NSW Liberal Leader Kellie Sloane won’t overturn net zero decision ‘that was made within the last week”

The new NSW Liberal leader doubled down on the state party’s dedication to net zero and stating she would not “overturn a decision that was made within the last week”.

New NSW Liberal Leader Kellie Sloane confirmed the state party would remain firm on keeping net zero. Picture: Julian Andrews.

Newly installed NSW Liberal leader Kellie Sloane has strongly backed in keeping net zero, defying her state Coalition partner and the federal Liberal Party.

Speaking on Sky just days after she replaced beleaguered state party leader Mark Speakman, Ms Sloane denied that there was any desire to overturn the climate target.

While the NSW Nationals have voted to dump net zero, the state Liberal Party room reaffirmed their support last week.

Ms Sloane said she is “very good friends with our National colleagues and I believe we can work through it”.

“I’m here to represent the will of the party room. As new leader, I’m not going to overturn a decision that was made within the last week,” she said.

She said the NSW Liberals would “stick to the course with our eyes on the horizon” in order to provide “business confidence,” however their policy would be “firmly focused on affordable and reliable energy in NSW”.

“We have a different set of circumstances in NSW. We have the practical rollout compared to the Commonwealth. We have to make sure that we have some renewables, probably sweating some of those coal assets, definitely having gas as part of the mix,” she said.

“The answer is figuring out how we support communities who are struggling under Labor’s bungled rollout, a rollout that was on track when the former coalition left government with investment and support for community”.

NSW Liberal Leader Kellie Sloane reaffirmed the Liberal party’s support for net zero. Picture: Julian Andrews.

Asked about the diversion between the federal and state Liberals, senior Coalition frontbencher James Paterson downplayed the clash and said “national targets are responsibilities of the federal government”.

“State governments are entitled to pursue whatever energy and emissions policies they like, but it’s ultimately the federal government they’ll be held to account for whether or not we meet our international commitments,” he told Sky.

“We’ve been very clear we want to continue to reduce emissions, as we did when we were last in office, but we’re not going to do so at the expense of affordable energy.”

This comes as the federal Liberal formally dumped net zero in order to prioritise lowering energy prices and boosting supply through nuclear, gas, and extending the life of coal plants.

She took the top job after Mark Speakman resigned as leader after months of pressure from his party colleagues. Picture: NewsWire/ Gaye Gerard

The Vaucluse MP also reaffirmed her call for returning un-means-tested IVF rebates, and urged her federal counterparts to bring back Costello-era baby bonus to boost Australia’s lagging fertility rates.

She added the current birthrate of 1.48 babies per woman was not enough to support Australia’s ageing population, and Australia needed the “extra taxpayers”.

“One in seven families in NSW has fertility struggles. If we’re talking about cutting immigration, we need to boost our homegrown community,” she said.

“I’d love, I’d love to see the federal government look at things like Peter Costello’s baby bonus. We are in a baby recession. We need a baby boom.”

The Vaucluse MP – who has three teenage boys – has declared helping families to be among her priorities, including addressing childcare shortages.

While Ms Sloane will first speak with her party colleagues, she said that addressing the declining birthrate by helping couples have babies would be a key priority.

The former Coalition government introduced a $2000 IVF rebate in 2022 to help women accessing fertility services to cover some of their out-of-pocket expenses.

However, the rebate was scaled back by the Minns government this year, making it “virtually unattainable” to many couples, Ms Sloane said.

In just her third day in the top job, Ms Sloane also downplayed the moment she was heckled during a visit to Parramatta on Saturday.

She said the group were not “representative of the community that I visited yesterday” and said there were “ a few political activists that I’ve seen at a few other protests”.

“Someone discovered we were there, and look, that’s okay, because part of the job, (which is) going to be fronting up to people who don’t always agree with what I’m saying,” she added.

“It’s not going to stop me turning up and I’m happy to have chats.”

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