Liberals face net zero D-Day

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Speaker 3 After months of division and public front-running, and even some added excitement of diverted planes, smoke and cabins, it's D-Day for the Liberals to decide the party's future direction on net zero by 2050.

Speaker 3 And after a specially convened meeting to thrash it out, it seems they have lent towards dumping net zero. So what happens next for the party? And of course, Susan Lee's leadership.

Speaker 3 Welcome to Politics Now.

Speaker 3 Hi, I'm Patricia Carvelis.

Speaker 1 And I'm David Spears.

Speaker 3 And David, we are recording this on a Wednesday in the middle of the day. The Liberals are officially meeting.
I've had a few texts. I'm sure you have too.

Speaker 3 You know, Andrew Hurst, who is the Liberal Party director, is addressing them on the research and what it says about how voters feel about some of these issues so that they can make an informed decision about, you know, capital P politics, David, and how that looks around all of this.

Speaker 3 Then Dante providing a kind of position of where they should go, then a lot of talking.

Speaker 3 But there was one image that I'm going to throw at you, which I think starts off a pretty good conversation between me and you. It was so overwhelming.

Speaker 3 Like I threw myself at the television and I'm not usually that enthusiastic. Like I walked to the TV.

Speaker 3 I didn't, I threw myself when I saw, but seriously, it was, and I saw you, I'm going on about it on the news channel. Like it's a big deal.

Speaker 3 It was an image of the entire conservative Liberal Party room wing walking together. It was a show of force at the front.
Someone, you know, household name, Jacinta Numberjiba Price at the front.

Speaker 3 Second row, Andrew Hasty, leadership contender.

Speaker 3 Oh, mate, Angus Taylor, another leadership contender, both conservatives and many others, all gathered together, all walking like a football team into the meeting. What did you make of it?

Speaker 1 It was the defining image of the day. So far, it's only lunchtime.
They've only just begun meeting, but in the long build-up to this, yeah, that walk-in, that group,

Speaker 1 collective of conservatives and confident conservatives I think we can say as well all smiling all pretty upbeat about where they think this is going to land on net zero look in such a divided rabble of a party that image is designed to show that the conservatives are as one on this question of net zero and the need for it to go and I think it also sends an even broader message about their their strength and unity as a grouping within the Liberal Party on broader issues right about where the party needs to be going, the direction it needs to be going, and potentially even leadership questions.

Speaker 1 We can come to that as well. I don't think they're for today, but down the track.
That image is designed to show that here we are. We are the main force in this party now.

Speaker 1 And that conservative grouping, as you say, Sarah Henderson, Jacinda Dumpaji Paper Price, Angus Taylor, Andrew Hastie, the two of them had dinner last week as was reported widely, and various others.

Speaker 1 I think it was 19 in total, which in a party room that ain't that big was quite significant.

Speaker 3 Oh, yeah, it was them sending a message that we're in charge here. That's how I read it.

Speaker 3 The moderates were,

Speaker 3 even though I think they've played a pretty strong game in front running and positioning ahead of the meeting, you know, really calculated interviews, key media spots, sending out the message, people like Tim Wilson, Andrew Bragg with You On Insiders, really establishing what they see as the high stakes, risky game of the Liberal Party moving away from this commitment.

Speaker 3 They were not not as coordinated. There was no show of force.
There was a sort of dribs and drabs coming in, people walking in and out on their own.

Speaker 3 Didn't have the same optics.

Speaker 3 Now, I don't know why they kind of let that happen, but either way, it meant that the Conservatives looked to have their show in order.

Speaker 3 And it looks like numerically, I mean, from my, like, we are recording this as it's happening, so you won't get the full final version from us, although you'll get it throughout the evening.

Speaker 3 What we can tell you, though, is that that image tells the story about where the numbers are.

Speaker 3 I think the way they message is going to be key, of course, David, because you can get rid of the two words net zero. But how do you kind of...

Speaker 3 talk about emissions reduction, this obsession of we are going to stay in Paris,

Speaker 3 which has just become to me a very confusing line. We're in Paris, but we're kind of not adhering to its principles.
Like, how do they do that part of it?

Speaker 1 I'll come back to that. But just to pick up on the point about the moderates, I mean, yes, they didn't walk in as a a coordinated block.

Speaker 1 I do think, though, that they've put up a pretty strong show over the last week. Andrew Bragg, Tim Wilson, Maria Kavasic, and others, Jane Hume as well.

Speaker 1 You know, we've for years PK said, oh, what's happened to the Liberal Moderates? What's happened to the Liberal moderates? And yes, a lot of them lost a lot of seats in the last two elections.

