‘You’re going to dump Net Zero, down the track, aren’t you?’
Opposition Leader Sussan Ley was asked the question outright on Sky News Australia. There was a palpable sense of frustration from the journalist, which was expressed in directness – his questions stripped of padding.
Her response?
‘Individuals in my party room and in the Nationals’ party room have passionate, well-held views on this. And we’re going to bring all of those views in together in a working group led by Dan Tehan and it’s going to flesh-out the different perspectives, the expert advice, and – of course – focus on this government’s miserable failure when it comes to energy policy.
‘But let’s just step back a moment. The election was not quite three months ago. The next election is about three years ago [sic]. I said, when I became leader, I would be consultative, collaborate, and take the time to get this right. So, we do have time.
‘Of course, the important thing is, we’re not actually holding the levers on this policy. The government owns current energy policy. And we will hold them to account for the absolute trainwreck that it’s become.’
To translate, Sussan Ley doesn’t know what she thinks on Net Zero, promises to think whatever she’s told in the future by ‘experts’, doesn’t have any power in Parliament, but will hold the government to account on a policy she doesn’t have an opinion on.
The interview presses on, and Ms Ley is asked about the political ramifications of dumping Net Zero.
‘We have to work through this policy process, and I am not foreshadowing what the outcome will be. It will be underpinned by two fundamental things: playing our part to responsibly and transparently reduce emissions, as we should, and also, have a stable, reliable energy grid that provides affordable energy for households and businesses.
‘Now, those two propositions are eminently sensible, I think most people would agree. The government is failing on both of them. Cost is going up and emissions are going up too.’
Is Net Zero in the way of fixing energy policy, or not relevant, Ms Ley is asked.
‘Everything has to be considered, and people have different views, but I want to look at this from the perspective of Australians and Australian energy policy. It is because of an over-reliance on renewables – the renewables-only mantra that this government has been preaching for three years doesn’t work – of course, now they’ve realised they need to bring gas into the system. It’s all a bit late, it’s all a bit confusing, but the ultimate cost is being worn by businesses.’
We might pause and ask Ms Ley what it is about adding renewables to the grid that makes energy expensive and unreliable and why, if this is acknowledged to be the case, the Liberal Party continues to support the increased adoption of renewable energy into the so-called green grid going forward. Regardless of the answers Ms Ley does or does not give in this conversation, the Liberals maintain renewables in their energy plan. This is a major contradiction and the reason the Nationals are in a state of open rebellion.
When asked if Ms Ley would propose her own emissions 2050 target, she gave another non-answer. One gets the feeling that the reporter is interviewing an AI generated projection of a focus group hive mind. Ms Ley appears to have no beliefs, thoughts, or convictions of her own.
‘Everything is on the table, and I want to make that clear. It is not about me landing on what this group might come up with. We’ve got an outstanding colleague in Dan Tehan leading a process. Everybody in both our party rooms has an opportunity to have their say.’
Well, everyone except Ms Ley, who hasn’t said anything.
The reporter keeps pressing and she continues to reply with waffle about ‘everyone having different views’ instead of acknowledging a large group of the Nationals standing in front of Parliament metaphorically setting Net Zero alight as if it were the demonic force sucking the life out of Australia.
It is not as if there is a minor philosophical debate happening.
Net Zero is a major civil war inside the politics of the West where, in the case of America, it has been cut down, kicked out, and trodden on. Net Zero is also, likely, predicated on a very serious political lie used to defraud the taxpayer of hundreds of billions of dollars, or trillions around the world.
This is not a topic the Liberal Party can sit around and have a casual chat about. The evasion coming out of the moderate faction suggests they know this is a career-ruining moment for celebrity members. Getting out of Net Zero means admitting structural intellectual failures that go all the way back to Howard. That hurts. Sometimes, the truth does.
The Nationals are choosing a timely admission of guilt followed by contrition and honestly, with former Nationals Leader Barnaby Joyce expressing regret at his silence whilst in Cabinet. I wager farmers are willing to forgive Mr Joyce.
Ms Ley was asked directly if she had her own view on Net Zero.
‘I am the leader, and I will make the call when the time comes.’
Help me out here, is Ms Ley listening to experts and the Tehan working group, or is she making a captain’s call based upon her own beliefs, which she refuses to state?
