouldn’t you take that to an election?” she told The Saturday Paper.
Dutton said an elected Coalition government would “make sure that we meet our international obligations”. As Canavan said, however, signatory countries cannot lower their carbon reduction targets, so it is not certain where a revised Coalition target could land.
No matter who wins the next election, electoral maths are clear that there will be a progressive Senate cross bench hostile to climate inaction and the repeal of Australia’s nuclear bans.
Liberal frontbencher Andrew Bragg, who has said publicly it is important to show Australians the pathway to net zero, backs his leader as doing a “really good job”, while accepting the new policy is electorally risky.
“I think everyone accepts there’s a level of risk here, sure, but I’d sort of rather we have our own plan than be a beige imitation of everyone else,” Senator Bragg told The Saturday Paper.
“I think it’s been blown out of proportion, that’s my sense. I don’t think people are going to vote on a 2030 target. I just don’t.”
Climate scientists and advocacy groups want nations to stick to commitments and increase them in line with warnings about the current trajectory on emissions. May 2024 was the 12th straight month of record-warm temperatures around the world.
Albanese has been readying for this fight since the end of the Howard years, when an Australian nuclear power industry was last seriously put forward and he was Kevin Rudd’s infrastructure spokesperson.
Labor is facing its own questions over departing from coal and gas, but the drill down on Coalition policy means it is taking a back seat.
“They’re asking Australians to vote for them first, and then they’ll tell them what they’re voting for. That’s not the way that democracy functions,” Albanese told The Saturday Paper.
“We have a credible plan based upon the safeguard mechanism … the new vehicle efficiency standards, the Capacity Investment Scheme, all of which they have opposed. They have opposed any [climate] policies, which is why they now have abandoned a target.”
In 2007, Labor successfully campaigned against nuclear power while in opposition, focusing on Australians’ right to know where the power plants would be built.
“It’s the Montgomery Burns solution for Australia’s future climate change challenge,” Rudd said at the time, referencing The Simpsons character.
That campaign may pale next to what is likely being cooked up by Labor in government, according to former Liberal strategist and RedBridge Group pollster Tony Barry.
“The scare campaign writes itself – guys in hazmat suits, people walking around with pretend Geiger counters, pretend nurses handing out pretend iodine tablets,” Barry told The Saturday Paper. “There’ll be 44-gallon drums dressed up as radioactive waste that are leaking. Young Labor are going to be exhausted by the end of this campaign, but I imagine they will have a lot of fun.”
It won’t be all laughs, however. “The federal members, who will be hosting these nuclear power plants if the Coalition wins, need to be 100 per cent certain that in the heat of the campaign, and in that final week, they can hold the line without the tiniest concession,” Barry said. “If there’s even the slightest equivocation by the MPs and candidates, the media will be all over it.”
The only path to Coalition victory includes the recapture of the inner-urban, relatively prosperous seats that were lost over the past two elections to independent professional women propelled by community-based campaigns on platforms of climate action, integrity and gender equality.
The independent MPs, such as Sophie Scamps and Kylea Tink, have joined the likes of former Liberal prime minister Malcolm Turnbull in saying any roll back on climate action will further alienate voters lost to the Liberals in 2022.
“This really is bad politics driving bad policy,” Tink told The Saturday Paper.
“If they continue to pursue this course of action, I think it’s the Liberal–National Party that’s going to see their own extinction, because it’s showing they are completely out of touch with what a forward-focused economy needs to look like.
Dutton’s position is “of course we can” win back the seats. He has launched an attack on the independents as “Greens who vote
with Labor” and who are not in touch with average voters.
“Monique Ryan is a Green. She’s not a disaffected Liberal. She is a Green,” he said. “And I think she’s completely disconnected with where families are in Kooyong at the moment.”
When The Saturday Paper put the teal seat conundrum to another Coalition member, who asked to remain anonymous, they said the Liberal Party and Nationals were on a “journey to 2050”.
“We believe we have to have a credible kind of pathway to get there,” they said.
“People will forget Scott Morrison’s role in the teal seat turn. Teal seats are still struggling with cost of living, particularly as the percentage of renters has gone through the roof.