Speaker 1 I think in the last week, though, they've stood up.

Speaker 1 I think Tim Wilson, particularly this morning, in the comments that he made at the doors of Parliament House heading into this meeting, were quite well thought through and pointed.

Speaker 1 He said, look, you know, this is a choice. Do we just end up being National Party light or do we define the future of this country?

Speaker 1 We can fight for hope and opportunity and building out, he's talking about building out renewable power, reindustrializing our country with the energy sources that we need, setting a sovereign target.

Speaker 1 So another pointed remark, don't just do what the OECD is doing, set a sovereign target for our emissions and, of course, building out our clean industrial future.

Speaker 1 So So Tim Wilson there is tying up this is our industrial future at stake here. This is our sovereignty at stake here.

Speaker 1 He is pressing some buttons for conservatives but from a point of view that we need to stick with this net zero transition.

Speaker 1 I thought it was quite an important contribution that he made this morning and I just think, yes, they didn't you know, walk in as a footy team this morning into the meeting.

Speaker 1 Maybe they should have, but they've actually done a pretty strong job over the last week. Having said that, PK, are they going to win this today? I have my doubts.

Speaker 1 Look, based on everyone I've spoken to this morning heading into this, I think they're going to end up, well, obviously going to end up abandoning net zero by 2050.

Speaker 1 No one disagrees about staying in Paris. They all want to stay in Paris.
There are various views about what that requires, but they all want to stay in Paris.

Speaker 1 And then it becomes to, as you say, this messy question of, well, what do you really think about net zero? Now, Conservatives want to be able to say very clearly, we've abandoned it.

Speaker 1 End of answer. Moderates still want to be able to say we'd like to see it.

Speaker 1 Doesn't mean it's necessarily got to be in their policy as a target, but they want to be able to see, be able to say, yes, we would welcome Australia hitting net zero at some point this century.

Speaker 1 So it's how they manage the wording on that.

Speaker 1 And, you know, as you would know better than anyone, the follow-up questions that will come when they do give that sort of answer is still going to be very difficult for them.

Speaker 1 But I just feel like the moderates do deserve a bit of a shout for showing a bit more backbone than they have for a long, long time in this.

Speaker 3 Oh, yeah, I was saying that. Like, I do think they were quite coordinated leading up to it.
You know, walking into a meeting isn't the only story. It's just, it's a television image.

Speaker 3 Now, I personally think, and I do work in TV, so you'd probably expect me to say it, but I do think television images are very important at sending messages. Absolutely.

Speaker 3 They are pretty powerful images. But equally,

Speaker 3 yeah,

Speaker 3 I think the moderates have kind of flexed some muscle.

Speaker 3 Within, can I say, and I was saying this on your show on the weekend, within some,

Speaker 3 they've capitulated a little, though, like they've kind of, they've really watered down their view. Can I say they've done that to try and get a deal?

Speaker 3 And then the Conservatives shifted the goalposts to be even kind of more hardlined, didn't they, David?

Speaker 3 So actually the moderates were chasing the view and then the Conservatives, they created a new red line.

Speaker 1 I mean, before the Nats, what was it, 10 days ago or so, declared their position, even though most of us could have seen this coming and no doubt Libs saw this coming as well.

Speaker 1 Before that, yeah, you know, a month or two ago, Conservatives were more willing to keep some form of net zero, right, in their policy. After the Nats position, that shifted.

Speaker 1 The moderates have shifted as well. They're now more willing to drop net zero by 2050 and accept some form of net zero reference.
Look, I still don't know exactly where this lands.

Speaker 1 We may not know until tomorrow afternoon, once the Liberal members of the shadow cabinet have met. Today's the party room, right?

Speaker 1 All of the MPs for the Liberal Party get to, you know, say what they think, make their points.

Speaker 1 That'll go back and forth for who knows how long.

Speaker 1 But only tomorrow when the shadow cabinet members of the Liberal Party then try to crunch out an actual position for the party, will Susan Lee take that position and then announce that position.

Speaker 1 So it could still be another 24 hours before we know finally where they've landed. But just coming back to where that's going to be,

Speaker 1 it's still this vague concept of

Speaker 1 some point in the future getting down to carbon neutrality or net zero. I don't think we're going to see any indication of how they'd bring power prices down, PK.

Speaker 1 And this is kind of the other shoe to drop, isn't it?

Speaker 1 Yes, this is an incredibly difficult question around what they do with net zero. But then the next question is, well, how do you get prices down? How do you get our household bills down?

