Young Australians won't accept Labor hypocrisy

June 11, 2025

Still reeling from Murray Watt’s rushed approval of Woodside’s North West Shelf project, I wasn’t ready for Samantha Hepburn’s rundown of six more mega gas projects. The emissions from these alone would blow Australia’s net-zero-by-2050 pledge to pieces. As Hepburn notes, Labor’s review of environment laws is a chance to make climate impact central to approvals.

But in 2024, Albanese ruled out a “climate trigger”. Still, with 25 Labor, 11 Greens and three independents backing net zero — and public anger over the NW Shelf decision — momentum may be building to revive it. While the PM’s second-term vision delivered at the Press Club this week stayed away from the topic, he knows that in 2028, another wave of young climate-aware Australians will vote for the first time. They won’t accept hypocrisy.