Liberal MPs face a choice between net zero climate policy or maintaining the Coalition

Four years after then-prime minister Scott Morrison promised at a climate summit in Glasgow Australia would stop emitting Greenhouse gases on a net basis, the Liberal Party is heading in the opposition direction.

Leader Sussan Ley’s unconfirmed-but-well reported decision to accept her deputies’ advice and cancel the party’s net-zero commitment could save her job, her credibility and the Coalition.

Just like Nationals MPs, who took the same step on Sunday, many Liberals blame the policy for high and rising energy prices, driven by the billions required to rebuild transmission networks and install batteries to provide electricity when solar and wind power is not working.

The sceptics aren’t just conservative MPs. Many Liberal Party members don’t believe the problem is worth the immense cost of replacing coal and gas power with solar and wind farms when Australia’s global warming contribution to around 1 per cent.

In one inner-Sydney state seat, Willoughby, party members are scheduled to debate on Wednesday evening dropping the net zero commitment - a sign that concerns about climate policy aren’t limited to the fringes of the big cities and country regions.

“I very much hope that we follow the Nationals,” Victorian Liberal senator Sarah Henderson told journalists in Parliament House before news broke that her leader was considering shifting policy.

Left-wing Liberals

A meeting of Liberal MPs will reportedly be held soon to agree on or endorse a new policy. Among those likely to oppose dropping the net zero position are two NSW senators from the party’s left wing, Dave Sharma and Andrew Bragg.

Both residents of Sydney’s eastern suburbs, they are concerned urban voters will punish the party for the perception its climate policy is being dictated by the Nationals.

“You have to have net zero in some form,” Senator Bragg told journalists in Canberra Monday morning.

The country-based party’s decision on the weekend led Senator Sharma to conclude the Nationals were trying to lock the Liberal Party into their position, raising the question, in his mind, of the Coalition’s purpose.

“If the two can’t be reconciled then we need to consider the future of the Coalition,” he said on Monday.

The split

The suggestion of a Coalition break-up for the second time in six months — the first split lasted less a week — dominated news coverage Monday morning, which began with a Newspoll that put Coalition support at 24 per cent, the lowest figure in the poll’s history.

Faced with evidence that whatever they are doing, voters don’t like it, some Liberal MPs told Senator Sharma they agreed with him. Maybe the time has come for a trial separation from the Nationals, who seem to be moving to the right to staunch a loss of support to the far-right One Nation, they said.

They expressed resentment the Nationals appeared to have deliberately pre-empted Liberal discussions over climate policy to force them to choose between net zero or a coalition.

At the same time, they saw a positive benefit emerging. Without needing to reach policy agreements with their more conservative partners, the Liberal Party would be free to adopt liberal policies that appeal to the affluent and educated voters who have left them for independents bankrolled by a Melbourne political activist, Simon Holmes à Court.

Aspiration or commitment?

Those Liberals would like a meeting of all Liberal MPs in days to consider terminating the Coalition, Financial Review political editor Phillip Coorey reported.

But Ms Ley — a former environment minister who has defended net zero for years — may have been persuaded by senior colleagues in meetings on Sunday evening and Monday morning to drop the policy, according to media reports Ms Ley’s office did not contradict.

One of the advocates for change is defence spokesman Angus Taylor, an economist and energy-policy veteran. He gave a detailed explanation of how a new policy might work at a meeting of Liberal MPs on Friday, where he apparently argued that energy subsidies are driving up prices across the economy, costing jobs and making Australians poorer.

Right-wing country-based Liberals such as Mr Taylor desperately want to remain in the Coalition. Without the Nationals to anchor the party to the right, they fear inner-city Liberals will impose policies on them that cost votes in their conservative electorates.

One option might be to treat net zero as an aspiration rather than a commitment, a wording that could give all sides a way to save face with voters.

Whether Sussan Ley can turn the policy crisis into a demonstration of skilful leadership remains unclear. If she doesn’t, her position will be weakened, perhaps fatally.