We may well be witnessing the disintegration of the Liberals

Sussan Ley has bought herself some time as Liberal leader after stepping back from the brink of net zero oblivion and surrendering to the pressure of her party room.

She survived this week, but she is far from safe.

Many of the opposition leader’s most important allies sniffed the political winds and deserted her on Wednesday and sided with the “dump net zero” conservatives during a five-hour party room meeting.

Within minutes of the meeting ending, a list of names was circulating that showed whether each Liberal MP had spoken for or against net zero. There were 28 MPs who spoke in favour of dumping the policy, 17 who wanted to keep it and four undecided.

An alternative list later circulated that suggested the number of speakers for and against was a bit closer, but regardless, the result made for brutal reading.

Ley’s closest ally in politics, Alex Hawke, spoke against net zero, and so did his loyal lieutenant Melissa McIntosh (whom some MPs accuse of trailing her coat for the job of deputy leader in a new opposition team), playing the part of Brutus and Cassius.

As expected, leadership rivals Angus Taylor and Andrew Hastie spoke against net zero, as did wise head James Paterson, Queensland numbers man James McGrath and Senate leader Michaelia Cash, thoroughly wedging the opposition leader.

On Thursday, after a meeting of Liberal shadow ministers, Ley fronted up and explained why the Coalition still believed in tackling climate change and remained committed to the Paris climate agreement – with an aspiration to reach net zero – but if elected, the party would formally scrap the legislated target of net zero by 2050 and fight for cheaper electricity.

All of this prompted one Liberal, who asked not to be named, to observe “the right [faction] is crazy. They want to stay in Paris and abandon net zero. But Paris is the framework for reaching net zero.”

Ley was asked about this contradiction more than once at a press conference on Thursday and failed to give a coherent explanation.

She did manage a Trumpian jab at the UN, however, arguing “if there are reasons why people in Paris or in some United Nations organisation don’t like it, I can deal with that”.

Ley was a private supporter of net zero who has been trying to hold her party together and save her leadership (just six months after taking over) but she folded under the weight of pressure from the party room.

Never mind that by giving in and leading from the back, not the front, the Coalition – the only realistic alternative government in Australia – has now decisively broken from the net zero by 2050 consensus that had been put in place by Scott Morrison and Angus Taylor in 2021 and agreed to by Labor, scientific experts and most businesses.

Now Ley must attempt to rebuild and reset her leadership – assuming the net zero peace plan holds – and win the peace. It doesn’t look promising for her.

In securing that peace, Ley took a leaf out of Malcolm Turnbull’s playbook from when he was prime minister and Liberal leader. She appeased the conservatives who don’t want her to be leader anyway, and let down the moderates who helped install her as leader.

That approach didn’t work for Turnbull and it’s unlikely to work for Ley.

Had she attempted to make a captain’s call to keep net zero, she would have been removed from the job as opposition leader. However, appeasement does not work in politics and there is every chance some of the conservatives in her party room will move onto a new issue, such as immigration, and wedge her again.

The fight over net zero was always and still is a Trojan horse used to destabilise Ley’s leadership, and the 28-17-4 count of speakers against and for the policy in the party room can also be read as a de facto leadership vote. That’s bad news for the opposition leader.

What Ley will now attempt to do is completely reframe the debate over climate and energy policy so that it is centred on the cost of power to households, Australians having access to abundant cheap power – regardless of whether it is generated by solar, wind, gas or coal – while also trying to convince voters the Coalition still cares about the climate.

On Thursday, she thundered about Australians being “crushed” by rising power prices, claimed Anthony Albanese had lied to people about power bills coming down and declared “the Liberal Party has decided to put affordable energy first”.

One supporter of Ley, who asked not to be named so they could speak freely, argued that Ley was being unfairly blamed for all the opposition’s ills, six months after a devastating loss under Dutton, and that she had not been given the time and clear air to actually lead the party.

That supporter summed up the bigger challenge facing the Liberals like this: “It’s not that the moderates aren’t fighting. The question is more: Are we witnessing the disintegration of the Liberals as a broad-church, big-tent party?

“A sensible, broad-church party is able to discuss policy without it turning into this. If you look across the country, our brand is in the ascendancy where people trust us. Net zero is about caring for the future – that’s why [Queensland Premier David] Crisafulli is for net zero, for example, and Mark Speakman and Basil Zempilas [the respective opposition leaders in NSW and WA] have held fast to it.

“We tried this approach three years ago with Dutton, the focus on the outer suburbs and the regions, and it didn’t work. Menzies pulled together all these different groups 80 years ago [when he founded the Liberal Party] and we are steadily losing them.”

Nearly two years ago, Ley told this masthead that she believed the Liberals could win back every teal seat at the 2025 election. Only Tim Wilson regained his seat from teal Zoe Daniel, and that win had very little to do with the federal campaign, or either Dutton or Ley, while teal Nicolette Boele won Paul’s Fletcher’s old seat of Bradfield.

It’s hard to see how the Coalition can win back any teal seats at the next election with this policy. Ley’s gamble is that arguing for affordable, reliable power will trump voters’ concerns about the future and the climate.

That’s a heck of a gamble to take.

James Massola is chief political commentator.

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