No agreement on net zero after marathon Liberal Party meeting
A tense three-hour Liberal Party meeting has exposed deep rifts over net zero, as MPs clash over the political cost of abandoning the policy.
Liberal MPs are no closer to a formal position on net zero after a marathon three-hour meeting, but there is broad agreement that emissions reduction cannot come at “any cost”.
About 30 MPs, including Opposition energy spokesman Dan Tehan, met in Canberra on Friday where they broadly agreed that the priority needed to be on reducing energy prices as a first priority. But while there was consensus that emissions reduction was important, moderates and conservatives butted heads over whether to retain the “net zero” policy.
While one source inside the room described the closed-door three-hour meeting as “reassuring” and a “good opportunity” for discussion, another said MPs had been “attacked unfairly for saying how they feel”.
According to one person, MPs who had agitated for the party to hold the line and keep the net zero policy unchanged over concerns a pivot would cost the party further city seats had hit out at their colleagues who argued differently.
They said the meeting was “supposed to be a place where views could be expressed and debated” but had gotten testy, including when one MP accused the party of being as “disingenuous” as Labor.
Another MP said they wouldn’t characterise it as being tense, but was instead a “good opportunity for everyone to get together”.
They said they had been “reassured the amount of unity there is on a genuine commitment to wanting to reduce power costs”.
Mr Tehan, speaking to the media after the meeting, said downward pressure on energy prices is the Liberal Party’s “number one priority”.
He described the meeting as “helpful” and “incredibly positive” and had revealed “there is so much that we’ve united on”.
“There is a pathway I think to bring us all together in a way that unifies us all now. Exactly what that looks like we are still working through,” he said, describing it as “one of the best meetings that we’ve had in three or four years”.
He said the meeting would “make it a lot easier for me to be able to come up with a position which is in Australia’s national interest, and that’s what all of us want”.
“I’m going to take the time to get it right. It’s so important that we get it right. Labor through their approach is getting it wrong, and we’re all united as one on that they are getting it wrong,” he said.
“Energy prices are going through the roof. They’re going through the roof. And everyone in that room this morning said, we have to make putting downward pressure on energy prices our number one commitment.”
Mr Tehan said he still hoped to be able to come to a final position by March, but MPs are sceptical.
Nationals MPs were invited to the meeting but were absent because it is the first day of their federal council, where it’s expected there will be broad support for the party scrapping net zero.
Originally published as No agreement on net zero after marathon Liberal Party meeting
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