Liberals squander energy on net zero: Voters aren’t listening

Before the age of formalised focus groups and regular opinion polling, the Enlightenment Irish philosopher and politician Edmund Burke delivered a bracingly anti-populist statement to his electors: “Your representative owes you, not his industry only, but his judgment; and he betrays, instead of serving you, if he sacrifices it to your opinion.”

The most generous interpretation of the Coalition’s ongoing debate over Australia’s commitment to net zero by 2050 is that the remaining representatives of Liberal and Nationals-held electorates are trying to live up to the ambition of the great Irishman. Despite polls showing that voters want their representatives to promise to meet the 2050 target, these politicians are trying to exercise their best judgment on the feasibility of the emissions-reduction road map and its effect on Australia’s prosperity.

There’s bad news and ambivalent news on how that’s going for them. Voters judge the squabbling Coalition to be increasingly unelectable. On the other hand, airing the arguments does seem to be shifting attitudes to the 2050 ambition.

A poll taken in July this year by the pro-renewables, Liberal-aligned Blueprint Institute found that 49 per cent of voters believed the Liberal-National Coalition should keep the emissions-reduction target, while only 21 per cent were unsure. By October, attitudes had become more fluid. Essential found that 44 per cent of voters somewhat or strongly supported Australia’s target to reach net zero emissions by 2050, while 29 per cent were unsure. According to a Redbridge poll for The Australian Financial Review, 37 per cent of voters wanted the Coalition to retain a commitment to net zero by 2050, with 26 per cent unsure.

That’s a drop of between 5 and 12 per cent in the number of voters who want Australia or the Coalition committed to the 2050 target, and an increase of between 5 and 8 per cent of those who are now less confident. This could be read as good news for the Coalition – progress towards persuading voters that the Labor government is writing cheques it can’t cash. But here’s why it’s ambivalent.

Previously unpublished research undertaken by Spectre Strategy in July shows the net zero debate, which seems so urgent to the Liberals and Nationals now, is far from a priority for most voters. Director Morgan James warns that focusing on this issue is a high-stakes gamble for the Liberal Party.

“Soft voters, those who could be engaged and persuaded to vote for the Liberal Party, are desperate for a discussion that reflects what they view as the real issues and priorities,” James warns. “If anything, they’re more likely to break against the Liberals, who haven’t done the work to connect their concerns over the 2050 target to the issues voters care about.”

If Dan Tehan, who has been leading the energy review for the Liberals, is somehow able to lay out and communicate an inspiring plan for energy abundance directly connected to voter aspirations between now and the next parliamentary year – in the attention dead-zone of Christmas – there may be a chance of winning over soft voters. In this scenario, the gamble would have paid off. Edmund Burke could be rightly invoked by the conservative heirs. The Coalition could finally move on to other matters.

But to fail at this point would be fatal. If it is ever to be electorally viable again, or even to become a competent opposition, the codependent Coalition has to win those additional votes, not just shore up a shrinking base fixated on energy policy.

Spectre Strategy asked soft voters which three areas of policy focus would make them more likely to consider voting for the Liberal Party. Only 6 per cent wanted the party to abandon net zero. Only 13 per cent thought delivering a credible plan for net zero with a focus on industry-led innovation should be a priority. Those numbers include soft voters already leaning towards the Coalition.

The top three issues were the same for all voters and soft voters, but the latter group – that would be the ones the Liberals most need to win over – would be even more likely to consider voting for the party if it were to focus its attentions in these areas. In order, soft voters would be more likely to vote for a Liberal Party committed to cutting taxes for working families and small businesses (33 per cent), offering a credible housing policy for non-homeowners and younger Australians (32 per cent), and stronger action to reduce immigration further (25 per cent).

Thanks to internal party histrionics, these issues have hardly had a run in the media. The Coalition has missed many chances to point out that when the government promises to build affordable housing, it’s actually another type of government housing. What’s referred to as “affordable housing” in government jargon is generally only available to people who meet a number of very restrictive income and disadvantage criteria. Even if the government meets the targets – which it has not so far – this type of housing will make no difference at all to the rent costs or purchasing ability of most working Australians.

Creeping forms of taxation, including plans to use superannuation for political ends, have had inadequate scrutiny. The amount of taxpayer money wasted in poorly administered social programs remains invisible to the public. A constructive discussion on integration and the conditions on which our immigration system is predicated has been impossible in the absence of an effective opposition, leaving only the most reductive messages to cut through.

Without wishing for a return to government-by-focus-group, polls are instructive. Right now, they’re telling the Coalition that in obsessing over its Burkian judgment on net zero it is neglecting the philosopher’s pledge to give electors’ wishes great weight, their opinion high respect, and their business – not merely the parts that preoccupy the representative – unremitting attention.

Parnell Palme McGuinness is an insights and advocacy strategist. She has done work for the Liberal Party and the German Greens and is a senior fellow at the Centre for Independent Studies. She is also an advisory board member of Australians For Prosperity, which is part-funded by the coal industry.