Ley’s job on the line as Liberals reject net zero

Opposition Leader Sussan Ley is preparing to formally dump the Liberal Party’s pledge to reach net zero emissions by 2050, overriding warnings from her campaign boss and city-based MPs about losing support in suburbs where the party has been all but wiped out.

About 60 per cent of Liberals spoke in favour of rejecting the Morrison-era target in a nearly five-hour meeting of party MPs on Wednesday, representing a decisive majority and clearing the path for Ley to take the fight to Labor with a radically reshaped energy policy.

The talkfest went some way to ending speculation about which side of the party had the numbers after weeks of torturous debate on the perennially tricky policy. Crucially, deputy leader Ted O’Brien, Ley’s chief factional ally Alex Hawke and key leadership rival Angus Taylor all opposed the 2050 pledge.

Credit: Matt Golding

According to sources in the room, about 30 Liberals spoke in favour of dumping net zero, about 20 wanted to keep it, and a few were on the fence. But the split was narrower when MPs discussed whether the party could endorse net zero as an aspiration even if they want to scrap the legislated target. The Liberal frontbench, where the Moderates have a majority, will debate whether net zero is dumped on Thursday.

Ley walked out of the marathon meeting on her own, minutes after Right faction members Hastie and James Paterson had shaken hands in front of the gathered cameras.

Ley, under pressure from Moderates to stick with climate action, said only that it was a “great meeting”. Energy spokesman Dan Tehan held a press conference, but only talked in general terms about the party charting a new path to challenge Labor’s green agenda and bring down emissions without mentioning net zero.

Opposition Leader Sussan Ley leaves the party room meeting alone.Credit: Alex Ellinghausen

Ley is fighting to keep her leadership intact by keeping the anti-net zero Right faction onside. A large group of conservatives, including leadership aspirants Taylor and Andrew Hastie, walked into the meeting as a bloc.

The anti-net zero majority in the room was driven by a group of right-wingers, led by Paterson, hardening their position against a carbon-neutral future over recent weeks.

No MPs talked in Wednesday’s meeting about splitting from the Nationals, and several spoke strongly in favour of keeping the Coalition together. Similarly, none of the Moderates made threats to quit the frontbench if net zero was dumped entirely.

Goldstein MP Tim Wilson, one of the last to speak in alphabetical order, pleaded with MPs to maintain a net zero target and proposed a new “net zero safety valve” that would delay the 2050 pledge by any amount of time power prices rose at a quicker pace than inflation.

Battling to win over colleagues, sources in the room cited Wilson as saying: “If we dump net zero and negotiate with the Nationals, we have nothing to negotiate.”

West Australian frontbencher Melissa Price delivered one of the most impassioned speeches, declaring MPs would lose their seats and the party would be seen as a laughing stock if they moved against the globally recognised emissions reductions framework.

At the start of the meeting, party campaign boss Andrew Hirst cited qualitative data warning MPs that net zero was seen by many voters as a “proxy” for climate action. But, he added, firmer arguments on the financial downside of Labor’s green agenda could shift perceptions on net zero.

Anti-Ley backbencher Sarah Henderson – who at one point stopped the meeting to complain about leaks to this masthead – pushed back on Hirst’s intervention, echoing right-winger Michaelia Cash, who pleaded with colleagues to dump net zero and win the argument as it did during the Voice to parliament referendum.

Hawke, Ley’s ally, spoke in a similar vein, telling Sky News that climate change was not “the only issue [and] most young people are more exercised about housing affordability and renting affordability than they are about climate right now and for good reasons”.

Top conservatives, including Taylor, had in recent days held high-level compromise talks with leading Moderates on the possibility of allowing MPs to use their own pro-net zero language in press conferences or interviews if asked about a carbon-neutral future. Paterson is leading the charge within the Right to avoid such a deal, instead arguing for a clear break with Labor to create sharp battlelines.

Andrew Hastie and James Paterson shake hands after the meeting.Credit: Alex Ellinghausen

“This is a binary argument: we either support net zero or we do not,” Paterson has told colleagues.

Hastie gave what many MPs said was a compelling speech to get rid of net zero and create energy abundance to fuel the future AI and defence industries.

Moderate frontbenchers Wilson and Andrew Bragg are considering resigning their shadow ministries if net zero is dumped, with Wilson believing he would need to focus on holding on to the only inner-urban Liberal seat, Goldstein, if the party weakened its commitment to climate change.

Thursday’s shadow ministry meeting will decide whether net zero is gone entirely or just watered down.

This will determine whether Ley can keep Moderates onside and protect her leadership from city-based MPs joining populist right-wingers in abandoning her.

The anti-net zero bloc: Senator Jessica Collins, opposition minister for defence Angus Taylor, Senator Sarah Henderson, Member for Canning Andrew Hastie and Senator Jacinta Nampijinpa Price with other Liberal MPs and senators arrive for their party room showdown on Wednesday.Credit: Alex Ellinghausen

This masthead reported on Tuesday that some MPs had believed for about a month that Ley would be comfortable ditching net zero, even though she had advocated for modernising the party and was put into the top job by the Moderates. Killing net zero would thereby put her leadership into murky territory, with the Moderates demanding she side with them and the Right considering a coup early next year.

Ahead of Thursday’s shadow ministry meeting, one conservative MP said: “It would be very unwise for Sussan and her team to not support the party room’s will to dump net zero.”

The Liberal and National parties will appoint three MPs each to try to harmonise the parties’ positions ahead of a joint party room meeting on Sunday.

Tehan released a document “foundational principles” after the meeting, calling for a “stable, reliable energy grid” offering affordable power to homes and businesses, and reducing emissions “in a responsible, transparent way that ensures Australia does its fair share”.

Energy and Climate Change Minister Chris Bowen said: “More chaos, more denial and more delay. The Liberals haven’t listened, they haven’t learnt and they certainly haven’t changed.”

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