Speaker 1: Susan Lee cut a lonely figure on Wednesday when she
Speaker 1: walked into the Liberal party room meeting with just one
Speaker 1: colleague by her side.
Speaker 2: I was interested watching those images of the Liberals filing
Speaker 2: into that party room meeting.
Speaker 1: The Opposition were there to thrash out their position on
Speaker 1: net zero once and for all. And like everyone in
Speaker 1: the Canbra press pack, Karen Middleton was watching and what
Speaker 1: she noticed was a sign of what was to come.
Speaker 2: That big group of Conservatives who walked in together, they
Speaker 2: were sending a message that was not a message of
Speaker 2: support for Susan Lee. Because if you were a group
Speaker 2: of people who wanted her to succeed, wanted to back
Speaker 2: her in, you wouldn't be doing what they did. All right, Well,
Speaker 2: good afternoon, everybody.
Speaker 1: By the next day, the opposition leader frantic cameras to
Speaker 1: announce what was widely expected.
Speaker 3: The Liberal Party will remove a net zero target from
Speaker 3: our policy.
Speaker 1: It's a shift that will define Susan Lee's leadership. Raises
Speaker 1: deeper questions about who controls the coalition and how they'll
Speaker 1: ever win again.
Speaker 2: Because we know now that gen z and millennials are
Speaker 2: the biggest group of voters in the Australian voting populace.
Speaker 2: Now they are looking at climate change with alarm and
Speaker 2: there's a growing body of research says that they expect
Speaker 2: there's a credible policy on climate action.
Speaker 1: I'm Daniel James and you're listening to seven AM Today.
Speaker 1: Press Gallery journalist Karen Middleton on the Liberal Party, the climate,
Speaker 1: the killing season, the cup. It's Saturday, November fifteen. Karen,
Speaker 1: this decision to scrap net zero was at a step
Speaker 1: with public opinion and with science. So how is the
Speaker 1: Liberal Party justifying it?
Speaker 2: Well, I think we need to be clear this is
Speaker 2: a political calculation that they're making. It's at least as
Speaker 2: much about the politics as it is about the substance
Speaker 2: of the policy. And certainly for Susan Lee, in the
Speaker 2: context of her leadership, trying to stitch together to diametrically
Speaker 2: opposed effectively sides of her party on this issue, in
Speaker 2: particular the conservatives that hate the phrase net zero and
Speaker 2: don't want really any rapid pace of reduction of fossil fuels,
Speaker 2: and the moderates who accept that climate change is real
Speaker 2: and they want the transition to renewable energy to happen
Speaker 2: at speed. She has taken a political decision to try
Speaker 2: and pull these two sides together with a kind of
Speaker 2: hybrid of all positions.
Speaker 3: Australians deserve affordable energy and responsible emissions reduction, and the
Speaker 3: Liberal Party believes we can do both, but affordable energy
Speaker 3: must come first.
Speaker 2: I think one of the difficulties in selling this policy
Speaker 2: to those disparate audiences is that they've got the statement
Speaker 2: that they no longer support net zero greenhouse gas emissions
Speaker 2: by twenty fifty.
Speaker 3: And if elected, we will remove the forty three percent
Speaker 3: twenty thirty target and it's net zero by twenty fifty
Speaker 3: target from the Climate Change Act. They want to sort
Speaker 3: of not be actively discouraging of achieving net zero emissions,
Speaker 3: but they don't want to have a deadline and they
Speaker 3: don't want to be bound to particular ways to get there.
Speaker 1: So seasonally, you did say she still wants to reduce submissions.
Speaker 1: What's their plan for how they'll actually go about doing that.
Speaker 2: So they've put out a five page statement on all
Speaker 2: the ways that they might be able to get better,
Speaker 2: But they're leaning quite heavily on this idea of new technologies.
Speaker 3: We've talked about supporting breakthrough technologies and repurposing funds to
Speaker 3: do exactly that. That's what austrai as would expect of us.
Speaker 2: They've still got nuclear in the mix. They're talking about
Speaker 2: something they've talked about for a long time, which is
Speaker 2: carbon capturing storage, which is trying to capture gases and
Speaker 2: force them underground. And they're really hoping that technology will
Speaker 2: develop so they don't have to take heavily interventionary steps
Speaker 2: in the fossil fuel industry. But they are still wanting
Speaker 2: to stay in the Paris Agreement, and the Paris Agreement
Speaker 2: specifically says it doesn't use the phrase net zero, but
Speaker 2: it specifically says Article four of that agreement says that
Speaker 2: the objective is to get to a neutral position with
Speaker 2: emissions by the end of the century.
Speaker 3: We remain committed to the Paris Agreement and to doing
Speaker 3: our fair share to reduce emissions, but we will do
Speaker 3: it in a way that protects households and budgets and
Speaker 3: keeps our economy strong.
