The Nationals’ decision on net zero will push Sussan Ley’s leadership to the brink

6 hours ago 3

For the second time in three years, David Littleproud’s Nationals have ratted on the Liberal Party and staked out a policy position that has potentially dramatic consequences for the senior Coalition party.

On November 27, 2022, Littleproud, then Nationals MP Jacinta Nampijinpa Price and the rest of the party room, announced the Nationals would formally oppose the Voice to parliament.

It would be almost six months before Peter Dutton announced the Liberals would take the same position but the result was all but inevitable. It’s now all but inevitable now that the Liberals will dump support for Australia to reach net zero emissions by 2050.

Nationals leader David Littleproud during a press conference at Parliament House in Canberra on Sunday.

The only surprising thing about the Nationals’ decision is that it took them this long.

What is notable is that Littleproud has again taken a maximalist position on a crucial policy issue that leaves the official opposition leader – then Dutton, now Sussan Ley – facing two choices: fall into line behind the Nats and look weak, or stake out a different position and potentially split the Coalition.

Littleproud was elected to lead the Nationals and he will argue that his decision has put the interests of his party and its members first.

But the former banker also has a responsibility to the broader Coalition, and for the second term in a row, he has acted unilaterally and in a fashion that could bring the Coalition back to the brink of a split, just six months after the parties went through a quickie divorce and hasty re-marriage.

Last time, Dutton had a united party room and his leadership was not under threat after the Nationals went first on the Voice.

This time, Ley only just has the numbers in her party room and a series of resignations and sackings (Nampijinpa Price and Andrew Hastie), followed by a series of missteps and mistakes – calling for Kevin Rudd to be sacked, claiming the prime minister’s T-shirt was antisemitic, claiming Labor may have stopped her visit to the Tomago smelter last week – mean she is in a weakened position.

Ley privately supports net zero.

But the Liberal Party room is bitterly split between true believers, vehement opponents and begrudging pragmatists.

The opposition leader knows that to start winning voters back in the major cities, the price of entry is a credible climate change policy. Opposing net zero is not that, though that is now very likely where the Liberals will land, along with a fig leaf of policies designed to reduce emissions.

Meanwhile, Coalition MPs openly discuss when, not if, Ley will be challenged, and whether the next party leader will be Angus Taylor, Hastie, Ted O’Brien or Dan Tehan (among others).

Littleproud is no fool. He knows this and has seemingly calculated that Ley is so weakened that she does not have the political strength to do anything other than fall in line behind the Nationals or lose her job (which may happen regardless).

He also always has one eye on his predecessor and bitter rival, Barnaby Joyce, who is flirting with One Nation and whose own public opposition to net zero, which preceded the party leader, has helped drag Littleproud to this point.

Littleproud’s suggestion that Joyce’s contribution would have been welcomed at this weekend’s federal meeting of the Nationals – when Joyce was absent at a funeral and then a wedding this weekend – was churlish, and suggested Joyce still lives rent-free in the leader’s head.

As late as last week, both parties were talking up the strength of their partnership, how respectful discussions were, how each would wait for the other to arrive at a position on net zero and how the two parties would arrive at a united, joint position.

It was all bunkum. The next time a Nationals MP says they’re on the same page as the Liberal Party, take it with a grain of salt.

Littleproud made a politically pragmatic call to oppose the defeated Voice to parliament and the Coalition remained united – but they learned the wrong lesson, thinking that opposition to the Voice would translate into defeat for Albanese at the last election.

They were thrashed.

The Liberals will almost certainly end up dropping support for net zero now and the Coalition will probably remain united, but they risk making the same mistake twice and being hammered at the next election.

The success or failure of Labor’s renewables rollout in the next couple of years and how quickly the cost of power rises for households and businesses will help determine that.