After days of publicly ventilating internal dirty laundry, the Liberal Party has dropped its commitment to reaching net zero by 2050.
It's an end to the bipartisanship that began with former Liberal Prime Minister Scott Morrison when he committed to the policy in 2021.
The decision comes 12 days after the Coalition's junior partner, the Nationals, made a spectacular intervention and determined to ditch any reference to "net zero" from its own policy platform.
That turbocharged a process within the Liberal Party that might otherwise have continued over the summer before coming to a head.
Liberal MPs and senators already had the opportunity to vent their spleen on the policy at a snap meeting in Canberra on Wednesday lasting close to five hours.
One senior source inside the meeting told SBS News two thirds of the speakers were in favour of following the Nationals and excising net zero altogether.
Moderates were fighting inside the room to keep net zero language at a minimum to make the party electable in cities where climate action is demonstrably a favoured by the majority of voters, according to years of opinion polling data.
The Liberal Party’s new policy reaffirms its commitment to the Paris Agreement and references Australia's Nationally Determined Contributions — the climate action plans submitted under that framework.
Moderates will be able to refer to "net zero" as a "welcome outcome", some had threatened to quit the frontbench if net zero disappeared completely.
One moderate told SBS News that the process has been frustrating but ultimately, they are willing to accept the outcome.
"I can live with it," they said.
In the end, the conservative leaning ranks of the Liberal Party, with very few metropolitan politicians among its ranks after the May federal election drubbing, have flexed their muscle to secure this outcome.
Senior representative among them remain resolutely convinced they can effectively campaign against Labor on a platform of rising energy prices, criticising of the renewables rollout, and pushing to embrace nuclear energy.
Prime Minister Anthony Albanese has already begun rehearsing the lines the Labor Party will be using all the way up until the next election, referring to the Liberal Party as a "clown show" of climate change deniers.
Opposition leader Sussan Ley was very publicly told by backbencher Sarah Henderson that her leadership was "losing support".
This week, Ley called her entire party room together and emerged unscathed, with no surprise challenge to her job. It looks like a win, but her rivals were at the apex of championing the policy the party has arrived at.
And it's not over yet. The Liberals and Nationals still have to hash out a common position to keep the two parties in Coalition, and then start selling this change to voters.
Share