Speaker 2: So there is a slight contradiction in there. They don't
Speaker 2: want to scale things back at the same pace that
Speaker 2: the Labor government is doing it. They think that that's
Speaker 2: been problematic. They want it to happen gradually, but not
Speaker 2: having the Dea line means there is no incentive to
Speaker 2: scale that back at pace.
Speaker 1: So with walking away from that zero, what seats do
Speaker 1: they think they could target with that decision.
Speaker 2: Well, the seats they have lost are the city seats.
Speaker 4: You know.
Speaker 2: The only one who regained a seat from the so
Speaker 2: called Teals in those city previously baboo ribbon Liberal seats
Speaker 2: was Tim Wilson in Melbourne in the seat of Goldstein. Otherwise,
Speaker 2: those Teal seats that they lost in twenty twenty two
Speaker 2: stayed lost at this last election. So there's still a
Speaker 2: debate within the Liberal Party more widely as to whether
Speaker 2: they want to target those seats to win them back
Speaker 2: or whether they need to accept those city seats are lost.
Speaker 2: Traditional Liberals are saying, well, we can't just let those
Speaker 2: seats go. These are our heartland seats. How can we
Speaker 2: hope to be back in government if we don't win
Speaker 2: them back. So that debate rolls on inside the party.
Speaker 2: But they are now hoping they've got a policy that
Speaker 2: can peel across the board, that they've done enough. You know,
Speaker 2: it's a tricky task politically speaking, and where are the
Speaker 2: seats well that will be something that Liberal Party strategists
Speaker 2: are going to have to work out over the next
Speaker 2: couple of.
Speaker 1: Years coming up. Well, Susan Lee's leadership survived the killing season.
Speaker 1: There's no doubt that this is a major win for
Speaker 1: the right of the party who are fought for scrapping
Speaker 1: it zero. So is there a chance Karen that climate
Speaker 1: is the first issue we see Susan Lee rolled on.
Speaker 1: Could there be other issues like immigration for instance.
Speaker 2: Well, I think the big thing is will she last
Speaker 2: long enough for there to be other issues she gets
Speaker 2: rolled on, because I think the real fundamental thing to
Speaker 2: watch now is whether she survives this debate. She's now
Speaker 2: pulled this policy together and she has to go out
Speaker 2: and sell it, and whether that is seen as credible
Speaker 2: or not will determine whether, I think whether she stays
Speaker 2: in the leadership. And you are seeing conservatives coming out
Speaker 2: and almost gloating, you know, almost boasting, taking credit Garth
Speaker 2: Hamilton and Queensland Conservative. He was on Sky News of
Speaker 2: the night that they made this decision. This policy was
Speaker 2: forced through by the backbench. It's been backbenches like myself,
Speaker 2: Tony Pass and Henry Pike have done all the heavy
Speaker 2: lifting on this and force this through, and he pointedly
Speaker 2: would not say that she will definitively lead them to
Speaker 2: the next election.
Speaker 3: Do you think Susan will be leader this time next year?
Speaker 2: No, I'm not going to go in it for you today, Shari.
Speaker 2: I'm sorry. I think we've got a huge.
Speaker 1: Confidence in her leadership.
Speaker 3: To say that you think she'll be still be a
Speaker 3: leader in a year's time, I'm.
Speaker 2: Not going to suggest anyone on that one for you, Shari,
Speaker 2: I'm going to focus on today's great It was not
Speaker 2: a resounding endorsement of her leadership, and that says that
Speaker 2: this is the pivotal issue, that those conservatives are looking
Speaker 2: at this as a pivotal issue, and that sort of
Speaker 2: phalanx of conservatives around Angus Taylor and Andrew Hasty, that
Speaker 2: suggests you're looking at a potential future leadership ticket from
Speaker 2: the conservative side. And the question really is how long
Speaker 2: do they give her before they move? And the sort
Speaker 2: of attitude we're seeing would suggest that they think they
Speaker 2: can take their time, let her struggle, and then move
Speaker 2: when they're not going to be seen as tearing down
Speaker 2: the first female leader Carol.
Speaker 1: What has Susan Lee's handling of this shown about what
Speaker 1: type of leader she is.
Speaker 2: Well, I think one of the problems Susan Lee has
Speaker 2: is that she was reticent to put a position at all.
Speaker 2: So we've seen her step back and let this debate
Speaker 2: play out in public, involving her own party and not
Speaker 2: a certain position, and I'm not sure that that's the
Speaker 2: most effective way to lead in a circumstance like this.
Speaker 2: There is no perfect way, and she's in a diabolically
Speaker 2: difficult position. She's taken on the leadership of the Liberal
Speaker 2: Party in very difficult circumstances after a terrible loss. She
Speaker 2: always talks about being smashed, and she's right.
Speaker 3: We didn't just lose, we got smashed, totally smashed.
