Do leaders need political conviction?

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Speaker 3 It's crunch time for the Liberals and for Susan Lee. And after months of division, undermining, the party room is finally set to meet and to thrash out their future direction on net zero by 2050.

Speaker 3 But pressure is mounting and moderate MPs are threatening to quit the front bench. Can Susan Lee find a pathway between these positions? Welcome to Politics Now.

Speaker 3 Hi, I'm Patricia Carvelis.

Speaker 1 And I'm Jacob Griever. And here we go again, PK.

Speaker 3 Here we go again.

Speaker 3 It's not a sitting week, but oh lordy, the taxpayers of Australia will be paying for the Liberal Party members to fly into the nation's capital for their super meeting of net zero pain on Wednesday.

Speaker 3 We're recording this on a Monday. So much theatre.
Then Thursday, the liberal leadership meets and then they kind of take something to the nationals.

Speaker 3 Are they going to find a pathway? Because I reckon they are really split in the middle.

Speaker 1 Yep. Which is why this agonising slow process you've just mapped out for us.
has been decided upon.

Speaker 1 I think they landed on this last Friday or Thursday, you can correct me, that they would have this kind of three-step juggernaut lollapalooza of political decision-making

Speaker 1 with, as you say, the party room.

Speaker 1 They're all flying back to Canberra just for this meeting on Wednesday, and they'll have a good ding-dong row about what it is that the Liberal Party stands for on energy and climate policy.

Speaker 1 Dan Teehan has done a body of work that apparently will be very much helping to form people's views of where they should go.

Speaker 1 And he's just recently got back from a big long trip in the United States where he looked at nukes nuclear power stations and the sort of developments there so expect that to be part of it and then they have to somehow marry whatever position they land on with what the current position of the National Party is which is to dump net zero it is to go hard and heavy on coal power

Speaker 1 and it is to slow the transition to renewables because in their view that's costing too much and is too difficult for its constituencies.

Speaker 1 Yep. And all of this has to be landed in the next sort of week, essentially.

Speaker 1 So we may be back here in a week's time still talking about it. I don't know.
What do you think?

Speaker 1 Do you think they can land this process?

Speaker 3 I think it's the dumbest debate I've seen for a while and I'll tell you why. It seems to have revolved around two words, but not a policy.
And that's what I find bizarre.

Speaker 3 And someone has to call out, and I think people have been.

Speaker 3 But even Andrew Bragg, right, leading moderate, goes on with our colleague David Spears and says that there is a fatwa on two words because he wants to keep the language of net zero by 2050 as an aspiration.

Speaker 3 But if you look at the substance, his side, the moderates, they've already moved significantly to this view that you kind of maybe don't meet it, that it's all a bit vague.

Speaker 3 So they are actually arguing for language, right? As far as I can see, because the policy outcome isn't that different either way. So it's like a Seinfeld episode.
It's like a debate about nothing.

Speaker 3 Sorry, but like, it's not like the moderates, as far as I can see articulated, have a clear pathway. I'm critical of them, actually.

Speaker 1 No soup for the moderates. No soup for you.
Do you see what I'm saying? No, soup for you. I know exactly what you're saying.
I think there's a very legitimate point that you've made, which is

Speaker 1 the coalition in general had a policy that it took to the election. It got smashed.
Voters didn't want a bar of the nuclear policy that Peter Dutton had proposed.

Speaker 1 They endorsed the government's shift to renewables implicitly. That was part of the election campaign, what Labor was doing there.

Speaker 1 Remember, they were handing out, they had that battery proposal for households. People liked that stuff.
So the electorate spoke.

Speaker 1 The Liberal Party then falls apart over this issue after the election, and they've now come back and said, well, looks like everyone's really, really struggling with the transition.

Speaker 1 So now let's not have net zero altogether. Great.
But what's the policy going to be at that point? This just gets them to the absolute first stage of the debate.

Speaker 1 There's no detail that we can see at this point as to what sort of a transition they're talking about.

Speaker 1 Or do they agree with the National Party that we should go back to building coal-fired power stations? We don't know, Patricia. They haven't told us.

