Scott Morrison has indicated the government could bolster its carbon emission reduction efforts as he flagged a royal commission into Australia’s horror bushfire season and warned of a “new normal” that will require a greater role for the commonwealth.
Speaking at length about the government’s response to the bushfires which have claimed 28 lives and more than 2,000 homes, the prime minister also acknowledged for the first time that he could have done better in the “strained” emotional environment on the ground, despite visiting affected communities “in good faith”.
“There are things I could have handled on the ground much better,” Morrison told ABC Insiders’ host David Speers on Sunday.
“These are sensitive, emotional environments [but] prime ministers are flesh and blood too in how they engage with these people.
“They’re very strained environments … You would do things differently and learn from every event but the important thing is the actions we have taken.”
Morrison has been criticised for his interactions in fire-razed communities, including in the town of Cobargo, where he walked away from a young woman demanding more resources for the Rural Fire Service and took the hand of a firefighter who did not want to meet him.
On Kangaroo Island he was caught on tape saying there had been “no loss of life”, when two men had been killed after fighting fires on a neighbour’s property.
Facing pressure to do more on climate change, Morrison said the government could “evolve” its policies, including emission reduction targets that are pegged to 26-28% of 2005 levels by 2030.
While insisting the Coalition was on track to “meet and beat” the targets, he said the government would look to improve its performance.
“In the years ahead we are going to continue to evolve our policy in this area to reduce emissions even further,” he said.
“We want to reduce emissions and do the best job we possibly can and get better and better and better at it. I want to do that with a balanced policy which recognises Australia’s broader national economic interests and social interest.”
When pressed on whether this could mean a change in the government’s 2030 targets, Morrison said the “challenging task” required a balanced approach.
“In meeting and beating those targets, we will always be taking up the opportunities of measures that enable us to achieve lower emissions, but lower emissions at the same time as we stay true to the policy I took to the last election,” Morrison said.
“There will be new technologies, as there has been since the Kyoto targets were first set, and we will look to embrace those and we will look to take the opportunities that are in front of us to ensure that we don’t just meet these targets but we beat the targets that we have set.”
Morrison said the government had the “option” of using carryover credits from the Kyoto protocol and “if they’re needed, it is the government’s policy to use them in the future”.
Doubts have been raised about the Australian government’s ability to meet its Paris targets, with the use of carryover credits criticised as an “accounting trick” that may add up to as much as 80% of Australia’s emission reduction achievement.
Morrison, who is attempting to balance the political differences in his party room and in electorates held by the Coalition, insisted the government would not be willing to jeopardise jobs or the economy and would not adopt policies that would put up electricity prices or impose a “carbon tax”.
“We’ll reduce our emissions further without a carbon tax, without putting up prices, and without shutting down traditional industries upon which regional Australians depend.”
He acknowledged there was an “array” of views within the Coalition about the importance of climate change after commentary from conservative MPs who have downplayed the role of the warming climate in the bushfire season, instead focusing on arson and hazard reduction.
The former head of Morrison’s department, Martin Parkinson, has blamed “civil war” within the Coalition for the government not developing a more ambitious climate policy, warning global efforts were insufficient to halt warming at 2C.
But Morrison said there was “no dispute” that climate change was creating “the longer, hotter, dryer, summer seasons”.
“The fact is, over the next 10 years and beyond we are going to be living in a very different climate and we need to improve our resilience to that,” he said.
“Adaptation” to climate change needed greater attention “because they’re the things that are practically affecting people’s daily lives here in Australia”.
However, he dismissed calls from the former prime minister, Malcolm Turnbull, to use the crisis to reinstate the Coalition’s dumped national energy guarantee, saying the government had maintained the “reliability guarantee” which was a key element of the policy.
“That’s Malcolm’s view,” Morrison said.
A national inquiry – most likely a royal commission – would be established that acknowledged the role of climate change, and he intended to take a proposal to cabinet for endorsement in the coming weeks.
He believed a royal commission would be “necessary”, but it would need to be agreed to by the states and cover the “full gambit” of issues, including the operational response, the role of the federal government and climate change.
The inquiry would also look at how the “unprecedented” fire season had created a new expectation for the federal government to take a greater role.
“That was not something that was recommended going into this fire season,” he said. “There is a very new appetite, a very new expectation.
“I think we have to prepare for the new normal, and the new normal is there is community expectation now that there be a more direct ability for the commonwealth, particularly through the Australian defence forces to be able to take action.”
Arguing the federal government had done everything it had been asked to do in the lead up to this year’s fire season, Morrison dismissed criticism that the government should have taken a greater initiative given the dire forecasts.
“The recommendations that were put to us were acted upon,” he said.
He also dismissed reports about alleged inaction on a national disaster risk reduction framework saying the framework was being considered by the emergency ministerial council.
“This is one of the issues that deal with the big issues in response to climate changing and that is the resilience and the adaption that we need in our community right across the country to deal with longer, hotter, dryer seasons that increase the risk of bushfire,” he said.
Morrison was also asked about his decision to holiday in Hawaii, saying “in hindsight” he would not have made the trip.
He defended his decision to go overseas rather than holiday in Australia, saying he had originally planned to spend two weeks on the south coast of NSW before having to reschedule because of a planned – but now cancelled – trip to India.
“Occasionally, like any other Australian, I might take my family away for a holiday,” he said. “I don’t think Australians would think dimly of that on the odd occasion.”
Morrison announced a $76m mental health package which would provide free counselling sessions through recovery centres and Service Australia sites to address short-term trauma, both for firefighters and those affected by the devastation.
“We need to ensure the trauma and mental health needs of our people are supported in a way like we never have before,” he said.