Speaker 1 What I'm told is, you know, they're not going to have any policy position around that. It's only going to be principles at the moment that we want bills to come down.

Speaker 1 But how, that could take quite a while longer.

Speaker 3 Yeah, and that's such a powerful point. And I think the real

Speaker 3 problem with this whole debate, it is actually an ideological fight they're having, as far as I can see. It's a linguistic ideological fight.

Speaker 3 I see no fight about actual tangible policy or advice about how to get these bills down and, you know, kind of a plan of how you do this and then, you know, the bill starts going down this way in this sort of timeframe.

Speaker 3 Now, I understand they're six months in, right? To give them some, you know, it's early days.

Speaker 1 Yeah. Right.
That's fair.

Speaker 3 Like, you know, who has a whole costed comprehensive plan?

Speaker 3 But they have rushed to the ideological stuff because that's the, you know, sky news after dark, Liberal Party membership being fired up and throwing things at the television base obsession.

Speaker 3 And it seems to me, absent of the detail, it looks pretty weak.

Speaker 3 And the message it risks sending to the electorate is that they're more obsessed with the ideology and the ideas than the actual stuff, the doing stuff.

Speaker 3 I had Amanda Vanstone on afternoon briefing yesterday.

Speaker 3 She's not obsessed with keeping net zero, even though she's an old moderate of the Howard government, but she was more like, what's your plan for fixing?

Speaker 3 She was frustrated that she doesn't hear that bit. She hears the bigger debate.

Speaker 1 This is the point. I mean, so what is the answer to that? Well, let's use more gas.
I mean, the government's already trying to use more gas.

Speaker 3 Maybe they could. And they're about to announce a plan to do it.

Speaker 1 Exactly. Maybe the coalition has another way of getting more gas, convincing the states to tap more gas.
But there's only so much more they can do than the government's already trying to do.

Speaker 1 We're going to string out or sweat those coal assets longer. Clearly, they all agree on that.
But again, the states, New South Wales, Victoria, are already doing this.

Speaker 1 You can only stretch out those aging coal-fired power stations so long. Nuclear, remove the moratorium on nuclear.
Fine. Who's going to build it? How long is that going to take?

Speaker 1 We had this debate before the election. It's a very long time and it ain't cheap.
Build new coal-fired power stations.

Speaker 1 These Healy, high-efficient, low-emission coal-fired power plants. Who's going to invest in them? How long do they take? What do they cost?

Speaker 1 There's still a lot of questions and not a lot of certainty that bills will come down. That's not to say things are going smoothly.
Clearly, they're not. Absolutely not.

Speaker 1 With the energy transition, you know, you pick up the paper every day, you read about one problem or another that's happening with big batteries here or there or green hydrogen.

Speaker 1 But this is a lumpy transition, as Chris Bowen acknowledges all the time.

Speaker 1 But the alternative isn't necessarily smooth sailing either.

Speaker 3 It certainly is not. So the meeting, I think, is quite a pivotal moment in Susan Lee's leadership.

Speaker 3 I want to mention something I noticed in the image that I talked about at the start, the big, you know, right-wing kind of conservative show called Arms Almost of Strength.

Speaker 1 We need a name for this, the Conservative Collective.

Speaker 1 Something a bit catchy in that note.

Speaker 3 We're going to need to work on that, I reckon. I reckon we're going to need a whiteboard, maybe.
A bit of a whiteboard we hide behind, like Michaelia Cash. Oops.

Speaker 3 Can I say, right, I saw one person front and center there, Sarah Henderson, who the other day basically like called it out in her view that Susan Lee was losing support.

Speaker 3 I just think her being at the front of that big pack, I don't think it's a big, I don't think it's a small thing.

Speaker 3 I mean, here is the woman who basically said the current leaders' leadership looks like it's almost over, right? This is what she was implying. She's at the front of this.

Speaker 3 I just think that the symbolism of that is quite meaningful too because you can't talk about this debate without having the adjacent conversation about what it all means for Susan Lee's leadership you made the point that tomorrow is going to be really ultimately the key and that's when Susan Lee speaks that's going to be a big moment for her because she has sat on the fence and the fence

Speaker 3 it impales you David

Speaker 1 yes I don't want to sit on fences you hurt your butt like it's a very uncomfortable this one's looking more and more like a barbed wire one look just alongside Sarah Henderson, yes, who made those remarks on Friday that sparked that quick flurry of leadership speculation that Susan Lee was, what did you say, losing the support,

Speaker 1 losing support? Yeah, she's losing support.

Speaker 1 But also was Jacinda Dumpajiba Price, who, after your infamous interview, PK, then refused to express support for the leader and had to go to the backbench as a result of that.