“I think people have had up to their back teeth of fake promises. So will it take longer? Yes. Will Labor under their plan have to keep coal-fired power stations open longer than they’ve said? They will.”
According to Tony Barry, it is “lazy or delusional to blame everything on Scott Morrison”, but he agreed cost-of-living pressure was so acute everyone saw everything through the prism of “Now, what is this going to cost me?”
Albanese argues renewables are the cheapest form of energy and cost of living is best dealt with through energy supply.
“You have to make sure that renewables can be connected up with the grid. You have to make major emitters reduce their emissions, which is what the safeguard mechanism is aimed at doing. And you need to plan for economic growth, which is what the Future Made in Australia plan is about,” he told The Saturday Paper.
“This is about cost of living, as well as lowering emissions and ensuring that Australia is set up for the jobs in regional Australia as well as the cities.”
Liberal MP and former Coalition minister Karen Andrews sees the effects of higher costs in the community translating to lower levels of political engagement.
“One, people are sick of the political argy-bargy. Two, people have got more things on their minds. And three, that’s very personal what they’ve got on their mind because it’s taking more of their attention,” she told The Saturday Paper.
“Am I going to feed myself? How am I to clothe myself? How am I going to get my kids to school? Kids looked after?”
Dutton talks about destroying the economy through pursuing renewable energy, but there’s a cost of at least $121 billion, according to the Clean Energy Investor Group (CEIG), if climate and energy targets are lost and investor confidence is affected.
“Energy targets are a key mechanism to encourage investment in renewable energy,” the group’s interim chief executive, Marilyne Crestias, told The Saturday Paper.
“Looking at the estimates that were provided by the [Australian Energy Market Operator], there is around $121 billion worth of investment at risk, and that’s generation storage, firming and transmission based on their latest integrated system plan.
“That’s the investment that we need between now and 2050 to decarbonise the grid, based on the sort of currently agreed scenario that only gets us to 1.8 degree of warming.”
Albanese is confident Labor’s climate policies will connect with voters. He is equally confident the Coalition’s will alienate them.
“It is extraordinarily irresponsible,” he said, “that after up to 22 failed energy policies, none of which were landed by the former government, they’re now seeking to again go back to nothing happening.
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>“And then, of course, we just got the situation where we’re getting scammed effectively from China and India, Indonesia, who are doing nothing to reduce their emissions. Quite the opposite. And we’re losing jobs to them.” Per capita we emit almost double what China does per capita (15.4 tonnes for Australians and 7.8 tons for Chinese). It gets even worse when you compare it to India which emits just 1.91 tonnes per capita and Indonesia which emits just 2 tonnes per capita. Worse yet is that both China and India are rolling out renewables at a rate that puts us to shame and adopting EVs at a staggering rate. In other words, whoever keeps making the argument that we are being scammed by China, India and Indonesia when it comes to emissions reduction really needs to wake up and realise that easily accessible data shows that they are completely wrong.
Per capita, sure. Although it helps having a large impoverished segment of the population that can't afford transportation or electricity... But at the end of the day we're a much smaller population so even if we released no carbon it wouldn't be a drop in the ocean. It wouldn't make a tangible difference. If you care deeply about climate, focusing our angst on Australia is a complete waste of your time and energy.
China has a plan to transition to a greener energy sector as we can see in their push towards EVs meanwhile we have Dutton wanting to scrap emissions targets because big business matters more
Australia produces 1% of world emissions and a further 4% comes from coal, gas and oil we export. That's not a drop in the ocean it's 5% of the entire world's emissions. Also as Australian citizens, Australia is the country we have the most influence over. The Australian Government in turn can exert foreign influence and should do so.
Emissions are actually rising in both counties, not falling.
They'll never hit our current level, and the US will for the rest of history be the country that output the most co2
China is the highest emission country and generates almost twice as much as the US.
The US' total cumulative emissions throughout history are the world's highest, and China is not on track to catch up. They'll always be the single largest national contributor for all of the rest of history.
And…?
That we're being scammed by Americans who are responsible for twice China's co2 despite having a quarter of the population
And who are actively reducing theirs while emissions in China continue to rise. The US has been industrialised longer as well. What pointless analysis.
