Dairy businesses | Farmers, miners seek more detail about how nation will actually achieve net zero

Victorian dairy farmer Daryl Hoey has been keenly watching and waiting for details about Australia's newly inked net zero plan, but he has been left sorely disappointed.

Edited by: Cloe Desirée Juarez
ABC News
Eliza Borrello, Jodie Gunders and Jake Lapham

“Climate change is affecting us now and has been for a number of years, and to leave it until this late in the day to finally get their act together and we still don’t know what the policy is?” he said, exasperated.

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After a months-long, cat-and-mouse game between vocal net zero opponents within the National Party and the Prime Minister, Scott Morrison has formally announced he will commit Australia to reaching net zero carbon emissions by 2050.

But after all the bluster, details about how Australia will achieve that are scant.

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Hydrogen is another buzz word, but in some instances the government is talking about “clean” as opposed to “green” hydrogen —which means Australia will blend non-renewable gas into its hydrogen fuel mix.

Scott Morrison talks while holding up a booklet reading "The Plan to Deliver Net Zero The Australian Way". — Prime Minister Scott Morrison holding the government’s plan to reach net zero carbon emissions by 2050.(ABC News: Ian Cutmore)

Mr Hoey, who farms at Wonthaggi, two hours southeast of Melbourne, moved there from the Goulburn Valley two years ago in pursuit of better rainfall and cooler temperatures.

Given what he has heard recently from some members of the National Party about their desire to protect jobs in the coal industry, he is starting to question who the party really represents.

“[Perhaps] they’re more concerned about mining votes because they’re obviously not concerned about agricultural votes when ABARES has said that the average farmer has lost $30,000 a year because of climate change,” he said.

“The Nats have got their abacus out and told us that they don’t agree with ABARES.”

Coal community fears for jobs

She’s the director of DK Heavy Plant Services in Muswellbrook, in the heart of New South Wales coal country, and she is worried about what it will mean for her mining equipment maintenance company.

“If it [the coal industry] was to stop tomorrow our business would not exist … that’s over 150 nearly direct employees that would not have a job,” she said.

But like Mr Hoey, she does not think the government has filled in enough of the blanks around net zero.

“What is the plan that these politicians are going to advise if they’re going to remove the coal mining industry?” she said.

“I don’t believe there is a plan to sustain our community’s future.”

Net zero won’t repeat Kyoto: Ag lobby

The chief executive of Queensland rural lobby group AgForce, Mike Guerin, said he was confident legislation would not be used as a lever to reduce Australia’s emissions.

At Kyoto in 1997, talks known as COP3, Australia committed to end land clearing for agriculture to meet global emissions targets.

AgForce Queensland did not want a repeat of climate deals that stopped farmers from clearing trees.(Supplied: Wendy Sheehan)

“I am confident that we got that message through, but I’m also confident that we are one of the very few countries in the world that can do all of these things concurrently — we can grow an industry, we can create regional jobs, we can provide better landscape outcomes, we can build biodiversity and we can sequester carbon.”

Meanwhile, Queensland’s peak horticulture lobby group, Growcom, said its members were already highly exposed to climate change.

“What’s unique about agriculture is that while we might be putting out emissions, we’re also the industry that’s most impacted by the climate,” Growcom’s manager of policy and advocacy, Richard Shannon. said.

Mr Shannon said that what horticulture needed from government, was confidence to invest.

“We see the climate changing around us,” he said.

“Some crops, particularly permanent tree crops, have long lifespans and so growers need to know in planting those crops today, there’ll be enough confidence in the climate that those crops are going to be profitable in 10 to 20 years’ time.”

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