Speaker 1 So you've got two people who have raised, I guess, an issue with Susan Lee's leadership at the front of that pack.

Speaker 1 Who wasn't in that group, PK?

Speaker 1 James Patterson, I don't think, was in that group.

Speaker 1 Yeah, it probably was Makalia Cash,

Speaker 1 I don't think, was in that group. So members who are part of the leadership group

Speaker 1 weren't there. So look,

Speaker 1 we can pass that image, but it was quite an image, certainly the image of the day. And yes, you're right.
I think it does carry leadership implications as well.

Speaker 1 That grouping, the way they assembled and marched in, all smiles today.

Speaker 3 And I also want to take you to the briefing now of the Liberal Party director Andrew Hearst. Bit of a background on Andrew Hurst.

Speaker 3 You know, he's worked for many prime ministers including Malcolm Turnbull.

Speaker 3 He's worked for Tony Abbott, ran his media strategy to get him elected, right? Like, so he's a very important figure. He's now the Liberal Party director.

Speaker 3 He was absolutely, I just want to mention this because I think the background matters.

Speaker 3 He and his team, not just him exclusively, but were very much criticised, also in my Four Corners decimated earlier this year, for their kind of campaign they ran for the last federal election.

Speaker 3 They were held a little bit responsible for not running a very good campaign. Now, you know, people contest that and say, hang on a minute, Andrew and his team are absolute consummate professionals.

Speaker 3 The problem was Peter Dutton's office was too... controlling.
So all of that plays out. Why am I mentioning it? Because he's giving this big presentation on voter attitudes towards energy policy.

Speaker 3 It's a very important decision, I think, by Susan Lee to allow that to happen. Now, what's he going to say?

Speaker 1 Well, I haven't seen the research that he's presenting. I'm told that it's not dissimilar to the resolve polling that we saw in the nine newspapers this morning, and that did actually show...

Speaker 1 a bit of a shift, clearly a shift since Scott Morrison signed Australia up to net zero.

Speaker 1 It ended up with roughly a third, a third, a third.

Speaker 1 Those who want to stick with a net zero target and do whatever it takes to get to net zero.

Speaker 1 Those who want to keep net zero as an aspiration but not binding in law.

Speaker 1 That was about 26% want Australia to do everything it takes. 28% keep an aspiration but not binding in law.

Speaker 1 And then you've got a block who either want to abandon the target but still take some action where it's affordable.

Speaker 1 And those who just want to abandon the target altogether and take little or no action. That number is actually 31%.

Speaker 1 So basically Conservatives taking some heart from the shift that we've we've seen in those numbers.

Speaker 1 And they were telling me they think what Andrew Hurst is presenting is not too dissimilar to those sorts of figures.

Speaker 1 Clearly, what we've seen since Morrison signed Australia up is Trump coming to power and then moving out of the Paris Agreement.

Speaker 1 Prices going up, power prices going up has been a big driver here as well.

Speaker 1 And, you know, to go back to what we were saying earlier, it's kind of inevitable when you're building new power, be it renewables or anything else, that there's going to be a build in infrastructure cost, plus the global gas spike that we saw post-COVID.

Speaker 1 So

Speaker 1 all of this has clearly had an impact on voter attitudes towards net zero.

Speaker 1 Where that goes from here, if the coalition now is breaking bipartisanship on this and is going to start taking a more full-on, blunt, anti-net zero approach, maybe those numbers shift even further.

Speaker 1 I think the government, you know, I think the government's aware of this.

Speaker 3 The referendum lesson, yes. So I think that one's an important one.

Speaker 3 And that's the one some of the Conservatives have pointed to to me, which is that when, you know, where there was a sort of sense, remember the polling for the yes vote was quite, well, reasonably high,

Speaker 3 really, the public support because there was a bipartisanship when that stopped. There was an active campaign against the proposal.
You saw it dramatically drop.

Speaker 1 Yeah, that's true. Look, I don't think, you know, it's an interesting parallel.
I don't know if we can overstate it, though, because it's not a referendum question.

Speaker 1 It's not a single issue test like the voice was. You know, this is a big part, but just one part of an overall judgment on a government and an opposition.

Speaker 1 You know, we also judge them on, you know, what they're doing on tax and other cost of living issues, the economy on, you know, you name it, maybe education, childcare, social media bans.

Speaker 1 There's so many issues in the mix when we judge how an opposition and a government are going. But this is one of them.

Speaker 1 And, yeah, clearly the view is in the Conservatives that they've got to have a clean break from this and have no reference to net zero at all.

