The treasurer, Jim Chalmers, has attempted to head off a caucus backlash against the Albanese government’s future gas strategy by promising there “won’t be any new money” for the plan in next week’s budget.
The resources minister, Madeleine King, released the government’s gas roadmap on Wednesday, which sets out plans for gas to be used in Australia to 2050 and beyond, including the exploration and opening of new gas fields as a priority.
However, the announcement created rumblings within the Labor caucus, with five inner city MPs – Josh Burns, Josh Wilson, Sally Sitou, Ged Kearney and Jerome Laxale – publicly criticising the strategy as taking focus away from the government’s climate plan.
Burns, who was the first to break ranks, told ABC radio on Friday morning he felt blindsided by the announcement and wasn’t in politics to “be a support mechanism for the fossil fuel industry”.
The Macnamara MP will be facing off a Greens challenge at the next election, but said he was thinking of his young family and daughter and the world she would inherit and said the government needed to hasten the transition to renewable energy.
“I’m under no illusion that we have a responsibility to make sure that Australians have electricity, that they have power, that they have affordable power,” he said.
“But also what are the levers the government has and how do we use them to ensure that the transition to low-emissions future is happening as quickly as possible? And that is my focus, and that is what I believe the Labor party needs to focus on as well.”
The Greens leader, Adam Bandt, said that if Labor’s backbenchers were truly concerned, they would back their words with action, otherwise he said their “crocodile tears” were just “grandstanding”.
“To all those grandstanding backbenchers who say all of a sudden that they’re concerned about Labor approving new coal and gas mines come and vote with the Greens against approving new coal and gas mines,” he said.
“And if a Labor Party won’t let you do it, then quit the Labor Party and come and vote with the Greens in parliament against approving new coal and gas projects. Otherwise, everything else is just grandstanding.”
The government says it remains committed to its emissions reduction targets and will offset gas emissions through abatement technology such as carbon capture and storage. But climate and environmental groups remain unconvinced, arguing Australia can not meet its climate goals while opening new fossil fuel sites.
Chalmers attempted to allay the backbench concerns by saying the budget was focused on Australia “becoming a renewable energy superpower” and the net zero transformation.
“Some of the issues that have been raised in the last 24 hours or so, for example, have gone to public investment,” he said on Friday.
“There won’t be any new money for the future gas strategy in the budget on Tuesday but there will be billions of dollars in investment in our renewable future. And I think that should assure and reassure people who want, like I do, a renewable future for this country, where the government’s priorities lie. But we need to be realistic about the role for gas in the interim.”
However, the government has already telegraphed the budget will include $566m over 10 years for GeoScience Australia to map Australia’s soil and seabed and provide the findings free to industry as part of the gasfield exploration focus, as well as $100m to help companies speed up environmental approvals.
That is on top of the $1.5bn which has been committed to the controversial Middle Arm gas project in the Northern Territory. That spending was set up under the Morrison government as part of its “gas-led recovery” plan but survived the Albanese government budget razor gang when Labor won power.
The foreign affairs minister, Penny Wong, said she agreed with concerned Labor backbenchers that Australia needed to decarbonise, and said the government remained committed to that goal.
“I‘ve just recently been in the last couple of days in Tuvalu, a Pacific Island country with whom Australia has signed a landmark treaty, and the point I made there is we have a very large ship to turn around,” she told ABC radio.
“We are seeking to move from, I think a couple of years ago, just over 30% of renewables in our electricity grid to in excess of 80% by the end of the decade.
“Now that is a big transition, it is an ambitious transition, and there is only one party of government committed to doing it.”