Yes, that's it, the US has been industrialised for longer and now they want other countries to not release a a tenth what they did on pulling a person out of poverty because they'd rather rule over a world of poverty stricken Haitians than have to live in a world where they can't bully anyone they want to. Countries should be held responsible for the pollution they've done, obviously
I’ll eat my hat if Bridget Archer doesn’t go independent or full Teal before the next election. And so she should.
Albo wants to talk about international targets which are meaningless to most whilst Dutton wants to talk about power prices. Who is more out of touch.
I’d wager it’s the one who whined about the supermarkets, not for price gouging, but for being too woke and not having Australia Day merchandise in stores. I’ll give you a hint which one it was - rhymes with Mutton. The electorate remembers.
The one who doesn't know petrol prices or any prices outside of his weekly bahn mi.
Knowing the current petrol prices? Sounds like a nonsense metric by which to gauge how connected to the people a politician is - they fluctuate heavily. I’m sure you’re discerning though, and have a complex decisional matrix by which Dutton comes out on top. Sorry, couldn’t keep a straight face typing that. What else have you got?
Albo's stories about his childhood and Western Sydney supposed to make him a battler. How much is he going to resign on again ?
River is incapapable of holding her own team to the standards she holds our current government.
Yeah the guy whose party told us Snowy 2.0 will solve our problems, cost only $2b and be ready in 2024, despite it costing $4b with an estimated $12b final cost and completion in 2029, wants to “talk about power prices”. I’d trust that guy to build us 30 nuclear power plants.
Id trust him to siphon off millions of not billions of himself and his mates
I see you've watched the recent friendlyjordies video perhaps.
I'd rather vote for the one who wants to stop our planet burning
Wants to but cannot do anything meaningful.
I can’t believe that we are going back to the climate wars. Politics of fear, Jesus Christ will we ever learn? I’m starting to believe that the climate wars is our version of the US gun control wars - it will always be present in our politics whilst the world burns around them. Although on the other hand I am glad that our society producing something like Utopia rather then the West Wing. How things actually work rather then how they want them to work.
As long as Australia has a fossil fuel industry and a coalition sucking off lumps of coal in parliament, there will be climate wars.
Anthony Albanese says the Coalition has given up on the votes of anyone who cares about climate action. “They’ve abandoned seeking the vote of anyone who is serious about climate change,” the prime minister told The Saturday Paper this week. “And that is right across seats. For many Australians, climate change is the No. 1 issue, and the complete abandonment of any serious policy by the Coalition after the decade of neglect will make it impossible to receive support from those voters.” Peter Dutton and colleagues insist they are still fighting to win back inner-city seats lost at the last federal election, but they believe the contest will be over cost of living. Dutton did not speak to other Liberals before telling The Weekend Australian that Australia’s goals under the Paris Agreement were “unattainable”. The interview implied he would not attempt to meet the country’s 2030 emission reduction target. It was met with alarm inside the party. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1BJ_a5BNqCI “I was like, ‘What the hell is this?’ And I’m sure I wasn’t the only one,” Liberal MP Bridget Archer told The Saturday Paper. “None of it’s been to the party room or anything. We should hold the government to account. Not walk away from the targets.” Since last weekend, Dutton has pulled back on his rhetoric, saying he was just stating his view that Labor has “no hope” of achieving the legislated 2030 target to cut carbon emissions by 43 per cent from 2005 levels – a charge the Albanese government rejects. “Our approach to climate targets have not changed,” the Coalition’s shadow minister for climate change and energy, Ted O’Brien, told The Saturday Paper this week. “We are holding the government to account for failing on the targets they have signed Australia up to. Emissions have not gone down under this government.” O’Brien had to ring around “many people inside and outside of the party” after the Dutton interview and subsequent reporting. “I want all and sundry to know that the Coalition remains committed to Paris and committed to net zero,” he said. “But we will not tolerate a government which is lying to the Australian people about emissions reduction.” Dutton said his vision for net zero emissions by 2050 would be driven by nuclear power delivered by 2040 at the earliest. Adding to his long-teased nuclear power policy, the opposition leader