Speaker 1: From The Australian. Here's what's on the front. I'm Christinamiot.
Speaker 1: It's Monday, November ten, twenty twenty five. The Family Court
Speaker 1: judge whose landmark ruling made puberty blockers more accessible to
Speaker 1: gender dysphoric children says she now has doubts about her decision.
Speaker 1: In twenty thirteen, former Family Court Chief Justice Diana Bryant
Speaker 1: accepted expert evidence puberty blockers were a safe and reversible option,
Speaker 1: but now she believes it's up to parliaments to put
Speaker 1: regulations in place rather than relying on disputes before the courts.
Speaker 1: Another day, another data hack, and this time the Australian
Speaker 1: Defense Force is at the center of the breach. Blueprints
Speaker 1: for high tech fighting vehicles might have been delivered into
Speaker 1: the hands of adversaries who could use them to develop
Speaker 1: effective countermeasures. Those exclusive stories alive right now at the
Speaker 1: Australian dot com dot Au. The Liberal Party is bitterly
Speaker 1: divided between those who believe they can save net zero
Speaker 1: and those who wish it dead and buried. They'll meet
Speaker 1: in Camber this week to decide on their policy once
Speaker 1: and for all, and Susan Lee's leadership hangs in the balance.
Speaker 1: That's today's episode.
Speaker 2: Well, I mean, I will do the right thing, but
Speaker 2: my view is that we won't get to that because
Speaker 2: I don't believe that my colleagues want Australia to be
Speaker 2: ranked with those baddies.
Speaker 1: This is the Opposition Housing spokesman Andrew Bragg on the
Speaker 1: ABC's Insiders program on Sunday. He's talking about the issue
Speaker 1: that's tearing the coalition apart, net zero, and he says
Speaker 1: Australia will be in some pretty dicey company if his
Speaker 1: party abandons a missions reduction scheme.
Speaker 2: I don't think we can give up on it. Our
Speaker 2: policy has to be to make it actually work. I
Speaker 2: think we're all in leadership roles and it's important that
Speaker 2: we don't give up on things that are hard.
Speaker 1: But what would you do well, I.
Speaker 2: Don't imagine that Australia is going to be in a
Speaker 2: grouping with Azerbaijan, Iran and Syria.
Speaker 1: Andrew Bragg is a believer in net zero. He and
Speaker 1: his fellow moderates want the Liberals to commit to a
Speaker 1: plan that would help us reach net zero emissions in
Speaker 1: the second half of this century. The goal is to
Speaker 1: remove as much greenhouse gas from the Earth's atmosphere as
Speaker 1: we produce by transitioning to renewables and investing in reforestation
Speaker 1: and carbon capture and storage. But some of Bragg's Liberal
Speaker 1: Party colleagues, like Senator Sarah Henderson don't want to hear
Speaker 1: about it.
Speaker 3: I strongly believe that we need to resolve our position
Speaker 3: very very quickly, as it's a I think well known.
Speaker 3: I vehemently oppose NIT zero in all of its guys,
Speaker 3: as it's sending our country backwards. It's causing enormous environmental
Speaker 3: and economic harm. And the Nationals have done.
Speaker 1: Up valconvene at a special Party room meeting in Canberra
Speaker 1: on Wednesday to thrash it out.
Speaker 4: So at the moment we're debating the interpretation of the
Speaker 4: Paris Agreement and whether to retain two words in the
Speaker 4: policy platform.
Speaker 1: Greg Brown is the Australian's chief political correspondent.
Speaker 4: In many ways, it's the fight they had to have.
