Labor goes soft on Sussan Ley amid Coalition’s struggles

Leader of the Opposition Sussan Ley and Prime Minister Anthony Albanese during Question Time at Parliament House in Canberra. Picture: NewsWire / Martin Ollman

Anthony Albanese has gone soft on Sussan Ley’s leadership and the Coalition’s splits over a 2050 net-zero carbon emissions target.

It is a measure of the depth of difficulty facing the Opposition Leader that Labor sees no need to stoke the internal dissension ­within the Coalition partners or to seek to accelerate the erosion of Ley’s leadership.

There’s even a sense that Labor wants the whole show to continue for as long as possible with Ley as leader while the government talks about Medicare and bulk-billing.

The Prime Minister and his ­colleagues in the Senate and House of Representatives made only slight and passing references to the Nationals’ decision to dump the 2050 target and the obviously mounting pressure within the Liberal Party to do likewise.

Ley’s support and authority dribbles away by the day as senior Liberals, including her leadership rival Angus Taylor, sense the drift and adopt positions in line with the Nationals.

The Liberal leader’s final ­decision will be seen to be simply following the Nationals and being told what to do by the influential frontbench colleagues as she fails to get out ahead of the decision, embrace the reality and at least ­appear to be in control.

In parliament, Ley looked isolated and on Monday was keen to turn and talk to the Coalition’s shadow minister for women, Melissa McIntosh, and totally avoid any interaction with Albanese across the dispatch box.

But Albanese and firebrand Energy Minister Chris Bowen treated Ley with kid gloves, a few little jokes about “zero”.

In the Senate tough nut Environment Minister Murray Watt did the same and preferred to talk about Labor’s own climate and environment agenda.

This doesn’t mean they feel sorry for the Opposition Leader, just that after a Newspoll survey showed the Coalition at record low primary support of just 24 per cent and a leadership approval rating of minus 33 for Ley, Labor doesn’t have to do anything to make it worse for the Coalition.

The only problem Albanese has after his return to Australian soil is that he keeps being asked to talk about the Coalition when all he wants to talk about is Medicare.