Speaker 3 No substance.

Speaker 1 But those are the sort of questions. This debate feels like they won't even get to that square one, know, you know, potentially if they fall short of an agreement.

Speaker 1 But even if they do get there, what does their policy then look like if they were to win government?

Speaker 1 Let's, for argument's sake, three years from now the coalition is back in government. Labor's made a terrible mess of it.

Speaker 1 The coalition arrives with a policy of not reaching net zero anymore.

Speaker 1 What changes in Australia that helps households? Are they going to have a big new program of government-sponsored coal-fired power station construction? Are they going to build nuclear power stations?

Speaker 1 Are they going to mandate a slowing of renewables? All of these things are highly speculative. I'm just suggesting that that is a consequence of the position they're landing in.

Speaker 1 What does that mean for the next few years if you are someone investing in the energy space? It means massive uncertainty.

Speaker 1 The Liberal Party is putting big question marks over the current direction of the transition.

Speaker 1 And I don't know, I was listening to our colleague Mel Clark, who's a regular on the podcast, And I thought she made a really good point this morning where she likened what this debate is to building a bridge.

Speaker 1 It's like we've been arguing for 15 years over whether we should build a bridge

Speaker 1 over the harbour. And we've decided we want, you know, a certain type of bridge with a number of spans and it needs to be this wide.
And then halfway through...

Speaker 1 The Liberal Party says, no, no, no, we don't want the bridge. We want a tunnel.
And so everyone says, right, well, you can build your tunnel.

Speaker 1 And then they get halfway through that job and now we're back to building a bridge. It's that kind of chaos, you know, that's being created here.

Speaker 1 And as a result, the bridge is taking a long time to build. And that's why people are unhappy with the pace of the transition.
And perhaps also the cost is higher than it needs to be. So all of that.

Speaker 1 And now we land on a position where yet again, there may be a change of direction.

Speaker 3 Yes. And look, important sort of background here.

Speaker 3 The moderates and the conservatives and the Liberal Party were actually close to a deal to keep the sort of aspiration and the language of net zero,

Speaker 3 but to basically loosen it up in terms of the timeframe and

Speaker 3 the ambition and the sort of extremeness as they see it of the sort of pace of the rollout, right? So, there was an agreement.

Speaker 3 Then the Nationals start the bushfire where they put out a position and feed into a historical now

Speaker 3 electorate-wide view that the Nationals lead things in the coalition and that the Liberals aren't autonomous enough, which of course does massive brand damage to the Liberals in metropolitan Australia, Sydney and Melbourne mainly, right?

Speaker 3 And now

Speaker 3 the Conservatives are locking in to a more hardcore view, which is just get rid of all net zero references, which is making the moderates, look at them. Maria Kovasic this morning,

Speaker 3 Andrew Bragg, Sharma, others.

Speaker 3 My phone blew up this morning after I wrote my column, and I'd love it if people could read it because it blew up a lot of moderates saying to me, yes, yes, this is like, you know, they are firing up this week because they, it's a like last ditch attempt for them to try and selvage what they see as the reputation for their party to make themselves electorally palatable in metropolitan Australia.

Speaker 1 Am I right? Yep.

Speaker 3 So

Speaker 3 what happens, big question,

Speaker 3 to Susan Lee in this, because I want to ask you this.

Speaker 3 We apparently in this world like politicians with conviction. I reckon that is a truism of politics.

Speaker 3 Even when people have contentious views, people grudgingly, not necessarily vote for them, but go, at least I know what that person stands for.

Speaker 3 I do think it is a thing in politics that when you look like you're not a chameleon that you have a currency

Speaker 3 so susan lee sitting on the fence on net zero gets elected on the premise of being consultative okay she definitely ticked that box she has allowed the the policy to be formed from the ground up but in holding back her own convictions here,

Speaker 3 I reckon accidentally has done herself damage.

