The chairman of the Turnbull government’s backbench environment and energy committee has backed Tony Abbott’s call to wind back the renewable energy target, and cut the immigration rate to boost housing affordability.
The Liberal MP Craig Kelly told Guardian Australia on Friday the RET needed to be frozen where it is at the moment, and the government needed to explicitly link the issues of immigration and housing affordability.
“We have to link the two,” Kelly said. “One of the big factors in housing demand at the moment is how many people migrate to Australia.”
Kelly’s comments follow a provocative speech from Abbott on Thursday night, where he laid out a new conservative manifesto for government and warned Malcolm Turnbull was presiding over a Coalition government drifting to defeat.
Abbott’s speech has provoked a strong pushback from senior colleagues in Canberra, with the finance minister, Mathias Cormann – a leading government conservative and Abbott’s former numbers man – labelling the intervention “self-indulgent” and “deliberately destructive”.
The prime minister said on Friday Abbott’s intervention was “sad” and he contrasted his record of action with that of his predecessor, who spun his wheels unproductively in the Senate.
“I do not just talk about cutting taxes. I have cut them,” Turnbull said. “My government hasn’t put up personal income tax, it’s reduced it. Done, tick, gone through the parliament.”
On Thursday evening, Abbott used a book launch in North Sydney to unveil a new battle plan for the next election – declaring the Coalition needed to cut immigration, slash the renewable energy target, abolish the Human Rights Commission, and gut the capacity of the Senate to be a roadblock to the government’s agenda.
Ignoring the obvious contrast between his record as prime minister and the elements of his new manifesto that contradict his own record, Abbott warned the government wouldn’t win the next election unless it woos the conservative base.
He also warned that failing to adopt robust conservative policies could justify voters opting for One Nation over the government.
While the speech contained a number of clear pot shots against Turnbull and the government, Abbott denied his intentions were destructive. He claimed on Friday Turnbull had his “full support”.
“My duty as a former party leader is to try to ensure the party and the government stays on the right track,” Abbott told the Nine Network. “Obviously we’ve got to have a clear direction and strong purpose for the rest of this term of parliament.”
“I’m not in the business of taking pot shots at my colleagues. My colleagues can say what they think is best but I’m in the business of trying to ensure that our country and our party are going forward.”
Asked whether Turnbull was the best person to be prime minister, Abbott said “he’s the person that the party chose to lead the government and obviously I support the leader of the government.”
“I did everything I humanly could to get the Turnbull government re-elected and I did everything I could to help the prime minister win the election.
“We just got there. Having got the government back into office I think my duty now is to try to keep us on the right track and I’ll keep doing that.”
On breakfast television the manager of government business, Christopher Pyne, said the government had no plans to freeze immigration. He said the proposal “would be catastrophic in places like Northern Territory, South Australia, Tasmania, [and] most places outside the capital cities”.
Rightwing parties in fierce competition with the government for political support, such as One Nation and Cory Bernardi’s new Australian Conservatives movement, are campaigning in favour of lower immigration, which puts pressure on Coalition MPs.
Published opinion polling suggests the Coalition is bleeding votes to One Nation, and a lot of the government’s political messaging is focussed on protecting its exposed right flank.
Kelly said calls for lower immigration rates needed to be considered seriously because of the housing affordability question Abbott flagged on Thursday night, and also as a factor relating to reliable energy supply.
The Sydney backbencher told Guardian Australia, with the Hazelwood power station now heading for closure, and given the problems electricity consumers had seen over the hot summer with blackouts and supply disruptions, high migration rates had to be on the table.
“If we didn’t have enough supply this year, how will we go next summer?” Kelly said.
He said linking migration to housing affordability and energy supply would put pressure on the states to do more to fix the current problems.
Asked whether he supported a return by Abbott to the leadership, given his endorsement of the manifesto laid out on Thursday night, Kelly said Turnbull had delivered “an absolutely stellar performance” during the last parliamentary fortnight.
But he said the political times were challenging for whomever held the prime ministership when a government was intent on pursuing necessary policies, such as returning the budget to balance. “It doesn’t matter who the prime minister is,” Kelly said.
He said it was much better for the government if colleagues focussed on policy debates rather than personalities. Destructive personality debates, he said, only boosted Labor’s political fortunes.
Senior figures inside the government on Friday told Guardian Australia Tony Abbott had no viable path back to the party leadership, and his voluble interventions had only eroded his internal support.
While some party figures readily acknowledge ongoing internal problems – such as friction between the prime minister and his treasurer, Scott Morrison, and chest bumps and periodic ill-discipline such as a slip this week from the immigration minister, Peter Dutton, over the US refugee deal which led to him being rebuked by the foreign minister Julie Bishop – several sources say the key conservative players remain steadfastly behind Turnbull.
One senior government figure characterised Abbott’s current outlook caustically as: “zero partyroom support. Zero public support. Reduced to hanging out with the Star Wars bar scene freaks of the far right.”
Some government MPs remain concerned Abbott’s bombardment may be paving the way for a tilt at the leadership by Dutton, who is the government’s most significant conservative figure – but other senior sources dismiss this as fanciful.
The departing Liberal senator Cory Bernardi believes Abbott has his eyes on a return to the leadership. He recently expressed frustration that Abbott was using his departure from the Liberals as an opportunity to engage in proxy warring around the leadership.
Pyne on Friday said the government did not intend to revive the unpopular austerity of Abbott’s first budget. “We won’t be slashing spending. Abbott tried that in 2014 and the budget during his leadership but, of course, a whole lot of zombie legislation sat in the Senate unable to be passed.”
Pyne said backbenchers such as Abbott were “very welcome” to state their views but vowed the government would not be “distracted by some of these issues”.
“The cabinet is very united behind Malcolm Turnbull,” he said, noting that when Abbott was leader he trailed Bill Shorten 30% to 48% as preferred prime minister.
“So we are on the right track with Malcolm Turnbull and with the government’s policies.”