Speaker 4: It was the fight they really had to have in
Speaker 4: the last term after they lost in twenty twenty two,
Speaker 4: and they ended up not having any debates really, which
Speaker 4: I think was a big mistake, and then they papered
Speaker 4: over all their divisions with the nuclear policy if you're
Speaker 4: a member. So that was something that the whole party
Speaker 4: agreed with. So they just put aside the divisions on
Speaker 4: netzer by twenty fifty and they all got behind this
Speaker 4: nuclear agenda that they had. So really it's coming to
Speaker 4: a head in a way that it is uglier than
Speaker 4: it needed to be because it's had that waiting time,
Speaker 4: and also the party's being led by a leader who
Speaker 4: only just won a ballot. There is a lot of
Speaker 4: anger within the Moderate faction, the supporters of Susan Lee
Speaker 4: about her handling of this issue. They think that she
Speaker 4: could have come out very quickly, similar to what she's
Speaker 4: done with tax cuts, and said we will retain that
Speaker 4: zero under my leadership, but not at any cost, and
Speaker 4: we'll look at exactly how that will manifest itself. But
Speaker 4: by leaving it completely open, they think that it allowed
Speaker 4: the anti net zero forces to gain momentum and get
Speaker 4: it to a stage where it's a very good chance
Speaker 4: of being dumped. What we're reporting in the paper on
Speaker 4: Monday is that the Moderate a proposing a way to
Speaker 4: keep net zero, which is net zero the Australian Way,
Speaker 4: which would not link net zero to a timeline and
Speaker 4: would be very much about pragmatism and getting more gas
Speaker 4: out of the ground and a technology agnostic approach and
Speaker 4: get a sense of patriotism to it, that we're not
Speaker 4: just going to go to net zero for the reasons
Speaker 4: of Paris and the international community just for the sake
Speaker 4: of it, that we will do it the Australian way.
Speaker 4: But there is a view from Conservatives that this argument
Speaker 4: has just been put too late and basically the party room,
Speaker 4: according to what the Conservatives are say in the party room,
Speaker 4: as pretty well coalesced around a decision to drop net zero.
Speaker 1: Andrew Bragg said on Sunday he wouldn't abandon his principles
Speaker 1: if his party abandons net zero or agrees to leave
Speaker 1: the Paris Agreement. It's an international agreement signed by Australia
Speaker 1: just under a decade ago to limit global warming to
Speaker 1: two degrees celsius by reducing greenhouse gas emissions.
Speaker 4: So he's saying he'll quit the front bench. The question
Speaker 4: was put to him about retaining net zero and leaving Paris,
Speaker 4: and he it feels like he grabbed onto the Paris
Speaker 4: element of that and said, yeah, well, get sure, I'll
Speaker 4: leave the front bench if that's the case, but I
Speaker 4: think there's a legitimate interpretation that he was asked about
Speaker 4: net zero as well, and he said sure. I think
Speaker 4: there is still a question about whether they come out,
Speaker 4: they stay in Paris, but they drop net zero, whether
Speaker 4: he does leave all together. But certainly there is a
Speaker 4: fierce battle being plagued by the likes of himself, Dave
Speaker 4: Sharma and other leading moderates who were working very hard
Speaker 4: behind the scenes to keep net zero going. And I
Speaker 4: think a real blow for them is it's not just
Speaker 4: some of the leading conservatives who were open to net
Speaker 4: zero who have now shifted, people like James Patterson and
Speaker 4: Angus Taylor, they shifted their support away from net zero.
Speaker 4: It's also some of the key powerbrokers that are crucial
Speaker 4: for Susan Lee's leadership who are not in that faction.
Speaker 4: So you've got Alex Hawk from the center right, and
Speaker 4: then you've got James McGrath who's from the centrist faction
Speaker 4: in Queensland. So the fact that it's multi factional now
Speaker 4: I think is a bigger problem for the moderates.
Speaker 1: Yeah, you've written for The Australian that Andrew Bragg is
Speaker 1: a key supporter of Susan Lee's what does the future
Speaker 1: hold for her if she can't hold on to the
Speaker 1: people who do back her much less the people who don't.