Speaker 1 Look, and there's, I think what you say is there's truth to it because there's multiple ways you could have managed this as leader. You could have

Speaker 1 been quietly having this process where you're consulting with everyone, the thing you just described, talking to as many people, getting everyone's view, but quietly establishing to everybody what you want,

Speaker 1 where you expect it to go. Doesn't appear that that's what's happened.
She hasn't taken strong positions. She's allowed this process to become the story

Speaker 1 and the National Party to essentially be seen to be dictating terms now, which is a very bad look for a Liberal leader.

Speaker 1 And

Speaker 1 I'm not sure how she recovers from that. That will continue to hang over her, even if they do land in the happy place that they presumably want to in the next few days.

Speaker 1 She will be wounded by all of this because of the way it was handled from woe to go. So, yeah, you're saying that the counterexample is Peter Dutton, where there were no real,

Speaker 1 what we're now learning and we've learned since the election, there were no real policy discussions during that term.

Speaker 1 There were a few that came very late in the piece, notably the nuclear power policy, which was announced. five months before the election.

Speaker 1 And so, yeah, that's the counterexample and the counter-argument to what Lee's talking about. Does she survive it? I don't know.

Speaker 3 Look, that's the big question at the moment. Does she survive it? The level of canvassing of different candidates is kind of next level.

Speaker 3 So, you know, I know Hastie has had conversations with people about, you know, potential joint tickets. Melissa McIntosh has been sounded out.

Speaker 3 She's also expressed to colleagues who've told me that, you know, why shouldn't she be considered as a leadership aspirant? Why does it only have to be men? Good point.

Speaker 3 Actually, I personally think that's a good point.

Speaker 3 Why is it only men that are always seen as leadership aspirants? Note to the Labour Party on that, too.

Speaker 3 They have a lot of women in their ranks, but it's always men in the discussion about who may take over from Albanese one day as well. Anyway, park that one.

Speaker 3 But I think it's an interesting point when we talk about the diversity of our country and representation.

Speaker 3 But the point is, if people are doing the canvassing, that's because the leadership is seen as terminal, wouldn't you say?

Speaker 1 Yeah, look,

Speaker 1 the time is definitely running out on her. There's no question about that.
Last week, Parliament was on, as you said at the beginning of the show, and

Speaker 1 it was palpable, that sense of the clock running down inside the Canberra bubble when you're bumping into people. She wasn't finished, though.
She's not finished yet. She still has options.

Speaker 1 She still has a little bit of time. Doesn't seem like there's a rush to tear her down.

Speaker 1 There's probably a lot of tactics going on in terms of how long she lasts and giving her, I guess, for want of a better phrase, more rope with which to sort of tangle herself up in.

Speaker 1 You certainly feel that with the way people are positioning. But yeah, no, the clock is definitely running on her early next year, middle of next year, before Christmas.
I don't know.

Speaker 1 I wouldn't put money on anything being too definitive at this stage because I don't think people actually know.

Speaker 1 But they're watching. They're watching to see how she manages this next week.
Huge, huge week for her.

Speaker 3 It's a huge week for her. And the way that she addresses

Speaker 3 the messaging out of that meeting will be key. Like the way she expresses that position,

Speaker 3 the way she negotiates with her leadership team, with the Nationals. Even this idea that's been canvassed that the Nationals and the Liberals can have a different policy.

Speaker 3 I mean, I wonder what you make of that. I personally, I'll tell you what I reckon of that.
It's insane.

Speaker 3 Because if they want to run as a potential government, a majority government in partnership, I don't know, do you have two policies if you're a potential government?

Speaker 3 I mean, it gets pretty confusing, doesn't it? You take to the voters, hi, we're two parties with different positions will work it out later. What does the public think of that?

Speaker 3 And what does Labour do with that? I mean, I know what I would do with it. If I was Labor, I'd be planning my campaign now, wouldn't you?

Speaker 1 It sounds like a very difficult way to campaign. You'd be better off splitting up as...
as the coalition.

Speaker 1 And then you run your own separate campaigns and you see where you get to after the election and maybe there's common ground for you to form a government. But doing it, doing it as a coalition

Speaker 1 just is tactically really, really difficult. And that's why they're working to land this joint position by Sunday coming.

Speaker 1 Tough one.

Speaker 1 I was going to add one more thing to your list of the tests for Susan Lee. I was thinking also how she presents it, how she communicates it.