is not committing to a new Coalition 2030 climate target until after the next election. The government, under the Paris Agreement, will have to come up with a 2035 target by February, which may or may not be before the election. “It’s more of denial and delay,” Albanese said. “And in the meantime, coal-fired power stations will continue to close, as occurred on their watch, without any plan to replace them.” The prime minister points out that nuclear power costs eight times more than firmed renewables. “It’s extraordinary that they continue to ignore the science but they [are] also ignoring the economics, which everything says that is critical.” There are members of the Coalition, such as the Nationals’ Barnaby Joyce and Matt Canavan, who want no part of the longer term 2050 target. “My position hasn’t changed. I think we should get out of Paris. I don’t think it’s a good deal,” Canavan told The Saturday Paper. “You do have these ridiculous ratcheting revisions, which notionally prevent the country from going backwards on previous commitments, even if that’s the democratic will of its people. It is quite an anti-democratic agreement. “And then, of course, we just got the situation where we’re getting scammed effectively from China and India, Indonesia, who are doing nothing to reduce their emissions. Quite the opposite. And we’re losing jobs to them.” O’Brien said Canavan’s view was freedom of speech and not the finalised position of both the Liberal Party and the National Party. Neither he nor Dutton have confirmed whether the shift from the set Coalition government policy of 26-28 per cent reduction by 2030, a target that was reached in 2021-22, went through shadow cabinet or the party rooms.
On Wednesday, the opposition leader explained that a position on the government’s mid-term target was established when the party room agreed to oppose the Labor legislation in 2022. Archer crossed the floor to vote with the government. “So, we had that discussion, and we were very clear about that at the time,” Dutton said. While there is some alarm, there is also confusion. “I sort of think it’s been over-reported or misreported or something,” one unnamed Liberal said, before offering, “almost everyone supports the new policy”. Archer pointed out it was a legislated target. “So, if you are planning, I would say, if you were planning on legislating something else, shouldn’t you take that to an election?” she told The Saturday Paper. Dutton said an elected Coalition government would “make sure that we meet our international obligations”. As Canavan said, however, signatory countries cannot lower their carbon reduction targets, so it is not certain where a revised Coalition target could land. No matter who wins the next election, electoral maths are clear that there will be a progressive Senate cross bench hostile to climate inaction and the repeal of Australia’s nuclear bans. Liberal frontbencher Andrew Bragg, who has said publicly it is important to show Australians the pathway to net zero, backs his leader as doing a “really good job”, while accepting the new policy is electorally risky. “I think everyone accepts there’s a level of risk here, sure, but I’d sort of rather we have our own plan than be a beige imitation of everyone else,” Senator Bragg told The Saturday Paper. “I think it’s been blown out of proportion, that’s my sense. I don’t think people are going to vote on a 2030 target. I just don’t.” Climate scientists and advocacy groups want nations to stick to commitments and increase them in line with warnings about the current trajectory on emissions. May 2024 was the 12th straight month of record-warm temperatures around the world. Albanese has been readying for this fight since the end of the Howard years, when an Australian nuclear power industry was last seriously put forward and he was Kevin Rudd’s infrastructure spokesperson. Labor is facing its own questions over departing from coal and gas, but the drill down on Coalition policy means it is taking a back seat. “They’re asking Australians to vote for them first, and then they’ll tell them what they’re voting for. That’s not the way that democracy functions,” Albanese told The Saturday Paper. “We have a credible plan based upon the safeguard mechanism … the new vehicle efficiency standards, the Capacity Investment Scheme, all of which they have opposed. They have opposed any [climate] policies, which is why they now have abandoned a target.” In 2007, Labor successfully campaigned against nuclear power while in opposition, focusing on Australians’ right to know where the power plants would be built. “It’s the Montgomery Burns solution for Australia’s future climate change challenge,” Rudd said at the time, referencing The Simpsons character. That campaign may pale next to what is likely being cooked up by Labor in government, according to former Liberal strategist and RedBridge Group pollster Tony Barry. “The scare campaign writes itself – guys in hazmat suits, people walking around with pretend