Western Australia Liberals Vote to Reject Net Zero, Cut Back ‘Welcome to Country’

The Western Australian Liberals are the latest state division to drop aspirations of reaching net zero by 2050.

Wind turbines at the Albany Grasmere Wind Farm near the regional city of Albany, Western Australia, on Feb. 18, 2024. Susan Mortimer/The Epoch Times

The Western Australian (WA) division of the Liberal Party have voted to reject a number of contentious policies including support for net zero, and cutting back on Indigenous Welcome to Countries.

Party faithful met at the weekend for the WA Liberal State Council, where members voted in favour of rejecting Australia’s 2050 net zero target.

Attendees also voted in favour of the prime minister standing in front of only one flag—the Australian flag—during official announcements, rather than the current trio including the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander flags.

Andrew Hastie, federal Liberal MP for Canning fronted reporters to explain some of the decisions.

On dropping support for net zero, he said Australian leaders were holding back on coal and gas development, but were still sending it to India and China.

“So China, India, and the U.S. comprise more than 50 percent of the world’s emissions,” he told reporters on July 26.

“We export a lot of our coal and gas to India and China—both their emissions are growing year on year—and yet we deny coal and gas to the Australian people.

“Meanwhile, we’re buying Chinese made solar and wind, we’re ripping up arable land, we’re destroying our environment, and we’re getting more expensive power, which is hurting our productivity, it’s hurting our standard of living, and people are doing it really tough.”

The move from WA, along with similar decisions by the South Australian and Northern Territory Liberal Party divisions, puts pressure on Opposition Leader Sussan Ley to axe support for net zero federally.

Cutting Back on Welcome to Country, Symbolic Gestures

A motion was also passed by the Liberal state council to cut down the number of Indigenous Welcome to Country and Acknowledgement ceremonies.

“We should have integrity in our public utterances,” Hastie said, saying it was akin to a “religious symbol.”

“And when people treat it as a liturgy that means nothing, that’s what happens—it means nothing.

“So I think when we do Acknowledgement of Country, it’s got to be in the right context. It shouldn’t be said at every single meeting, whenever you land on a plane as some sort of genuflexion.”

Further, on the decision to back prioritising one Australian flag, Hastie said the official flag was the only one that “speaks to” every citizen.

“That’s what the symbols in our flag mean, it means parliamentary democracy, it means a federated country, and it means our unique southern hemisphere geography, and that’s why we’re affirming it,” he said.

“We shouldn’t be diluting the strength of our flag, we should be affirming it.”