Australian news and politics live: Ley considering dumping Liberals’ commitment to net zero

Australian artist Missy Higgins has drawn a crowd at Australia’s Parliament House in Canberra.

Prime Minister Anthony Albanese was among fellow MPs and Senators, political staffers, and journalists who attended the ARIA “pop up” gig ahead of the awards on November 19.

Higgins sang three songs: Hidden Ones, Craters and her classic Scar.

During the performance, she spoke about the importance of supporting Australian artists, especially amid the rise of AI platforms ripping off creators’ work.

Environment Minister Murray Watt says he’s in active negotiations with the Greens and Coalition over his reworked environmental laws, but “doesn’t have a preferred partner”.

“We’re negotiating with both sides. We don’t have a preferred partner when it comes to passing these reforms,” he told Sky News on Monday.

“To get this through, we’re prepared to make adjustments to this legislation. Things like the structure of it, we’re open to walking about that.

“I’m not prepared to have a Bill that doesn’t deliver those wins for the environment and business.

“We’re at a stage where I’m open to hearing different ideas from both the Coalition and the Greens.

“So, if either the Coalition or the Greens wants to put forward some suggestions, I’m open to hearing them.

“And I really think it’s getting towards the time where both the Coalition and the Greens need to think about whether they’re prepared to stick by these current laws, which are failing business and failing the environment, or will they get behind something that actually delivers for both. So, they’ve got some hard thinking to do over the next couple of weeks.”

Opposition Leader Sussan Ley is considering dumping the Liberals’ commitment to net zero by 2025 amid division in the Coalition and a bruising Newspoll.

It comes as the Liberal party’s leadership group gathered in Canberra for a two-hour meeting ahead of the sitting week to discuss their yet-to-be-released energy policy after their junior Coalition partner, The Nationals, voted to abandon net zero on Sunday.

Conservatives Angus Taylor, Michaelia Cash and James Paterson reportedly advocated to dump it in the meeting, while South Australian moderate Anne Ruston spoke explicitly in favour of the commitment.

Ms Ley only spoke briefly to the media on Monday and reiterated that the Liberal Party was still reviewing their policies but “looked forward” to working with The Nationals again as “two mature parties”.

Optus chief executive Stephen Rue again blamed errors by the telco’s staff for a failure to connect triple-0 calls linked to four deaths on September 18 and thousands of calls going unanswered over 13 hours.

“The initial mistake, a human error, occurred when the wrong process plan was selected for a routine firewall upgrade,” Mr Rue told the inquiry.

Mr Rue doubled down on his argument that responsibility for the outages across South and Western Australia lay at the feet of bungling staff, and not his management team for failures to implement recommended reforms from a 2023 review into network outages.

Senator Sarah Henderson labelled Mr Rue’s response “unbelievable” and said it was clear from the CEO’s prior statements that the deaths could’ve been prevented if Optus had done what it should’ve completed in implementing procedural improvements since 2023.

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Opposition Leader Sussan Ley says the Nationals are “entitled” to make their own decision on abandoning net zero and said the Liberals were still reviewing their policy position.

Speaking at a Kmart wishing tree on Monday morning, Ms Ley said the Coalition partners were “mature parties” who would continue to work together.

“I always said that the Nationals would come to their decision in their party room and the Liberals would similarly come to our decision in our party room,” she said.

“They’re entitled, as their own party, to arrive at their own position.

“But our joint energy working group has done an incredibly sound job up until this point in time, it’s continuing.

“And we can look forward to a Liberal Party energy position and then a coming together as a Coalition.

“I’m looking forward to the work that will happen between now and the Liberal Party’s position becoming known, and then us sitting down together as two mature parties.”

When asked if the Coalition was over, Mr Joyce was vague adding: “I don’t know, that is above my pay grade”.

“In the past, I’ve argued against splitting the Coalition because of precisely this.

“When there was an amalgamation of the parties in Queensland, the LNP.

“It may sound good on paper but when you come to an election, you have to remember in Queensland the division of the Liberal Party has blue how-to-vote cards.

“It is just not going to work out how you think is going to work out.”

Former Nationals leader Barnaby Joyce says while separating the Coalition could be electorally unworkable, it’s something for people to “think about in coming days”.

Speaking on Sunrise on Monday morning amid rumours of further division after the Nationals voted to dump net zero, Mr Joyce said he had always been an advocate for them to remain partners.

“It becomes really hard. Look at Queensland where the LNP is… what are you going to do? Have two conferences?” Mr Joyce said.

“You can’t be two different parties down here (Canberra) and then one party up there (Queensland).

“What are you going to have, one party where they are aligned with The Nats and another where they are aligned with the Liberals? Another one where they don’t want to be either?

“Maybe they will come down here and sit as the LNP and not as the Liberals or Nationals.

“There is a whole range of combinations, permutations, and confusions that are around this beyond the comments in the paper.

“I think people are going to come across them and think about them in the coming days.”

Nationals Leader David Littleproud continued by revealing his alternatives to net zero include “building more dams” and other infrastructure, and investing in resilience and mitigation.

“When the net zero policy that Anthony Albanese, is going to cost the Australian people $9 trillion.

“We’re sending our country broke when there is an alternative way.”

He called for Labor to stop the “puerile attacks on the National Party” and have “sensible conversation” over energy policy.

“We want to have that conversation with the Australian people about other ways, about having a cheaper, better, fairer way to reduce emissions,” he said.

Nationals leader David Littleproud says Australia needs to have a “common-sense” conversation about energy policy and explore “alternatives to net-zero”.

He said the junior Coalition partner would work with the Liberals who are yet to set their energy policy in a “calm and methodical” way.

“We’ll work with our Coalition partners when they get to their position,” he told ABC News Breakfast.

He said the Nationals policy would continue to reduce emissions “but in a cheaper, better, fairer way for Australians”.

Mr Littleproud said it was important that the Coalition focused on policies which delivered “affordable energy for households, as well as for industry”.

“We should do the practical things that we haven’t been doing in a stronger environment. Investment in a stronger environment,” Mr Littleproud said.

“We believe in climate change. Net zero is not the only way to address climate change.”

WA Liberal MP Rick Wilson has spoken in support of Barnaby Joyce’s repeal net zero private members bill in Parliament.

Standing up in the House of Representatives on Monday, the O’Conner MP described his electorate as “ground zero for Net Zero”.

“My electorate of O’Connor is ground zero for Net Zero,” Mr Wilson said.

“We’ve already seen the total demise of the nickel industry, with 14 out of 16 Nickel Mines in my electorate closing thanks to cheap, dirty nickel being produced in Indonesia.

“Last week I visited Narrogin, which will soon host three wind farm projects, and there is open tension between those who accepted the wind farm windfall and those who want to continue farming as their forebears did, some residents are concerned about visual and noise pollution or are fearful of potential adverse health effects.

“We’re already decimating the mining industry across my electorate, inflicting serious damage to our agriculture and transport industries, and hitting the hip pocket of everyday people living in O’Connor, all for a climate goal that most of the international community is coming to realize will never be reached.