How a sense of betrayal brought a major complication to a battleground seat

Though Labor has legislated Australia’s commitment to reach net zero emissions by 2050, committed to cut emissions by 43 per cent by 2030, and ramped up the deployment of renewables, Anthony Albanese cleared the decks for the election by dumping promised reforms to the nation’s failing environmental protection laws. His popular environment minister Tanya Plibersek has been granted all the profile of an informant in witness protection so far through the campaign.

Meanwhile, Dutton is making his scepticism towards ambitious climate action plain, suggesting recently that it would be “madness” for Australia to co-host United Nations climate talks, and championing gas-led energy policy. He and his climate and energy spokesman Ted O’Brien insist that 43 per cent is an impossible target.

Which brings us back to Andrew Constance, who remains the favourite to win Gilmore, though, if bookmakers are to be believed, by a margin that has substantially narrowed through the campaign.

Constance, a Liberal moderate during his years in state politics, made a national profile for himself following the Black Summer fires as a passionate convert to climate action. In 2020 he declared that political polarisation over climate change policy was absurd and told this masthead he would “dedicate the rest of my life to making sure this does not happen again”.

Then in 2021, after flirting with a bid to become premier, Constance announced he would quit the state government to run for the federal seat. At this point, according to local critics, his concern for action on climate change appeared to evolve, again. He began taking positions more in line with anti-climate federal conservative hardliners rather than moderates, and appeared at rallies opposing offshore wind.

Constance attracted national attention in February this year when, during a candidate’s debate in Malua Bay, not far from where he sheltered from the 2019 firestorm alongside his constituents, he said that a Coalition government would abandon the Paris Agreement. “In terms of our international obligations, they’re one thing – but don’t sell us out as you do it; 2035 Paris Agreement target – off the table by the Liberal Party,” Constance told the forum, hosted by Sky News.

Hours later he walked back the comments, saying a Dutton government would set a 2035 target.

“Coalition policy is clear. We will not be setting targets from opposition, we will be setting them from government,” he said. By then, though, the convenor of Climate 200, Simon Holmes a Court, had emailed almost 40,000 supporters citing Constance’s comments and calling for $300,000 in donations for an advertising campaign to help keep the Coalition out of office. He says $1.2 million soon flowed in.

Constance has become a champion of the Coalition’s nuclear policy, a plan that the Climate Change Authority believes would necessitate keeping the nation’s geriatric fleet of coal-fired power stations on life-support for years, causing the nation to dump 2 billion tonnes more of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere.

His social media accounts include his criticism of Labor’s investment in “reckless renewables” and its vehicle emissions standards, which Constance describes as a “ute tax”, rhetoric with an echo of Scott Morrison’s claim in the 2019 election that Labor would somehow “end the weekend”.

Over a quick lunch in Batemans Bay, Constance denies there is inconsistency in support for the federal coalition’s energy and climate policies, and his post-fire vow to dedicate his career to climate action.

“Where is the contradiction?” he asks, saying he never wants to go through another firestorm but understands “nuance in the argument” over how to reduce emissions. Nuclear power stations, he says, present a better pathway to net zero than Labor’s reliance on firmed renewables. On this issue Bragg and Constance seem to be arguing antithetical points. Bragg, who joins us for lunch, says the Coalition backs the deployment of more rooftop solar. Constance says Gilmore voters can’t afford their rooftop solar and batteries. (Our conversation was days before Albanese announced battery subsidies.)

Indeed, says Constance, Gilmore’s voters can barely afford their power bills. “I know a butcher in Nowra who hasn’t been able to pass his refrigeration cost increases to customers because he knows they can’t afford it.” With his focus on cost of living, Constance seems to be in tune with both Dutton and Albanese.

But not all his constituents are convinced. Jack Egan, a south-coast bushfire survivor and climate campaigner, says he feels betrayed by Constance. He says Constance’s positions for nuclear power and against offshore wind and Labor’s fuel emissions standards are at odds with his vow to work for climate action after the fires. “I assume that he was completely genuine at the time, but since then I suggest he’s been wilfully ignorant of the science, which is indicating that we need to move fast and thoroughly to cut our emissions.”

So does the teal independent, Kate Dezarnaulds. “The backflip is staggering,” she says, sitting outside the work-share business she runs in Berry, part of a chain dotted across the seat. “The backflip is appalling. The backflip is really motivating a lot of people in this community to get engaged in politics in a way that they never would before.”

Indeed, she says Constance’s position on climate is one of the reasons she decided to run. “There was a moment where you looked at [former NSW treasurer and climate and energy minister] Matt Kean and Andrew Constance and you thought that there was a kind of transition afoot in the Liberal Party, which was long overdue and encouraging.

“To see [Constance’s] backflip on those professed commitments to energy transition, to the importance of shepherding a community through the changes that we’ve got to make to be able to adapt, respond, mitigate climate change, is depressing. There was a moment but it’s gone.”

Like Constance, the Labor incumbent, Fiona Phillips, believes the people of Gilmore are focused on cost of living but says the fires of 2019 and recovery linger over the seat. She claims Constance’s comments about the Paris Agreement on the Sky News forum have made people wonder what he stands for.

One of Constance’s former NSW cabinet colleagues believes Constance instinctively understands the economic concerns of his electorate, and the political advantage of taking a tough line on climate, should he be called upon to forge a career in a Dutton-led government.

He describes Constance as a politician of rare instinctive talent, and one who has long been sceptical of ambitious climate action. “He has this extraordinary, well-confected air of authenticity. In cabinet he knew exactly when and how to intervene to derail a proposal that he did not like,” he says.

The proposals Constance did not like often had to do with progressive action on climate and the environment, says his former colleague. “He was about the brownest member of cabinet, he would give the Nats a run for their money. We used to call him Grumpy Bega.”

Another former colleague does not agree with this assessment, at least not entirely. Yes, he says, Constance did often use his deft interventions to derail climate and environment initiatives. But he doesn’t believe Constance was the sort of die-hard anti-environmentalist you often come across in conservative circles. “He is unencumbered by any belief in anything at all.”

Either way, Constance leaves behind a substantial record in state parliament. He served as transport and infrastructure minister from 2015 and was responsible for delivering multibillion-dollar metro and light rail projects. From 2019 he served as both transport and road minister, and was viewed as an effective leader of a pair of critical portfolios.

As he points out to this masthead, he was responsible for the multibillion-dollar policy of electrifying the state’s fleet of 8000 buses, an initiative that will dramatically reduce noise and air pollution, and greenhouse gas emissions, when completed in the 2040s.

On a perfect Autumn morning on the beach at Mollymook, Gary Cox, a former electrician and real estate agent, is out walking with his wife, Lisa, who is still selling homes in the area.

Gary reckons Constance has his priorities right. “He was good during the fires, and I am not anti-climate change but I do think there are bigger issues.” Gary worries that the region’s roads are jammed, its hospitals stressed and its schools crowded, its children priced out of the communities they grew up in.

Constance, who Gary says served his community well in state government, has his support.

Lisa cheerfully disagrees. “We will cancel each other out with our votes,” she says. She will back Fiona Phillips.

Both agree it is good for the region that there is such a bitter fight for Gilmore. “They will just keep throwing money at us,” says Gary.