Bridget McKenzie (Victoria, National Party, Minister for Emergency Management and National Recovery and Resilience) Share this | Hansard source

Thank you, Senator Keneally, for your question. I think that it will be ugly. I agree with Senator Canavan. You'll have to check with Barnaby about whether he doesn't.

What we're doing, as a political party, is carefully considering the proposal before us, and this proposal will set up a net zero position for our country over the next three decades. It's only right and proper that the party that represents miners, foresters, fishers, manufacturing workers, farmers and those who live out in rural and regional Australia assesses the impact of this decision on our communities. And that impact is not just between now and the next election and not just between now and our own political careers but between now and the three decades when this policy will be rolled out and will have impact. We're doing that in a calm, methodical way. We're doing it on behalf of the regions. It is the right and proper process to go through. Our party room has primacy in this. It's not the leader having a top-down approach on what should or shouldn't happen to our communities or what should and shouldn't happen to our industries; it is each and every MP and senator feeding into the leadership group what they think will be the implications and what their views are, and we're taking those forward as a group.