The Nationals’ decision to walk away from Australia’s Net Zero by 2050 commitment has raised questions and frustration from some across the New England region, with some local leaders warning the move risks higher power bills and more pressure on productive farmland.
The announcement that the National Party has dropped the commitment to New Zero follows the party’s weekend conference, where members formally voted to abandon the target and back an “all-energy approach” focused on “cheaper electricity, secure jobs and lower emissions.”
Former party leader and Member for New England New England Barnaby Joyce said the move was a return to common sense, and took credit for the policy shift.
“We’ve just moved the whole agenda to exactly where I want it to be,” Mr Joyce said.
“It’s almost like I’ve done this before.”
He argued that what he calls “intermittent power” – meaning renewable power like wind and solar – had driven up costs and social division, particularly in regions like the New England Renewable Energy Zone (REZ).
“The social disharmony caused by the intrusion of intermittent power, in regional areas has been massive. It has pitted family against family and community against community,” he said.
“The New England is at the epicentre of hosting intermittent power precincts and it is envisaged it will cover over 30% of my electorate and that is outrageous.”
Newly elected Federal Member for Parkes Jamie Chaffey backed the party’s new policy move, describing Labor’s net zero plan as “an impossible task that puts the burden on regional Australians”.
He said the Nationals’ approach would prioritise lowering household and business energy costs while keeping emissions reductions “in line with comparable nations”.
“Under Labor’s net zero, electricity prices are up by 39 per cent. Gas prices are up by 42 per cent. In the meantime, real wages have dropped back to 2011 levels and 8500 manufacturing jobs have been lost.”
“We will do our fair share to reduce global emissions, but not more than the rest of the world,” Mr Chaffey said.
The ‘aspire to be average’ climate policy of the Nationals is anchored around six “common-sense principles”, including lowering energy prices first, supporting all technologies including nuclear, and re-establishing the Emissions Reduction Fund (ERF).
Step back in time policy plan “all headline”
The vaguely worded campaign site of the Nationals claims “We want to bring back a simple and successful program called the Emissions Reduction Fund (ERF). It rewards farmers, communities, and industries that find smart ways to cut emissions — like planting trees, improving soil, or using cleaner technology”.
The Emissions Reduction Fund was relabelled with the change of government and the Chubb Review to the Australian Carbon Credit Unit (ACCU) Scheme, and is still part of the Net Zero policy framework, minus the parts that were paying farmers to plant trees that were already there and otherwise encouraging rorts and corruption in the early phases of carbon trading. It is not clear what exactly the Nationals would like to “bring back”, given most of the ERF remains in place.
Mr Chaffey said the ERF “facilitated real emission reductions that didn’t ruin the economy,” estimating it could deliver between two and nine million tonnes of annual abatement for a cost of $200–$500 million per year, which he claims is “a small fraction” of the current $9 billion in net zero-related subsidies and administrative costs.
However, climate and energy experts note that many of the early ERF projects that relied on land-based carbon sequestration, such as tree planting and soil carbon initiatives, locked up millions of hectares of productive agricultural land for decades.
Moree farmer Oscar Pearse, who reviewed the ERF policies as part of his previous work with National Farmers Federation during the previous Coalition Government, said the Nationals’ policy seemingly fails to grasp the scale of land-use change already occurring through carbon offsetting schemes. He says abandoning the renewables piece of the puzzle would only increase the demand for prime agricultural land to be sacrificed for carbon sequestration, because if large emitters are unable to access clean power from renewable sources, then they need to plant even more trees to offset their emissions.
“As a person from a rural community, would you rather have two hectares of solar panels for 25 to 30 years? Or would you rather have 100 hectares of trees for 100 years? Because it’s at least that difference.”
“We are literally risking a significant proportion of prime ag land,” Mr Pearse said. “We are talking maybe 40% of sheepmeat land going to trees for revegetation methodologies for carbon.”
“It is insanely big just because there’s so much offsetting that has to be done, and the only viable way is land.”
The safeguard mechanism, introduced when Tony Abbott was Prime Minister, requires large emitters to purchase carbon credits to offset their emissions. Pearse says major companies like Woodside have already purchased large tracts of farmland for tree-based carbon projects that will be tied up for up to 100 years, particularly in areas where rainfall is high and the land is relatively cheap. While the Golden Triangle is at risk due to its consistent rainfall, and it is believed there have already been land purchases for carbon sequestration purposes in the New England, most of the confirmed activity is currently happening around areas like Delegate in southern NSW where the rainfall is similar but the land is cheaper.
“Good operators are not able to buy in the area because Woodside has bought the lot… and they’re converting every arable acre, every cleared area, to trees,” Pearse said.
After planting the trees and getting the carbon credits, the major emitters will hold the property for the first 25-30 years and then sell it. But the permanence requirements of the carbon credits systems means who ever buys the land must keep it as trees for another 70 years.