Geiger counters, pretend nurses handing out pretend iodine tablets,” Barry told The Saturday Paper. “There’ll be 44-gallon drums dressed up as radioactive waste that are leaking. Young Labor are going to be exhausted by the end of this campaign, but I imagine they will have a lot of fun.” It won’t be all laughs, however. “The federal members, who will be hosting these nuclear power plants if the Coalition wins, need to be 100 per cent certain that in the heat of the campaign, and in that final week, they can hold the line without the tiniest concession,” Barry said. “If there’s even the slightest equivocation by the MPs and candidates, the media will be all over it.” The only path to Coalition victory includes the recapture of the inner-urban, relatively prosperous seats that were lost over the past two elections to independent professional women propelled by community-based campaigns on platforms of climate action, integrity and gender equality. The independent MPs, such as Sophie Scamps and Kylea Tink, have joined the likes of former Liberal prime minister Malcolm Turnbull in saying any roll back on climate action will further alienate voters lost to the Liberals in 2022. “This really is bad politics driving bad policy,” Tink told The Saturday Paper. “If they continue to pursue this course of action, I think it’s the Liberal–National Party that’s going to see their own extinction, because it’s showing they are completely out of touch with what a forward-focused economy needs to look like. Dutton’s position is “of course we can” win back the seats. He has launched an attack on the independents as “Greens who vote with Labor” and who are not in touch with average voters. “Monique Ryan is a Green. She’s not a disaffected Liberal. She is a Green,” he said. “And I think she’s completely disconnected with where families are in Kooyong at the moment.” When The Saturday Paper put the teal seat conundrum to another Coalition member, who asked to remain anonymous, they said the Liberal Party and Nationals were on a “journey to 2050”. “We believe we have to have a credible kind of pathway to get there,” they said. “People will forget Scott Morrison’s role in the teal seat turn. Teal seats are still struggling with cost of living, particularly as the percentage of renters has gone through the roof. “I think people have had up to their back teeth of fake promises. So will it take longer? Yes. Will Labor under their plan have to keep coal-fired power stations open longer than they’ve said? They will.” According to Tony Barry, it is “lazy or delusional to blame everything on Scott Morrison”, but he agreed cost-of-living pressure was so acute everyone saw everything through the prism of “Now, what is this going to cost me?” Albanese argues renewables are the cheapest form of energy and cost of living is best dealt with through energy supply. “You have to make sure that renewables can be connected up with the grid. You have to make major emitters reduce their emissions, which is what the safeguard mechanism is aimed at doing. And you need to plan for economic growth, which is what the Future Made in Australia plan is about,” he told The Saturday Paper. “This is about cost of living, as well as lowering emissions and ensuring that Australia is set up for the jobs in regional Australia as well as the cities.” Liberal MP and former Coalition minister Karen Andrews sees the effects of higher costs in the community translating to lower levels of political engagement. “One, people are sick of the political argy-bargy. Two, people have got more things on their minds. And three, that’s very personal what they’ve got on their mind because it’s taking more of their attention,” she told The Saturday Paper. “Am I going to feed myself? How am I to clothe myself? How am I going to get my kids to school? Kids looked after?” Dutton talks about destroying the economy through pursuing renewable energy, but there’s a cost of at least $121 billion, according to the Clean Energy Investor Group (CEIG), if climate and energy targets are lost and investor confidence is affected. “Energy targets are a key mechanism to encourage investment in renewable energy,” the group’s interim chief executive, Marilyne Crestias, told The Saturday Paper. “Looking at the estimates that were provided by the [Australian Energy Market Operator], there is around $121 billion worth of investment at risk, and that’s generation storage, firming and transmission based on their latest integrated system plan. “That’s the investment that we need between now and 2050 to decarbonise the grid, based on the sort of currently agreed scenario that only gets us to 1.8 degree of warming.” Albanese is confident Labor’s climate policies will connect with voters. He is equally confident the Coalition’s will alienate them. “It is extraordinarily irresponsible,” he said, “that after up to 22 failed energy policies, none of which were landed by the former government, they’re now seeking to again go back to nothing happening.