Speaker 3 Yeah, and we'll see if they finally land on that because, you know, all we can give you is the steer that we've been given at the end of the day. Obviously, there can be some nuance there.

Speaker 3 And believe me, there will be an attempt from the Susan Lees

Speaker 3 to try and get as much of that nuance there because they do want to give people like Tim Wilson in metropolitan Melbourne

Speaker 3 something to say. And equally, you know, the Conservatives obviously to say, that's it, we're now going to go full steam ahead.
I don't know how you can do both.

Speaker 3 I personally am very skeptical about your ability to, and I'll give you my example.

Speaker 3 I wrote it in a column but I just think you know you saw Bill Shorten speaking two sides of his mouth on a Dani remember in that campaign you know something from inner city Melbourne where their green seats or the greens were trying to sort of take their seats that you know they were like not into coal then they'd go up to Queensland and they loved coal it was very confusing do you love coal or do you not like coal there's a bit of that here too which is like oh get rid of net zero but oh you know we think emissions are bad like how do you how do you land that plane this is This is the really difficult question.

Speaker 1 And I think, particularly for the moderates, if they don't get their way today, what do they do? It brings us back to that question. Will any of them quit the front bench?

Speaker 1 If the position is not...

Speaker 3 One of them to say, mate.

Speaker 1 Yeah, it took a bit of work, but we got there with Andrew Bragg.

Speaker 3 That's why we pay you the big bucks, mate.

Speaker 1 You worked it.

Speaker 3 But others said to you, well, what he said, what was that word used to? I've forgotten already.

Speaker 1 He said, sure.

Speaker 1 But his point was, you can't just have one set of principles, and then if you don't like them, here's another set of principles. You've got to stand by what your principles are.

Speaker 1 Politicians don't do that often enough.

Speaker 1 So if it's not a credible climate policy that they land with, if it doesn't credibly maintain support for the Paris Agreement, will he or any of the other moderates like Tim Wilson quit the front bench over this?

Speaker 1 We won't know that today. It's tomorrow when those, when the shadow cabinet meets to try and crunch that final landing position that those sort of calls will be made.

Speaker 1 I'd still be surprised if it gets to that point, but it ain't impossible, PK.

Speaker 3 Oh, no, not not impossible so the shenanigans continue at the same time you know the government's trying to land its cop conference yeah uh i've got josh wilson who's australia's representative for this week at the cop conference next week chris bowen goes still not a deal uh to have it here but i just think that the only reason i mention it because we don't actually have an outcome yet and i've interviewed him it's a pre-recorded be on afternoon briefing later but i still don't have actually

Speaker 3 kind of a steer on if they've landed it i think it's going going to be pretty hard.

Speaker 1 I don't think they have. Yeah, I don't think they have.
And I don't know if they will at this COP meeting.

Speaker 1 I'm being told from those in the government that this might drag on, potentially get this even into next year. I don't think Australia is going to drop its bid after this COP meeting.

Speaker 1 The Prime Minister could even meet up with the Turkish President, Rejab Taipeib Erdogan at the G20 in South Africa in a few weeks. And he's been trying to get a meeting with him.

Speaker 1 I think he's writing his third letter to him this week.

Speaker 1 So there might be

Speaker 1 exactly. Can we talk?

Speaker 1 Look.

Speaker 3 What a beautiful country you have.

Speaker 1 Those who haven't followed all this, Australia has all the votes. Everyone's on board for Australia to host it except for Turkey or Turkey, which wants to host it.

Speaker 1 And the way the rules work, if there's one, it has to be unanimous. So if there's one opponent, it can't happen.

Speaker 1 Look, yeah, so this could drag on and on.

Speaker 1 potentially into next year. It would be pretty difficult, though, to scramble together a cop sum.
These things are huge.

Speaker 1 Usually you have, what, a couple of years notice to organise these things. We're talking about next year's summit, so yeah, the clock's ticking.

Speaker 3 Yeah, it's really ticking. So, yeah, anyway, just the image, though, the coalition, you know, fighting over energy policy.
The government still

Speaker 3 going to these big international forums trying to advance actual climate policy. That's it for politics now today.
David, the day is young. So much more is going to happen.
How exciting.

Speaker 1 It is exciting. It is exciting.
Plenty to come.

Speaker 3 Tomorrow, I'll be John Medmel Clark and Michelle Grattan to bring you the latest on what on earth they did. The words.
What are the words?

Speaker 3 It's going to be very exciting. If you have a question for us, send it to the party room at abc.net.au and we will answer it.

Speaker 1 See you, David. See you, PK.