“You can’t clear it. You can’t bring it back to ag land.”
Pearse said the Nationals’ proposal does not appear to protect agriculture from such impacts.
“My biggest issue with this new net zero plan is those offset requirements and programs are still in there, so the Nats have not made any policy promises about reducing how much ag land is going to [carbon offsets],” he said.
“It’s a headline without any further thought behind it. What are they going to do to actually protect farmlands from these alternative uses?”
Pearse says that no party can realistically drop the whole carbon credit offset scheme because offsets are required to enable exports to the European Union.
“Even if they drop net zero, there is still going to be some form of offset.”
Pearse said he hoped the Nationals adopted the NSW Farmers policy which called for limits to ensure carbon plantings cover no more than 25% of any single property. Restricting the proportion of agricultural land that can be used for carbon sequestration is a policy position also supported by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change and environmental groups like Farmers for Climate Action.
Local disbelief and disappointment
Despite widespread belief that local support is with Barnaby, repeated polling and several outspoken locals indicate that New Englanders want to stick with renewables and the Net Zero goal.
Glenn Morris, an Inverell cattle farmer who has campaigned for action on climate change for more than two decades, described the Nationals’ move as “unbelievable”.
“It’s unbelievable that once again we’re taking a backwards step on climate action thanks to the National Party and thanks to Barnaby Joyce,” Mr Morris said.
Mr Morris said years of climate extremes had already taken their toll on farming communities.
“For 25 years I’ve witnessed climate extremes getting worse and I’ve tried my best to motivate political and practical change.”
“After 25 years I’ve been accustomed to disappointment from so-called leaders. I say to the Nationals and Coalition parties and all politicians in Australia – no more lies and denial of our intergenerational responsibility. We must do better.”
The latest polling indicates that most regional Australians back renewable energy. Research by 89 Degrees East for Renew Australia for All found 56% of New England residents support the shift to renewables, while only 23% oppose it. Across all Renewable Energy Zones nationally, support averaged 62% with just 17% opposed.
However, the same research found many residents underestimate their community’s support: only 36% of people in New England believe most locals are supportive, a “perception gap” that may contribute to division and misinformation. A similar disconnect was identified in a New England Times Engage Poll in December 2024, which found a majority of New Englanders (53%) support government investment in renewable power.
While the Nationals insist their “all-energy approach” will deliver cheaper power, critics argue it lacks detail and fails to address how Australia will meet its international climate commitments – and it will not deliver cheaper power.
Professor Trevor Brown, Convenor of Electrify Armidale and Adjunct Professor in Chemistry at the University of New England, said abandoning net zero would hurt rather than help regional communities.
“Scrapping net zero does not help people in New England; it keeps them on higher energy bills for longer,” he said.
Professor Brown said the focus should be on helping households and small businesses with energy efficiency and electrification, not on scrapping targets.
“Walking away from net zero walks away from the people most exposed to climate and energy shocks.”
“Regional and vulnerable households want practical help to electrify, insulate, drought-proof and improve comfort, not another political fight in Canberra,” he said.
Even in Walcha, where community division is most intense, the wishes of Barnaby Joyce are not clearly aligned with the wishes of the community. EnergyCo’s recently announced significant change to the path for the transmission lines that will connect the New England REZ to the grid at Muswellbrook, apparently based on community feedback, just happen to mean that there will no longer be transmission lines on the Joyce property at Woolbrook.
Lots of noise, no real impact
Joyce has previously revealed that his anti-Net Zero policy position is not about effecting change, it’s just about having a point of difference to campaign on. And he also says he won’t be running again in the next election.
The Coalition are unlikely to win the next election regardless of their policy platform or Joyce’s candidacy, following their resounding defeat in the last election. But in six years, when the Coalition next has a shot at governing, the proposed reversion to ERF energy policy will be irrelevant. Even if the Liberals do join the Nationals in abandoning Net Zero, and even if they did win the 2031 election, so much of the energy grid will have moved to renewables that there will be no feasible way to go back.
Notably, the rapid growth of rooftop solar will be the driving force in reshaping of the energy market, as people vote with their wallets for the cheapest form of power – which is not any form of power from the grid, renewable or otherwise. According to the Clean Energy Council in the first half of 2025 alone 115,584 rooftop systems were installed nationwide, adding 1.1 GW of capacity, with rooftop solar contributing 15,463 GWh to the national energy mix and keeping the nation on track to exceed the goal of 32GW of rooftop generated power by 2030.
While the issue is certain to keep both Barnaby Joyce and the Nationals and Liberals in the headlines for months, if not all the way through to the next election, the anti-Net Zero policy posturing will most likely have very little real impact. The only result of this noise is to potentially risk more prime agricultural land being taken from food and fibre production for planting trees, and keeping power prices high, due to major emitters having to hedge their bets in an uncertain policy environment.
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