The chair of the Climate Change Authority, Matt Kean, has hit back over an opposition suggestion that his criticism of its nuclear energy proposal could lead to him being sacked if the Coalition wins government.
Kean said the shadow climate change and energy minister, Ted O’Brien, should explain if a Peter Dutton-led government would seek retribution on the authority’s expert staff that prepared the nuclear report.
“I’m not going to be bullied or silenced for standing up for the science and the evidence by Ted O’Brien or anyone. Nor will the reality of climate change be bullied or silenced by political pressure,” Kean, a former NSW Liberal energy minister, told Guardian Australia.
“My job is to continue to provide frank and fearless advice, even if that’s uncomfortable, in the interest for climate policy and the interests of the nation.”
Released on Monday, the authority report suggested the Coalition’s plans to slow down the rollout of renewable energy, extend the life of coal-fired plants and eventually build taxpayer-funded nuclear reactors would release an extra 2bn tonnes of carbon dioxide by 2050.
The opposition said the authority should instead be concentrating on delivering advice to the government on a 2035 emissions reduction target, which was expected by February but has been delayed. Government officials this week said it would be delivered to the UN by September.
In a letter to Kean responding to the report, O’Brien accused the authority of a “concerning departure from its mandate” to provide independent advice on climate policy. “Rather than providing an impartial assessment of Australia’s emissions trajectory, the Climate Change Authority has engaged in a political critique of the opposition’s energy policy. This is inappropriate for a statutory authority.”
The shadow finance minister, Jane Hume, was asked on Monday if a Coalition government would retain Kean, a former NSW state Liberal treasurer, as the chair of the authority. “That’s not a decision for me,” she replied.
“But I cannot imagine that we possibly maintain a Climate Change Authority that has been so poorly, so badly politicised. It simply isn’t serving its purpose to provide independent advice to government on its climate change policy.”
In public comments, O’Brien said he felt sorry for “many decent public servants who work in the Climate Change Authority who have been thrust on the frontline on the eve of an election taking a hyper-partisan position”.
In a letter replying to O’Brien on Tuesday, Kean said he “categorically” rejected the Coalition’s criticism. “Understanding the impact on national emissions of different pathways to decarbonise Australia’s grid and its economy is firmly within the authority’s remit,” he said.
Pointing to what he described as “public comments by your colleagues suggesting reprisals against the authority in the event of a change of government”, Kean said: “This represents a very concerning threat to the authority’s independence.
“I seek your assurance that the conscientious scientists, economists and policy analysts who work for the authority will be able to undertake their work without such attempts to chill their advice going forward.”
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The spat coincided with a Labor-led parliamentary committee examining the prospects for nuclear power in Australia concluding in an interim report that it was “not a viable investment of taxpayer money”.
The government called the inquiry to scrutinise the Coalition’s proposal to lift a legislated ban on nuclear energy and eventually build taxpayer-funded reactors at seven sites. O’Brien said the interim report was a “sham” and “politically motivated”.
Independent experts have said the Coalition’s policy was likely to lead to higher electricity prices for at least the next decade and potentially power shortfalls as ageing coal plants were unlikely to keep operating until nuclear plants could be built after 2040.
Committee member Monique Ryan, an independent MP in the Melbourne seat of Kooyong, said the inquiry was the fourth into nuclear energy at federal or state level over the last decade alone and “should be the last”.
“We must draw a line under nuclear in this country. We must commit to the net zero transition at speed and at scale,” she said.
Andrew Constance, a former NSW transport minister and the Liberal candidate for the marginal federal seat of Gilmore, sparked further uncertainty over the Coalition’s climate policy on Monday when he told Sky News that setting a 2035 emissions reduction target – a commitment Australia has made under the Paris agreement – would be “off the table” under the Coalition.
Dutton and O’Brien have said they would announce a climate target, but not until after the election. Constance said on Tuesday he supported Dutton’s position.
Kean – Constance’s former cabinet colleague at state level – said the Liberal candidate’s position was “disappointing” given he had previously argued Australia must do more to combat the climate crisis after the black summer bushfires and supported an ambitious renewable energy expansion at state level.
