The Point Live: Coalition clash on net zero all but guaranteed - as it happened.

The person I feel for most of all as we wrap up the day is the speaker of the New Zealand parliament, Gerry Brownlee.

Poor old Gerry, a veteran of kiwi politics and speaker since 2023, was forced to sit through a thoroughly uninspiring question time as part of his visit to Australia’s House of Representatives today.

The poor bugger didn’t have a bench to stretch out on, a desk to hide behind or even somewhere he could have a sneaky peek at stuff.co.nz on his phone.

He was propped on a tiny chair, just a couple of metres from speaker Milton Dick’s throne.

Hopefully, Milton takes him out for a decent meal at one of Canberra’s finest establishments tonight.

And on that bombshell, it’s time to wrap up for the day.

Amy will be back on deck in the morning when, hopefully, we can forget the polls and the Nats’ net zero nonsense … and talk about something positive – like fixing the nation’s environmental laws.

Over and out.

So, will net zero really cost $9 trillion to Australia?

In a word: no.

The figure, now commonly cited by right-wing outlets like the IPA, originally came from a 2023 report from Net Zero Australia, a partnership of three universities that conducts research into net zero pathways.

Their 2023 study did say that achieving net zero required Australia to “attract and invest $7-9 trillion of capital to 2060 from international and domestic sources”. But it is nonsensical to use this number in the way Littleproud has, for three main reasons:

1. This is total capital investment, not government spending

The $7-9 trillion is the total of all the money invested my private companies building wind farms, homeowners installing rooftop solar, and someone switching to an electric vehicle when they’re due for an upgrade.

This money is also an investment, so Australia will get trillions of dollars worth of assets out the other end.

It’s pretty misleading to pretend this will cost government budgets $9 trillion, so net zero will not, as Littleproud claimed, “put things like Medicare at risk”.

2. Net cost not gross cost

The $7-9 trillion figure is only the “cost” of net zero if the alternative is zero spending on energy infrastructure, by anyone. That would mean no spending on energy generation, power lines, or even cars (including petrol) – not a realistic scenario.

Perhaps realising that their $7-9 trillion figure was easy to use in bad faith by those opposed to renewable energy, Net Zero Australia updated the figure in their 2025 report. Accounting for the capital costs of doing nothing, they now estimate that “$1.6 trillion capital investment must be unlocked to achieve net zero by 2050”. This is a fraction of the number Littleproud has been using.

According to the 2025 figure, Australia would only need an additional $64 billion in investment per year – an eminently achievable task in a country with a $1.8 trillion GDP and $735 billion government revenue annually.

3. It does not account for the costs of unmitigated climate change

Even this price tag does not take into account the costs of inaction, such as managing climate disasters. The National Climate Risk Assessment released earlier this year estimated that increased natural disasters alone would cost the Government $40 billion dollars annually.

Verdict: Gross misrepresentation.

You can read the full fact-check here.

Nationals Senate Leader Bridget McKenzie says the Libs and Nats are always stronger in coalition, but insists they shouldn’t stay in a rocky relationship “at any cost”.

“I think I country is best served by strong coalition government and we have seen that for the entirety that Liberal Party has been in existence, obviously the National Party and Country Party have been around for over a century. It’s not at any cost,” Senator McKenzie has just told the ABC.

“We have been unequivocal in having a strong foundation to make this decision, we have not taken lightly. We believe we can do this a better way, low emissions without trashing our economy and environment. That’s a responsible decision to make. Again I don’t think it is helpful to the Liberal Party or the coalition ‘s longer term prospects for a senior leader in the National Party to be giving them gratuitous advice.”

When asked if this was the hill she was prepared to die on, she said, “these are the big questions when you are in these positions of leadership about making – are you going to make the self-interested call or are you going to do what you genuinely believe is in the best interest of the people.”

“We are not getting out of the Paris Agreement. We are getting out of net zero by 2050 because it is not in our national interest and if your viewers are interested in the data underpinning that, we are very happy to share the report if they contact my office.”

Share a report on climate policy by Matt Canavan and Ross Cadell?

No thanks. We’ll just stick to the science.

The great Mike Bowers kept an eye on the opposition leadership team during question time.

Who’s plotting? Who’s helping? And who’s practicing their signature for the coalition divorce papers?

Tony Pasin is hardly what you’d call a big hitter among the federal Liberals.

Fresh from his shameful foray into the Baby Priya’s Law debate last week, he’s not only backed the National Party’s net zero backflip – he’s celebrated it.

“The Nationals have done some really good work,” he’s just told Sky.

“Australians want us to do our fair share. They want emissions to be pushed down but they don’t want to lead the world.”

Spoken like a true 2025 Liberal. Why on earth would you want to lead, when you can lazily follow?

Even better, lazily follow the so-called junior coalition partner into a policy that drags the knuckle-draggers even further towards political oblivion.

Genius.

“I personally hope we can come to a position sooner rather than later. I think the National Party have led the way. We’ve embarked on our own process.”

“I think Friday’s meeting was constructive. It did exactly what I thought it would do, which is highlight to colleagues that there’s much more we have in common than we disagree on. And that I think there’s a real opportunity to come very close to the National Party position.”

The Climate Council has delivered a scathing assessment of the National Party’s decision to backflip on net zero.

It says abandoning net zero would cost the nation up to $423 billion and hurt those in Nationals heartland most.

Amanda McKenzie, Climate Council CEO

Abandoning net zero means abandoning a safer future for Australians. It means worsening, climate-driven floods, fires and heatwaves. Communities will pay a high price, particularly in the regions.

