View from The Hill: Coalition parties jointly cremate net zero, while leadership contenders circle Sussan Ley

The Coalition parties on Sunday formally endorsed a joint policy on climate and energy that drops the commitment to net zero and gives priority to affordable power. But settling this contentious issue has failed to ease the pressure on Sussan Ley’s leadership.

The Liberal conservatives, having had a major victory on climate policy, are gearing up to exert their influence on migration policy.

Leadership contenders Angus Taylor and Andrew Hastie, both conservatives, highlighted immigration as a priority in public comments in the last few days.

Attempting to get ahead of the pressure, Ley is emphasising that getting an immigration policy out quickly is her priority.

A RedBridge-Australian Financial Review poll released Sunday night is another blow for the embattled leader.

Labor is ahead 56%-44% on a two-party basis. The Coalition’s primary vote is on 24%, down 5 points in a month; Labor is on 38% primary vote, up 4 points. One Nation has risen to a massive 18%, up 4 points.

Ley’s net approval is minus 21; Anthony Albanese’s net approval is minus 2. Albanese leads Ley as preferred PM 40% to 10%.

The poll broadly reflects the last Newspoll. The One Nation vote, higher even than the Newspoll’s 15%, will further alarm the Nationals and the Liberal conservatives.

The Liberals and Nationals endorsed the joint policy in a relatively brief meeting held virtually on Sunday afternoon, and it was announced at a joint news conference by Ley, Nationals leader David Littleproud and energy spokesman Dan Tehan.

Discussions between a group of Liberals and Nationals had finalised the policy in the previous few days. Reaching a joint position was not difficult because the Nationals’ earlier decision to drop net zero had set the grid for the Liberals’ policy, unveiled on Thursday, with only minor differences between the two parties.

The joint policy says of net zero only that it would be “a welcome outcome if achieved through technology, choice and voluntary markets”. This was a fig leaf extended to the moderates in the Liberal policy last week.

A Coalition government would legislate to scrap Labor’s targets, and look at its short term targets once in power. Ley emphasised this would be in the context of “our own domestic energy policy as a primary consideration”.

The opposition insists a Coalition government would and could still stay in the Paris climate agreement, even though that agreement says countries can’t go backwards from targets they have already submitted.

On lowering emissions, the policy says Australia would do its fair share “considering the real performance of OECD countries” and “as fast and as far as technology allows, without imposing mandated costs on families or industry”.

At its core, the opposition’s policy represents a pivot away from emissions reduction and towards energy affordability and reliability.

“We will prioritise affordable energy for households and businesses,” Ley said.

Responding to a question about moderate Liberals’ concern about coal being underwritten in the capacity investment scheme under the Coalition policy, Tehan said it had been clear from day one the Coalition would take a technology neutral approach.

Ley was pressed on her claim a Coalition government would drive down power prices. She said downward pressure would be placed on energy prices when a Coalition government changed the rules around the supply of gas and the operating rules of the energy system.

“Immediately it starts to put downward pressure on prices by being technology agnostic about baseload power, injecting more gas supply into the system, opening up gas fields in Australia”.

The expectation is Ley will survive the year with a move against her likely next year. If her critics wanted to move this year, the last parliamentary week, in late November, would provide the only practical opportunity.

In a wide ranging muscle-flexing interview with the Daily Telegraph Taylor homed in on immigration. He said immigration was “hugely important” to Australia but it had been “ridiculously high”. We had to have “high-quality immigration”.

Hastie posted on social media: “On Thursday, we hit our first objective on the march to victory. Objective 1: We dumped Net Zero, and committed to delivering cheap and reliable power to the Australian people.

"It’s never easy shattering an elite consensus propped up by deep commercial interests, but we did it,” he wrote.

“Objective 2: Cut Labor’s uncontrolled immigration. This reform needs to happen, and will be the next debate.”

Ley told Sunday’s news conference as part of her opening remarks, that in coming weeks the opposition would release an immigration policy “that demonstrates what I have said from the get-go, which is that this country’s migration numbers are far too high, and this needs to be addressed as a priority”.

Taylor has also sent a direct message to Ley that three high profile Liberal women should be given bigger roles. “We need every player on the field if we’re going to win,” he told the Telegraph. “We’ve got to get people like [Price, Henderson and Collins] on the field and playing.”

Jacinta Price, Sarah Henderson and Jessica Collins headed the bank of Liberal conservatives who walked together into the party meeting that discussed net zero on Wednesday.

Ley passed over Henderson for her frontbench, and forced Price off the frontbench when she would not endorse Ley’s leadership. Taylor backed Collins for preselection before the last election, when she defeated then-senator Hollie Hughes for a winnable place on the NSW Senate ticket. She is opposition deputy whip in the Senate.