Peter van Onselen: Teal MP's humiliating fossil fuel climbdown
- Teals promised to end fossil fuel subsidies
- Some have now deleted that pledge from websites
- One Teal described her compromise as ‘awful’
A Teal MP has been left red-faced after being forced to backdown from a claim that it was ‘misinformation’ to say she voted for up to $2billion in new fossil fuel rebates.
The embarrassing exchange was captured on video obtained by Daily Mail Australia at a community forum in Zoe Daniel’s electorate of Goldstein on 18 April at the Hampton RSL.
Ms Daniel, who defeated Liberal MP Tim Wilson at the last election, tried to dismiss a question from a constituent about why she voted for fossil fuel rebates as ‘misinformation or manipulation of information’.
But just moments later she can be heard on the video attempting to explain why she voted the way she did: ‘the bill was actually the cost of living one that went through the parliament on energy prices… it compensated the energy companies for their losses,’ Ms Daniel said.
She then explained her discomfort at voting for something she had pledged at the election that she never would, describing how doing so was ‘awful’.
Fossil fuel subsidies were part of a legislative package Teals supported despite election promises to abolish such subsidies
‘Every piece of legislation and every policy involves a compromise, that’s a really awful one’, Ms Daniel told the stunned constituent.
At the election Ms Daniel pledged to ‘cease subsidising fossil fuels’, putting the commitment on her website for all to see. However, after voting to do the opposite – as part of the Energy Price Relief Plan – and subsidise energy companies producing fossil fuels, the Teal deleted the pledge, changing her website to instead read: ‘cuts in fossil fuel subsidies’ to accommodate the backflip.
Wentworth Teal MP Allegra Spender also amended her website after supporting the bill. Before the vote Ms Spender’s website read ‘put an end to the government’s $11.6BN a year in fossil fuel subsidies’.
Zoe Daniel (above) confessed to a constituent that she voted for coal subsidies after initially labeling the question ‘misinformation’
Teals were elected on a platform of ending fossil fuel subsidies, but they all voted for them in December 2022 (Zoe Daniel (third from right) and Allegra Spender (far left) pictured)
After voting for up to $2billion of such subsidies her website was amended to read ‘phasing-out the $10 billion each year the federal government spends on fossil fuel subsidies’.
Ms Spender defeated then-Liberal MP (now Senator) Dave Sharma at the 2022 election.
All Teal MPs voted for the Labor government’s bill. It passed the House of Representatives on 15 December 2022.
Under the Energy Price Relief Plan a cap was placed on the price of coal and gas for energy generation. If the price cap was breached, coal and gas generators were compensated with subsidies.
The Coalition voted against the legislation.
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