Speaker 1 And what about the sense that it's a position she genuinely believes in? Is this something foisted upon her by others or is this something she has buy-in to and ownership of and agency on?

Speaker 1 That'll also be a question in my mind for how credible she is as a salesperson of this policy that's to come.

Speaker 3 Look, it seems to me like she's trying to read the mood here, right? Like waiting to see where the cards land. And I think that still is a problematic thing because it does

Speaker 3 look like it's just the politics and the survival that she's interested in. And so you look at someone like Andrew Hastie as a contrast, right?

Speaker 3 And here is somebody who I'm not saying, you know, people listening may not agree with his position. I'm sure many don't which is to withdraw entirely from net zero.

Speaker 1 Right.

Speaker 3 But mate, he thinks it. He's been saying it.
He's not like, he's not mincing his words. And so there is a certain credibility that comes with that, Jacob, don't you think?

Speaker 3 That, you know, you know what this person stands for. And so if you buy that ticket, if eventually he does prevail, I don't know, next year.

Speaker 3 then you know what you're getting. And what's the similarity? Well, we've seen this, we've seen this movie before, 2009, Malcolm Turnbull as leader.

Speaker 3 The one key difference, of course, being that Turnbull was a fierce warrior for climate issues, whereas I do think Lee sits on the fence more.

Speaker 3 But his leadership was demolished over the issue of the CPRS and support for it.

Speaker 1 And that's how Tony Abbott prevailed. By one of the people.
And I can see.

Speaker 1 Yeah.

Speaker 3 But that's all you need. That's a majority.
It is in this business. That's how it works.

Speaker 1 Look, I don't, it's hard to know where that all ends up going with someone like Hastie.

Speaker 1 The question is always, do you want to be a protest movement and get your 20%, your 25% of the vote and get a bunch of people into the Senate who may or may not hold the balance of power?

Speaker 1 Or do you want to be in government? And that's a very different proposition. Those two things are wide apart in the political business.

Speaker 1 Governments mean to become a government, you have to appeal to a much broader group of Australians than the people who kind of, you know, approve of your tweets.

Speaker 1 You've got to go much broader than that if you want to be the Prime Minister of this country. And, you know, that's a challenge for him.

Speaker 1 You know, he's clearly got people who love what he's saying, no question of that.

Speaker 1 And they like that he says it with conviction and force. But is that something that the broader community will sign up to? That's a different question.

Speaker 3 Well, yeah. And the same arguments people have heard us make before.
We're in a compulsory voting country. It's not just about getting out the base.

Speaker 3 It skews to the centre as a result. It means that any leader, conservative or not, has had to create nuance.
And I'll give you an example. I've got a good one, actually.

Speaker 3 Tony Abbott had massive issues with his reputation with women. You might recall his gold-plated paid parental leave scheme.

Speaker 1 I remember that.

Speaker 3 So his gold-plated PPL.

Speaker 3 Why do you think he went for it? It was about neutralising his reputation with women because he was seen as being anti-women.

Speaker 3 So if you want to be a mainstream leader who has issues with particular cohorts, you have to do that sort of thing. I haven't yet seen that.

Speaker 1 That sounds very expensive then for Hasty.

Speaker 1 For whoever might, whoever they might, expensive for us, actually.

Speaker 1 Who's Hasty going to have to throw money at?

Speaker 3 I don't know. He hasn't shown any interest.
And I don't know if anyone's going to go down the road ever again of the expensive gold-plated paid parental leave.

Speaker 3 But yeah, I just think that those things are interesting to look at. Look, big week.
It's going to culminate, as I say, in a couple of different meetings.

Speaker 3 I just want, in our final observations, if you like, if I can sort of use that terminology, just to go to the...

Speaker 1 David Spears is going to send you an invoice for using that. Well, yes.
That's his line.

Speaker 1 Well, the insider's line, isn't it?

Speaker 3 There's all this leadership shenanigans going on. I think the Canberra Liberal leader's just been rolled or has stepped down.