This is about more than just chaos in the Coalition. In the real world, a net
zero backflip aligns with more than 3°C of global heating that would cost farmers and regional
towns billions of dollars in damage. The Nationals must explain how they’ll pay for the soaring
insurance premiums, recovery bills and freight costs when escalating disasters strike regional
communities.

The Climate Council says abandoning net zero would:

• Reduce economic output by $135-423 billion by 2063, with workers hampered by
  extreme heat.
• Increase Australian Government spending on disaster recovery up to 7 times by 2090
• Make more than 1.3 million Australian homes (8.8%) likely uninsurable by 2100
• Double freight costs for regional communities in WA, NT And Qld
• Dent property values by more than half a trillion dollars by 2050

The PM is probably thinking he could have stayed a few extra days in Gyeongju enjoying some fine Korean cuisine.

From net zero to Newspoll, the coalition is a rabble and its abject uselessness was brutally laid bare over the past 75 minutes.

Not a single opposition question forced Anthony Albanese away from his cost-of-living talking points.

When the Shadow Treasurer tapped in, he was quickly kicked out.

If ever there was an example of a government in cruise control with not even a hint of parliamentary scrutiny from the ‘opposition’, that was it.

The crossbench questioned the government on climate change, energy and arts policy, but it appeared to have offered the courtesy of advance notice, therefore received polite, yet flat-bat, responses.

Either way, the Teals, Greens and Independents are the nearest thing we’ve got MPs trying to hold the government to account.

In cricketing terms, we’re dreaming of the Ashes, but at the moment question time is more like Australia versus Scotland A.

Andrew Wilkie, Member for Clark:

Recently the international court of justice found states have a binding international obligation to assess and limit emissions including scope 3 emissions to avert significant climate harm. Scope 3 includes captive carbon in exported coal and gas. If the government won’t include a climate trigger in environment laws or include scope 3 emissions in the what steps will you take to ensure Australia’s compliance with the ICJ ruling?

Chris Bowen, Minister for Climate Change and Energy:

The government supported the ICJ case commenced by Vanuatu. I also note that we considered the Climate Change Authority’s advice on our recent nationally determined distribution, the Climate Change Authority considered the ICJ decision in weighing up their advice to the government under our world’s best practice climate change target setting regime. Therefore their advice to us was to set the maximum possible level of ambition which is advice of course that the government accepted. What the honorable member is doing is then raising other issues around scope 3 international emissions in other countries which he’s entitled to do. But I’d like and make this point: that our obligation is to reduce our emissions and to work with other countries to help them reduce their emissions not to come at it in some other way. That’s why we embark on the policies we do but I do agree with the honorable member in this regard. That a massive opportunity we have if we seize the economic opportunities — opportunities of net zero is help other countries decarbonise through a Future Made in Australia. Whether it be through green metals, whether it through other ammonia and green hydrogen. Treasury has model this and found the emissions reduction, using Australian knowhow and Australian resources, is equivalent to 1.2 per cent of emissions which is a big number. This is a great opportunity for our country if we seize those opportunities. If we ignore them the opportunity to create jobs as we help the world decarbonise will be missed forever.

Henry Pike, Member for Bowman:

Labor’s housing policies are failing. Under Labor’s $10 billion Housing Australia Future Fund just 567 of the promised 40,000 social or affordable homes have been completed. And now it is being audited by the national auditor. The chair of Housing Australia has resigned after bullying allegations and the government fell short of its construction target by 66,000 homes last year. Does the Prime Minister accept that his government is building fewer homes and has made housing affordability worse?

Anthony Albanese, Prime Minister:

Well, I thank the member for his question. But I’m not sure if member was here during the debacle that was the rolling door of governments in between 2013 and 2022. If he was he would know that there weren’t questions asked for most of that time of the Housing Minister. If he was here it wouldn’t have been possible for him to ask a question of the Housing Minister for most of that time because they didn’t even have one.

And the question that’s asked by the member speaking about the number of houses that have been completed under the HAFF – they held up the HAFF for month after month after month after month. And then they go, “Why aren’t the houses built?” You have got to be kidding me!

Elizabeth Watson-Brown, Member for Ryan:

Prime Minister, your proposed EPBC (Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation) changes have received support from Chevron, BHP and the Minerals Council but have been widely criticised by environment NGOs like the Australian Conservation Foundation as failing to protect nature and the planet. Why has Labor prioritised the interests of big corporations over people and nature?

Anthony Albanese, Prime Minister:

The truth is our environment laws aren’t working. There’s a very broad consensus that that is the case and we are working to get it right. Because they’re not working for business and they’re not working for the environment. Approvals take too long, processes lack certainty and need to be streamlined. These are laws that were drafted in the Howard era for the Howard era, and are just not fit for purpose. We believe that the laws that are before the Parliament are balanced. They will help to grow the economy but they’ll also help to make sure that future generations of Australians get to enjoy to benefits of our unique environment. The author of the report that was commissioned by the former government, Graham Samuel, has come out very clearly, very clearly, and said that the laws that have been put forward are consistent with Graham Samuel’s review. I’m not quite sure that the member is being fair dinkum with the quote that is she says of the group that is are supporting this legislation to be honest. What we need to do is to not play these games which led to nothing being carried during the last term of a ‘noalition’, people saying they’re against it. They sat in the Parliament for a long period of time. And were up there in the Senate waiting for them to be carried.