Regional Australia to suffer through government's NetZero scheme

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• By Avi Yemini

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Nationals Leader David Littleproud has described the government’s approach to emissions reduction as “all ideology without any practicality”, and warned that “regional Australia will take it in the neck”.

He said the government’s insistence that the nation’s top 200 emitters reduce carbon emissions by almost 5 per cent a year, or buy carbon credits, would be a disaster for country people.

“This mob are simply going to put it in the neck of regional Australia and walk away and smile, telling everyone in the city it’s all ok,” he said.

He told Sky News Australia that the Nationals “want to sign up to Net Zero by 2050” but that the shift was being done too quickly and without any clear technological pathway to make it happen.

“This is an ideological move and I respect the ide but there is a practical reality to it,” he said.

The Nationals leader said the Albanese government was “accelerating a shift in the economy that means someone pays and someone loses their job”.

He said 17 of the top 200 emitters were based in the North Queensland town of Gladstone where businesses would be forced to “reduce their number of employees or shut down”.

“We accept your (climate) ideology,” he said, “but just understand the pain that we are going to get (in regional Australia).”

Littleproud said the burden of achieving Net Zero was being heaped onto people in regional Australia while “people who can afford to live in the leafy suburbs of Sydney and Melbourne” were oblivious to the pain that would be caused.