Liberal leader Sussan Ley targets waning manufacturing amid net zero backlash
Amid widespread backlash for scrapping net zero, federal Opposition Leader Sussan Ley has lashed out at Labor on a major issue straining the economy.
Labor is keeping Australia’s manufacturers alive through taxpayer-funded bailouts, Sussan Ley has claimed, as she tries to justify the opposition’s abandonment of net zero.
The embattled Opposition Leader confirmed on Thursday the Liberals would follow their Nationals colleagues in scrapping Australia’s target of carbon neutrality by 2050 – a policy the Coalition committed the country to under Scott Morrison.
Caveating the move with promises to keep lowering emissions and stay in the Paris Agreement did little to appease the critics.
Ms Ley used a media blitz on Friday to make the case for axing the policy her party championed just years earlier, calling on Anthony Albanese to “focus on Australian manufacturers” struggling with higher energy prices.
“When, Prime Minister, are power prices going to come down? Because they’ve gone up 40 per cent,” she told reporters at FJP Manufacturing in Sydney’s south.
“We’ve had two Labor elections where the Prime Minister stood there and said … power prices, electricity prices would come down.”
She went on to take aim at the Albanese government’s Future Made in Australia policy.
It is suite of signature, wholesale reforms aimed at re-energising the country’s declining manufacturing sector for the 21st century.
Ms Ley said it was failing Australian smelters.
“(The) problem is we’re actually not making things in metal in Australia,” she said.
“We’ve got six metal smelters that are being bailed out, running up the white flag, or calling time.
“So we don’t have a made in Australia policy, we have a being bailed out in Australia policy.
“And Australians do deserve better with our abundant supplies of energy and our innovation, our smarts, the opportunity for our next generation that is simply not there if they are indeed under Labor looking to inherit a standard of living worse than their parents.
“That is not good enough, and if energy is unaffordable, everything is unaffordable.”
Manufacturing has declined since the late 1970s, when it was about 14 per cent of GDP.
In 2023-24, it was about 5-6 per cent of GDP, giving Australia one of the lowest manufacturing shares among advanced economies.
The decline was in part driven by greater dependence on mining for export revenue.
What Australia makes has also shifted, with the likes of carmakers and smelters losing out in favour of high-tech, specialised products, such as medical devices and defence technology.
Analysts broadly agree that high energy costs have only hastened the loss of traditional manufacturing.
Speaking to reporters later, Climate Change and Energy Minister Chris Bowen rebuffed Ms Ley and her energy plans as “incoherent”.
“The Liberal Party says they’re for cheaper power but their policy is the opposite,” he said.
“They want less of the cheapest form of power and more of the most expensive.
“The document they released yesterday was hypocritical, inconsistent statements which add up to nothing.
“They say they want to reduce emissions but talk about new coal-fired power.
“They say they’re against new government subsidies and criticise me for not subsidising coal and nuclear and carbon capture – then they say they want cheaper power and they oppose renewables.”
He rejected criticisms that the national grid was facing a lack of supply.
“I tell you what energy abundance is – it’s getting on with 50 per cent renewables that we hit in the grid for the first time in October,” Mr Bowen said.
“That’s what getting on with the job looks like. Their policy makes no sense. It’s incoherent.”
‘Commentary’
Earlier, she dismissed suggestions that the Liberals were losing their identity after ditching net zero.
Coalition partners the Nationals somewhat forced her hand by taking the step earlier this month.
Fronting morning shows on Friday, Ms Ley was asked if she feared her party was losing its identity, with the suggestion that “this is essentially a Nationals policy you’ve now adopted”.
“Who’s leading who in this Coalition partnership?” she was asked on Nine’s Today.
“I’m not interested in the commentary,” she replied, adding that she saw “it in the eyes of the my children and grandchildren”.
“Right now they are set to inherit a worse standard of living than the generation before them, and that is just not fair.
“And we need to address it because when energy is unaffordable, everything is unaffordable.”
Ms Ley said power would be made cheaper “by having a balanced energy mix … and by understanding that we have to be agnostic about what technologies we bring to bear.”
Some within Liberal Party ranks warned against ditching net zero, with former moderate candidate Gisele Kapterian fearing the impact on “the most marginal, winnable, metropolitan seats”.
“The language of net zero is a proxy for how seriously we take our commitment to a sustainable future,” she said.
‘What’s right for Gen Z and millennials’
Quizzed on Sky News about the impact on younger voters, Ms Ley insisted she also cared about climate change.
“Young Australians have told me that they care about climate, I care about climate too,” she said.
“Where is the climate policy that makes sense? What we’re saying is we will reduce emissions, on average, year on year in line with comparable countries.
“But Australians deserve affordable energy, not power prices that have gone up 40 per cent.
“It’s about what’s right for Gen Z and millennials who, right now, can’t afford to buy a home, can’t pay their power bills and are looking at a government that is set to deliver them a worse standard of living than their parents. That’s just not fair.”
Following the Liberals’ decision on Thursday, the party’s energy spokesman Dan Tehan will lead a Liberal delegation taking the position to the Nationals to thrash out a joint position.
Before the Liberals announced their position, Prime Minister Anthony Albanese told reporters the opposition was considering walking away from net zero because “they fundamentally do not believe in the science in climate change”.
Originally published as Liberal leader Sussan Ley targets waning manufacturing amid net zero backlash
