Why food prices could surge as farms are forced to close by 2030 under a plan by Labor Party...
Food prices could surge as farms are forced to close by 2030 - leading to mass job losses - if radical Labor Party environmental activists get their way. Prime Minister 's government is already committed to reducing carbon emissions by 43 per cent by 2030, with support from the Greens. But the Labor Environment Action Network (LEAN) wants carbon emissions slashed by an even more dramatic 50 per cent within six-and-a-half years as part of its 'climate, clearing and cows' campaign. LEAN has support from 350 Labor Party branches and is urging them to With federal Labor under threat from the Greens in Byron Bay and inner-city areas of Sydney, Melbourne and Brisbane, there are fears middle-class, left-wing activists within the party could prevail. Environment Minister Tanya Plibersek, whose gentrified electorate of Sydney overlaps with the Greens-held state seat of Newtown, was photographed at a LEAN event in 2016 holding a sign touting 50 per cent renewable energy by 2030. While 50 per cent renewable energy by 2030 is less contentious, it is part of LEAN's '50/50 branch motion' campaign to cut carbon emissions by 50 per cent by 2030. National Farmers Federation president Fiona Simson said the push to halve carbon pollution in little more than six years could result in much higher food prices as farms are forced to close by 2030. 'This motion is about taking farms out of production, killing jobs and pushing up food prices,' she said. 'This is not a sensible policy for a mainstream political party. 'Voting this through would be an open-armed embrace of fringe views that are anti-science and anti-farming. It's as simple as that.' LEAN describes land use as one of two major sources of greenhouse gas emissions, along with energy consumption, and is campaigning to halve agricultural carbon pollution describing it as 'cows; their burps and farts'. 'Around 51 per cent of Australia's methane emissions come from agriculture, primarily as a by-product of the way cows and sheep digest food,' it said. 'They burp and fart methane into the atmosphere.' Ms Simson said truck drivers and port stevedores would also be out of work as a result of these policies. 'We're not just talking about farming jobs, but also in trucking, in stevedoring and of course in meat processing our largest manufacturing industry.' This would threaten unionised jobs and affect members of the left-wing Maritime Union of Australia who work on the ports, along with truck drivers with the Transport Workers Union and meat processors belonging to the Australian Workers Union. Ms Simson said Labor Party delegates needed to keep jobs in mind as the party of trade unions. 'Delegates need to be clearheaded about what really matters to Australians and what the ALP stands for,' she said. 'Is it protecting jobs and tackling the cost of living? 'Or pleasing environmental outliers who have turned their back on science and common sense?' Billionaire mining magnate Gina Rinehart, Australia's richest woman whose Hancock Prospecting company owns beef cattle stations, told nuclear power was a better option than renewable energy to tackle climate change. 'Let's not upset many farmers with bird-killing wind generators and massive solar panel stretches, and bring on clean, safe, nuclear energy please Australia,' she said. Labor's more radical left faction is set to have the numbers at the national conference for the first time since 1979. Prime Minister Anthony Albanese's own left faction has misgivings about the $368billion AUKUS submarine plan and to appease them, Foreign Minister Penny Wong has sponsored a motion critical of Israel that refers to