‘What I said at the beginning of my leadership was that I would consult, I would listen. When it comes to policy, we would do this with everyone playing their part and having their say. I have set up those processes, by the way, in areas, not just energy, but across the board, so we can harness the talents and the life experience of every single one of our party room members.’
Which is not what Mr Ley said in the breath before. You would not imagine it were possible to be inconsistent with waffle but somehow Ms Ley manages it.
Ms Ley was not capable of offering an opinion, I do not mean a policy, just a garden variety opinion, on whether or not Labor’s proposed 2035 65-75 per cent target reduction for emissions was too high.
See if you can guess her answer.
‘We will make a decision based on engineering, science, and technology. The government makes its decisions based on posturing and its view of itself in international forums.’
‘Do you have a view that it’s too high…’
‘Well, we voted against the last one at 43 per cent, so I just point you to that. Obviously we consider everything. What we were worried about then was this target, everything else just had to fall in line behind it but it wasn’t about Australian businesses, affordable energy for households, it was just all about everything being subsumed by a target that is set somewhere else, so we do have to be cautious about that. We have to be cautious about a policy that doesn’t put an Australian energy grid first and foremost and the government hasn’t done that.’
Should we get out of the United Nations process of setting targets, like America?
‘Well, it means different things to different people.’
We have a style policy here at The Spectator Australia not to shout in the text with capslock, but please, try to imagine a subtext of capslock being used in spirit as I transcribe this.
‘But what I want to see,’ continued Ms Ley, ‘is an energy policy so I can look any Australian in the eye and say, we are here for you, we are backing your ability to work hard in your business, to have a manufacturing business that makes a difference to your community and your country, and that actually allows you to take the next step when it comes to the productivity growth that’s so important for this country.’
Is price more important than emissions?
You can almost watch her load the auto-prompt response before speaking.
‘Emissions, we should play our part, as I said. Look at these two things together, the fundamentals, responsible transparent reduction of emissions and having a stable reliable energy grid.’
What about Andrew Hastie’s approach to Australia making better use of its own coal?
‘If we have an approach based upon engineering, science, and technology…’
I kid you not, it is like transcribing a broken, soulless record.
‘…it has to start with affordable energy. Now, it’s not about motherhood statements about certain types of energy not belonging in the grid. You have to have a grid that works, and that’s the most important thing because we’re not going to stand by, as Liberals and Nationals, and see this government trash energy policy in this country without making it very clear to Australians that there is a better way.’
You quite literally told Australians that you have no power over government energy policy, plenty of time to work out what your policy is going to be, and no idea what that policy will be until you hold long consultations. From what has been said, the Liberal Party do not know what the Labor Party is doing wrong, only that it is wrong.
At this point, the Leader has nothing to say or offer the Australian people.
The party could give Ms Ley three years, three hundred years, or three thousand years, and she will never win an election.
No doubt Ms Ley has an opinion about Net Zero, a moderate opinion, one that opposes the National Party view and upsets the Blue Ribbon base, and so it will not be voiced until the scaffolding of focus groups and expert consensus can prop it up against dissenting members of the Coalition. We can take bets on whether the Big Business angle (and the super funds) are brought in as backup.
What about Dan Tehan, to whom Ms Ley kept deferring? Aside from banal comments from the previous election which rehashed the official Coalition policy (now ditched?) of shifting from renewables + gas + coal to renewables + gas + nuclear, in 2021 when he was Trade Minister, Mr Tehan said:
‘The world is moving to decarbonise’ and that, according to the Guardian, Australia must fend off ‘protectionist forces’.
‘There is no doubt that when I’ve been in Japan, South Korea, Vietnam, Singapore, the US, or Europe, the world is moving to decarbonise. The conversation that I will have in all those places is about how we can do that while protecting our key industries and growing our economies … the risks are that countries will use it as a means to drive a protectionist agenda and use tariffs as a potential means to try and drive change, which I think will be incredibly counterproductive and really just bring to the fore protectionist forces … my concern is if we’re not at the table, signing up to Net Zero by 2050, then we’re not there making sure that this is going to be done the right way and that those protectionist forces can’t disrupt the approach that we think should be taken to addressing emissions reductions.’
Reading all of this, I would say Chris Bowen, hopeless as he is, has no fear of the Coalition. Not yet, anyway.