Speaker 2: Nobody else wanted the leadership at this time, so points
Speaker 2: to her for having the courage to step forward and
Speaker 2: do that. But having not articulated a policy makes it
Speaker 2: even harder because you sort of vacate the space, and
Speaker 2: so her colleagues have then effectively been giving her advice
Speaker 2: in public, sort of over her head, and she has
Speaker 2: not engaged in the debate. It was interesting these events
Speaker 2: this week coincided with the fiftieth anniversary of the dismissal
Speaker 2: of the Whitlam government and just down the hill at
Speaker 2: Old Parliament House we saw a day of seminars and
Speaker 2: discussion about that, and one of the people talking there
Speaker 2: was John Howard, the former Prime Minister, second longest serving
Speaker 2: Liberal prime minister. He was talking about those days leading
Speaker 2: up to the dismissal fifty years ago and the fact
Speaker 2: that Malcolm Fraser had this hardline position to try and
Speaker 2: block supply in the Senate, and there have been suggestions
Speaker 2: since that some of those Liberal senators were really starting
Speaker 2: to go a big wobbly and that they may not
Speaker 2: have held out much longer had the Governor General not
Speaker 2: stepped in.
Speaker 4: He wanted to tough it out there, said he wasn't
Speaker 4: about to back well, no, but there's a lot of
Speaker 4: evidence that some senators were about to crack.
Speaker 2: It was what he did say was very interesting in
Speaker 2: the context of what was going on up the hill
Speaker 2: because he then went on to talk about sort of leadership. Generally,
Speaker 2: he didn't use the word leadership, but he talked about
Speaker 2: the fact that Malcolm Fraser held the show together.
Speaker 4: I didn't think that people were going to crack, but
Speaker 4: I do give Fraser enormous credit for holding the show together,
Speaker 4: and he spent a lot of time with people who
Speaker 4: had doubts.
Speaker 2: And he said, what you need to do as a
Speaker 2: good leader is you talk to your backbench. He said,
Speaker 2: Fraser kept in touch with his backbench. He constantly took
Speaker 2: the temperature of the backbench. He reassured them about the strategy,
Speaker 2: He kept them involved.
Speaker 4: The relationship you have with the members of your parliamentary party,
Speaker 4: your backbench is the most important of all and you
Speaker 4: have to invest an enormous amount of time in it.
Speaker 4: You can't delegate it to anybody, even as senior colleague.
Speaker 4: You've got to do it yourself.
Speaker 2: And that you need to do that as a leader.
Speaker 2: And the implication was also you've got to take a position.
Speaker 1: So as things stand at the moment, Karen, the opposition
Speaker 1: of kind of like been out of action while they've
Speaker 1: been undertaking all these sort of internal reflections over that
Speaker 1: zero meaning that there really isn't any sort of challenge
Speaker 1: to the government and the alban easy. So what do
Speaker 1: we lose when the opposition is in the state the
Speaker 1: coalition currently is in.
Speaker 2: Well, I think it's not good. It's not good for government,
Speaker 2: you know. I say that good government requires a good opposition.
Speaker 2: Whatever the stripe, the greatest risk of a government losing
Speaker 2: its way is when there is no substantive opposition. And
Speaker 2: the one thing that I think a lot of the
Speaker 2: people in the coalition are hoping that does unite them
Speaker 2: at the moment, is it that having at least reached
Speaker 2: a position on this climate and energy policy, now they
Speaker 2: can pull together and they have something to say, and
Speaker 2: they have a clear differentiation with the Labor government, and
Speaker 2: they will try to push back on the way the
Speaker 2: Labor government is managing the energy transition. And I think
Speaker 2: whether they can hold that unity and whether they pull
Speaker 2: in behind Susan Lee's leadership or whether there are still
Speaker 2: those and I think there are in the Liberal Party
Speaker 2: in particular who actually don't want to stick with her
Speaker 2: and would find a way to replace her, remains to
Speaker 2: be seen. That may be resolved before the end of
Speaker 2: the year. We do have one more sitting week. We
Speaker 2: love to call that the killing season, when parties like
Speaker 2: to replace their leaders at the end.
Speaker 1: Of the charm isn't it charming?
Speaker 2: Little term that one, I know it's brutal. Or maybe
Speaker 2: we go into next year and maybe Susan Lee triumphs
Speaker 2: is so successful at prosecuting her arguments on this that
Speaker 2: she secures her leadership. It's an unknown at the moment,
Speaker 2: but I do think democracy is a poorer when we don't
Speaker 2: have a properly functioning opposition, and that is a very
Speaker 2: important thing as we go into what will be the
Speaker 2: second year of the second term of the Albanezy government.
Speaker 1: Well, Karen, it turns out that the coalition are into
Speaker 1: Hybrid's hybrid policies. Thank you so much for your time.
Speaker 2: Thanks Daniel, Thanks having me.
Speaker 1: Seven Am is a daily show from Solstice Media. It's
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