Speaker 4: Well. I think this is a crucial question because some
Speaker 4: in the Moderates are worried that not only will they
Speaker 4: lose net zero, but if they then cause too much
Speaker 4: havoc for Susan Lee and then they lose a leader
Speaker 4: who's typically sympathetic to them as well, and all they
Speaker 4: end up with is no net zero and Angus Taylor
Speaker 4: as leader, the Moderates pull their support to her all together,
Speaker 4: I think is unlikely. However, I think no matter how
Speaker 4: this goes on Wednesday, Susan Lee's leadership will face significant strain.
Speaker 4: It's already under a lot of strain, and I think
Speaker 4: the Conservatives are threatening mayhem if there's any retention at all,
Speaker 4: even in a vague way of net zero. So I
Speaker 4: think she's got a lot of tough days ahead.
Speaker 1: Coming up. Does the conservative math on net zero add up?
Speaker 1: Senator Sarah Henderson said on Friday the opposition's support of
Speaker 1: net zero has hurt them in the last few elections.
Speaker 1: She's been one of the vocal advocates of dumping net
Speaker 1: zero policy going into Wednesday's meeting, But the Climate two
Speaker 1: hundred backed Teal Independence have gone from strength to strength
Speaker 1: in that same time, so does what she is saying
Speaker 1: ring true. Are Australian voters genuinely going to accept a
Speaker 1: no net zero position from either party?
Speaker 4: Well, it's difficult to reconcile what people like Sarah Henderson
Speaker 4: and Andrew Hasty and Just Enterprise say based on the
Speaker 4: results from twenty twenty two, in twenty twenty five and
Speaker 4: the rise of the tials and all that. However, looking forward,
Speaker 4: there is globally a change in sentiment around this issue.
Speaker 4: The OECD put out a report just on Friday showing
Speaker 4: that there has been a slow down in global action
Speaker 4: on climate. We've seen Donald Trump pull out of Paris,
Speaker 4: We're seeing anti net zero parties doing very well in
Speaker 4: the polls. Nigel Fras is doing well in the polls
Speaker 4: in Britain, and the Conservative Party have dumped the commitment
Speaker 4: to net zero altogether. So I think moving forward there
Speaker 4: are plenty of political headaches potentially in dropping that zero,
Speaker 4: but closer to the next election twenty twenty eight, it
Speaker 4: will become increasingly clear. I think that Australia will not
Speaker 4: meet US twenty thirty target and the transition will continue
Speaker 4: to be messy. What that means for power prices, I
Speaker 4: think is they're probably going to keep going up as well,
Speaker 4: and that will leave I think the Coalition with a
Speaker 4: very clear argument that Labor's committed to net zero but
Speaker 4: it's not hitting any of its targets. All it means
Speaker 4: is a lot of expense for voters. We will do
Speaker 4: it another way. While there is risk politically in it,
Speaker 4: I can see a pathway to success, but I think
Speaker 4: it pretty much means it's very difficult to win back
Speaker 4: those old blue ribbon seats in Melbourne and Sydney.
Speaker 1: And after Wednesday, what then.
Speaker 4: I just think they need to get this resolve before Christmas.
Speaker 4: They can't see this blood letting go on into next
Speaker 4: year and they need to start putting the pressure back
Speaker 4: on the government and the government they're twenty thirty five
Speaker 4: target landed pretty well. Really, it's a big range, sixty
Speaker 4: two to seventy percent. But as I said, the difficulties
Speaker 4: for the government in this will actually be delivering on it,
Speaker 4: and that's where there will be pressure for Labor. So
Speaker 4: at the moment it looks like Labour's in a pretty
Speaker 4: unassailable position. But when you look at both this issue,
Speaker 4: the budget the economy, I think if the Libs can
Speaker 4: sort this out and then act with relative stability going
Speaker 4: on into next year, I think there are opportunities to
Speaker 4: land some blows on the government.
Speaker 1: Greg Brown is The Australian's chief political correspondent. You can
Speaker 1: check out his reporting and analysis right now at the
Speaker 1: Australian dot com dot au