Sussan Ley is taking her new energy policy on the road and she intends to fight for her leadership
Amid ongoing leadership speculation in Liberal Party ranks, the Opposition Leader will spend the next 10 days meeting families, small business owners and manufacturing workers who are copping the brunt of the cost-of-living crisis.
Ahead of MPs returning to Canberra on November 24 for the final parliamentary sitting week of the year, Ley is determined to lift morale and show disgruntled colleagues she can damage Anthony Albanese’s government.
Axing net zero and refusing to set short-term emissions reduction targets from opposition puts the Liberals and Nationals on a war footing to take the fight up to their No 1 target – renewables zealot Chris Bowen.
After six months of squabbling over keeping or junking net zero, Ley has backed the majority of her party room, led by conservative rivals, to abandon the mid-century carbon neutral target.
At the same time, she has upset moderate backers who believed she would fight for net zero.
Ley, who won’t give up the leadership without a fight, had no alternative but to jump on the anti-net-zero train.
If she hadn’t, her leadership was over.
Starting in Sydney on Friday, ahead of a joint party room meeting on Sunday where the Nationals are expected to support the new Coalition energy and climate change platform, Ley will conduct daily media blitzes, press conferences and events amplifying the threat of high energy prices, businesses closing down and job losses.
Conservative Liberals, who have unified on net zero after being left bruised by Peter Dutton’s heavy election defeat, have made clear there are no imminent plans to move on the party’s first female leader. They will give Ley a chance to sell the new anti-net-zero policy but if she can’t, they would enter next year coalescing behind a preferred candidate.
Sources close to Ley say the hard Right are wrong when they say the policy shift is an automatic pathway to 100 seats and that, equally, the hard left are wrong when they say it’s an automatic pathway to holding just 10 seats.
They argue Middle Australia is up for grabs and the political argument can be won by selling a clear alternative to Labor’s renewables-only net-zero future.
“Mums and dads who look at their power bill each and every month and see it going up don’t care about yes net zero or no net zero. They care about that bill. That is who Sussan is talking directly to in this sell,” a source said.
Albanese on Thursday continued blaming the Coalition for sky-high power bills and accused the conservative parties of alienating South Pacific and Southeast Asian countries on climate change. The Labor government, which should remember Australians care about their own predicament first and foremost, is under pressure to prove by the 2028 election its claim that renewables deliver the cheapest form of energy. An SEC Newgate Mood of the Nation survey this week revealed antipathy towards Labor and the Coalition on who Australians believe is better to manage the cost-of-living crisis. A total of 45 per cent of voters said neither/someone else (30 per cent) or can’t say (15 per cent) ahead of Labor (33 per cent) and the Coalition (22 per cent). In a warning sign, a majority of Australians aged 35-49 – who are struggling to pay their mortgage, grocery bills and rent – picked neither/someone else.
As the economy weakens and inflation ticks up, Albanese knows the cost-of-living crisis is Labor’s Achilles heel.
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A defiant Sussan Ley will launch a campaign-style blitz selling the Coalition’s new energy and climate change policy, which focuses on lowering power bills instead of Labor’s net-zero and emissions-reduction targets.