Smaller taxes, national security, and better education: Sussan Ley’s plan to save the Liberals

Camps in both Coalition partyrooms are divided on whether to stick to net zero, as Sussan Ley says her leadership will be focused on smaller taxes, national security and better education.

Sussan Ley at home in Albury, NSW. Picture: Alex Coppel.

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Sussan Ley says smaller taxes, better schools and national security will be central to her vision to rebuild her devastated party, as Liberal MPs ramp up pressure on the new Opposition Leader not to support a net zero by 2050 policy that demands a “blank cheque”.

The Australian can reveal that camps in both Coalition partyrooms are divided over whether to stick to the net zero deal negotiated by Scott Morrison with the ­Nationals in 2021.

Ms Ley and Nationals leader David Littleproud, who met last Thursday after both won leadership votes in the wake of the ­Coalition’s May 3 election bloodbath, have committed to reviewing their commitments to net zero and other energy policies.

The first woman to lead the Liberals writes in The Australian that while her party is debating a new course on climate change, she does not consider the differing opinions of her MPs a weakness.

“A diversity of opinions is not, as many commentators would have you think, a sign of weakness. My team cares about the ­future of our party because they know we have the right values to keep Australians strong and ­secure,” she says.

“But as we work out why we failed to win the flag at this election and decide the path forward, there are things I can make clear are not going to change.

“Our policies are up for review. Our values are not.”

Ms Ley writes – amid the party’s parliamentary wipeout and ongoing identity crisis – that support for the AUKUS nuclear-powered submarine pact with the US and an Australian education system based “on critical thinking” will stay tenets of the party, going ­forward.

After internal criticism of former leader Peter Dutton’s decision to not back Labor’s March budget tax cuts, or to take a bolder tax reform package to the election, Ms Ley said the party under her leadership would “always stand for lower, simpler, and fairer taxes – not as an economic ideology but because we trust people to spend their own money more than we do the government”.

“We will always take education seriously, not for slogans or funding battles, but because knowledge and critical thinking are so important – especially for our children,” she says.

“And we continue our steadfast support of our alliances and security agreements like ANZUS and AUKUS because we must have an urgent, honest conversation with Australians about the deteriorating geopolitical ­environment in our region.”

While conservative South Australian Liberal senator Alex Antic and Nationals MPs Barnaby Joyce, Colin Boyce, Llew O’Brien and senator Matt Canavan are long-time opponents of net zero, other Coalition members are concerned about the economics surrounding the climate pledge.

The Australian understands a small combined majority of Liberal and Nationals MPs want to stick with net zero.

Writing for The Australian online, Groom LNP MP Garth Hamilton said: “I’m not sure why Mr Morrison decided to agree to net zero.”

Garth Hamilton arrives at Parliament House last week. Picture: NewsWire / David Beach

“I cannot support any policy that demands a blank cheque and defers the costs of today on to the taxpayers of tomorrow,” Mr Hamilton. who sits in the Liberals partyroom, wrote.

“No matter how righteous a cause, even in war, there is a ­horizon beyond which a civilised nat­ion cannot allow itself to drift.

“Our economy cannot be funded by the labours of our children.

“The Liberal Party has been the safe harbour Australians have sought when their thoughts turn to the troubled waters of tomorrow. We’ve been that because our economic credentials have been excellent for generations.

“However, our relatively recent support of blank-cheque policies like net zero have not gone unnoticed by the Australian voting public.”

In addition to finalising a position on net zero, Ms Ley and Mr Littleproud will this week thrash out the future of the Coalition agreement and make-up of the opposition frontbench.

Following senator Jacinta Nampijinpa Price’s decision to defect from the Nationals partyroom to the Liberals, and former deputy leader Perin Davey’s loss of her Senate spot, the country party is expected to have its shadow cabinet positions reduced from seven to six.

Opposition Leader Sussan Ley and her deputy, Ted O'Brien, at Parliament House in Canberra. Picture: NewsWire / Martin Ollman

After Senator Price last week told The Australian net zero was impossible without nuclear, Deputy Opposition Leader Ted O’Brien on Sunday refused to concede that the Coalition election policy to build government-owned nuclear generators had been a mistake.

“I think it’d be premature to rush to any conclusion that any one policy was right or wrong,” he told Sky News.

Liberal deputy Senate leader Anne Ruston said the “divergence of views” on climate targets within the Coalition was “no secret”.

“To be quite frank, we have to build from the bottom up again because that election result was quite disastrous for the Liberal Party and we need to be open and honest with ourselves,” she told the ABC.

Anne Ruston. Picture: NewsWire / Martin Ollman

Mr Dutton, who has been attacked by former MP colleagues for failing to escalate the fight over energy and emissions reduction during the campaign, managed to maintain a fragile peace around net zero and the Paris Agreement commitments.

Some Coalition sources said dumping the net zero target now after actively supporting it for years would be inconsistent.

It would also cast Australia as an international pariah for breaching the global agreement.

“I don’t think coming off the election that we just had that there was a giant push from anyone to move away from net zero,” one Liberal MP said. “I just can’t see that it aligns with the broader population’s interest or concerns”.

Mr Hamilton, who entered parliament after winning his ­Toowoomba-based electorate in a 2020 by-election, was outspoken from the backbenches in the last parliament as deputy chair of the standing committee on economics. In 2021, he joined a small rump of Queensland-based Nationals MPs in voicing opposition to the Morrison government’s proposed net zero emissions target.

Reflecting on the election, in which he fended off a well-resourced Climate 200 challenge, Mr Hamilton said “the best thing about Peter Dutton was that he brought peace and stability to our party. The worst thing about Peter Dutton was that he brought peace and stability to our party”.

“We needed to have a few internal policy fights to test our resolve. Thomas Jefferson believed every generation needs a new revolution and I believe the new generation of Liberals needs that too,” he wrote.

“I didn’t enter politics to carry the crosses of previous iterations of the Liberal Party but rather to apply its values to the problems of today. It’s the values that bind me, not their application.”

Other Coalition MPs believed Labor’s landslide win was a clear signal that voters were supportive of the net zero target, casting doubt on whether it would be an election-winning issue.

ADDITIONAL REPORTING: Rhiannon Down