Speaker 1 Who says local politics is not interesting? Well, yeah,

Speaker 1 this has been unfolding over a week or so.

Speaker 1 I think the Liberal leader sacked two of her fellow liberals, Peter Kane and Elizabeth Lee, were removed from the party room when they crossed the floor on a vote.

Speaker 1 Anyway, we've just got breaking news that Leanne Castley, she's the Liberal leader, she's no longer the Liberal leader of the Canberra Liberals.

Speaker 1 She's stepped down and the deputy has also stepped down, Jeremy Hanson. But yeah, the Liberals now making headlines in Canberra,

Speaker 1 which I can't see as being a positive thing for the brand overall nationally, because

Speaker 1 you get similar sort of bouts and negative headlines in New South Wales and Victoria.

Speaker 1 Really, the only exception or the biggest exception to this is Queensland, where the LNP brand is much, much stronger.

Speaker 3 Yeah, I think that's a good observation. Look, just finally, the week ahead for the government.

Speaker 3 Maybe they should go to Copacabana.

Speaker 1 I don't know.

Speaker 3 Have put their feet up.

Speaker 1 Hang on, isn't that the Prime Minister's retirement, huh?

Speaker 3 Yeah, but I was also thinking of the Barry Manelo song.

Speaker 1 Oh, the one, the one for tall and slender from Iponime.

Speaker 3 Have you been to the Copacabana, Great Beach?

Speaker 1 I have not. I've not been missing out.

Speaker 3 Hit Rio de Janeiro. Good place.

Speaker 3 I just think

Speaker 3 it's kind of remarkable that at this point in the political cycle, six months in, lot of problems on the horizon and the free ride for this government because of the zero pressure from an imploding opposition

Speaker 3 it means that I don't think they feel too much pressure in the coming weeks.

Speaker 1 Well I mean the cop's a great example isn't it? I mean they may or may not walk away now from hosting it or maybe they won't get it

Speaker 1 or

Speaker 1 we'll find out. The Prime Minister it seems is not going at all to this summit.

Speaker 1 It was a 2022 election campaign promise statement ambition that Australia would win the COP that we're talking about, which is the one that has to happen next year.

Speaker 1 The current one's in, as you said, on the beach there in Brazil.

Speaker 1 Australia versus Turkey still haven't sorted out this impasse as to who holds it. The Prime Minister not going.
Kind of sends you a message that it's not top of priority for him anymore.

Speaker 1 It might have been a couple of years ago, but the mood has changed. I think actually more generally this COP is remarkably low-key in terms of of news coming out of it.

Speaker 1 There's not a lot of coverage that I'm picking up.

Speaker 1 International leaders, there's some going,

Speaker 1 but there's a lot of big ones who aren't going and that really, I think that's a bigger story about leadership in this space sort of disappearing.

Speaker 1 And Donald Trump, of course, wants nothing to do with any of it. Yeah, that's right.
And that's now starting to bleed across, I think, other

Speaker 1 big leaders as well. Very interesting.

Speaker 1 And everyone else, you know, they've all got the same problems that we have with renewable rollouts, high energy costs, and people blaming climate policy or saying climate policy needs to go further.

Speaker 1 We are by no means the only country having these debates, but it is striking to me how little this cop is making news. And I think it's a real sign of the times.
Yeah, it is.

Speaker 3 Well, that's it for politics now today. Thanks for joining me, Jacob.

Speaker 1 My pleasure. Let's see where we are in a week, a week from now.
Is the Liberal Party cured? Will it be cured?

Speaker 3 oh let's send them to get some reiki or whatever what to get some

Speaker 1 go on a reiki sound bath maybe sound bath charity or something

Speaker 3 send them on a group tour um i don't know about the emissions um to get there tomorrow i'll be joined by friend of the show annabel crabb we'll be looking at some of the quirks and curiosities of our democratic system of course her show is starting tonight including the ability of a governor general to dismiss a prime minister because because tomorrow is the 50th anniversary of the Whitlam dismissal.

Speaker 3 And as always, if you have a question for us, send it to the partyroom at abc.net.au and me and Mel will answer it. See you, Jacob.

Speaker 1 See you later.