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Kiss goodbye': Insider tells PVO the real reason why some Liberals are melting down over climate plan READ MORE: Insiders reveal the brutally honest truth about Sussan Ley By PETER VAN ONSELEN, POLITICAL EDITOR, AUSTRALIA Published: 02:21 GMT, 10 November 2025 | Updated: 02:36 GMT, 10 November 2025 The only thing dumber than signing up to the net zero emissions target for 2050 is not signing up to it. It's a target 25 years away, making it meaningless in almost all respects other than what it symbolises. No Liberal MP in Wednesday's party room meeting will be held to it, and most won't even be in parliament when 2050 rolls around. The Liberal Party is such an old man's club that many current MPs and Senators will be dead before 2050 rolls around. Refusing to sign on to net zero as an aspirational goal is like an obese person refusing to set a weight loss goal because the bathroom scales are scary. It's not brave, it's ridiculous. The politics of this issue are not subtle. The Liberals meet midweek to settle their position after a fortnight of public brawling, with the Nationals already having torched their own net zero commitment. That's fine because they have long been fringe dwellers in the major party divide. If Liberals do the same they too will become fringe dwellers, just as we've seen happen to the UK's Conservative Party, that also walked away from the meaningless target set down for a quarter of a century from now. Who would want to be Sussan Ley right now? Her leadership is caught in a climate culture war just as the party is trying to rebuild. A culture war that has lingered for 15 years. The spectacle isn't merely messy, it's self-harm. If the Liberal MPs emerge saying they won't back net zero by 2050, it won't be read as intellectual honesty. It will be seen by many as an abdication, especially by voters the party must win back to win government some day in the future. Younger voters, in particular, will take it as proof positive that the party still doesn't get them. Polling this year shows climate action ranks as a top-tier concern for Millennials and Gen Z, with around four in five saying it influenced their vote at the last election just six months ago. Who would want to be Sussan Ley? Her leadership is caught in a climate culture war just as the party is trying to rebuild That constituency is not a fringe. It is the future (and increasingly the present) of the electorate. The Liberal Party's problem isn't just moral - it's basic arithmetic, which presumably is what their Federal Director Andrew Hirst will tell the party room when he presents them with internal research showing the catastrophe that would ensue if they dump net zero. The arithmetic bites hardest in the so-called teal seats. The 2025 election confirmed that climate-driven independents are no flash in the pan. They retained a string of urban heartland electorates, also picking up Bradfield. If the Liberals junk net zero, they will gift-wrap Teals the seats they already hold, as well as a number beyond those that the movement intends to target next time. You would have to think Tim Wilson's reclaimed seat of Goldstein would be ripe for Teal pickings. A Liberal MP agrees, telling me Wilson 'can kiss his seat goodbye' if the party walks away from net zero. If the Liberals don’t start to take the real threat more seriously the independent insurgents will grow their power and influence, potentially locking the increasingly conservative and out of touch Liberals out of power indefinitely. A Teal wall built across once=safe Liberal seats would stop Liberals winning government. Business has moved on from the 'junk net zero' debate too. The Business Council of Australia, hardly a green NGO, explicitly backs getting to net zero by 2050. It says about 90 per cent of Australia's trade is with countries that have made the same commitment. In other words, this isn't just about virtue, it's about market access and investment. If the Coalition wants to look economically literate, it can't posture against the direction of capital. But the headline target is the easy bit. It's the meaningless part of signing on. The hard bit, the part that separates governing from mere slogans, is the methodology of how you get there, and what you're prepared to risk when trying. A Liberal MP tells me that Tim Wilson 'can kiss his seat goodbye' if the party walks away from net zero... The teals would be waiting to pick it up The weight loss analogy helps clarify these points. You don't fix obesity by declaring, 'I oppose losing weight'. You set the goal and argue like adults about the best path to get there: is it Ozempic, crash dieting, or a sustainable regime that doesn't wreck your body by pursuing fad diets that don't last? Translated into the net zero debate, that means signing up to the generic goal, but then debating energy policy options and costs attached to getting there. Everything from going nuclear to using more gas to addressing transmission and storage issues. The plan, just like dieting - what you eat, how you train, when you check progress - is the real game. When it comes to aiming for net zero emissions, that contest is wide open. If the Liberals want to prosecute competence, they should fight on reliability, cost discipline, approvals reform and delivery risks. They shouldn't query the existence of the end destination, because it just paints them into the corner as climate change deniers. Labor is vulnerable on the details of how it plans to achieve net zero. The costs of doing so when their plan is followed. This could be fertile territory for a Liberal revival, but not if they get bogged down in opposing net zero. It's also where a credible centre-right party should live. On the technology mix to get to net zero, the party is entitled to argue for more firming, more dispatchable supply and more realism about build rates. Make the case for nuclear too if it wants. Then set yardsticks: what must be financed and how by when? What's the contingency plan when projects slip? How should we best protect trade-exposed industries without turning climate policy into a crown of thorns? These are serious, grown-up questions. Voters will reward a party that answers them with evidence, especially if Labor fails to do so from government. The alternative is the one the Nationals have opted for: a cathartic bonfire. It may play in pockets of regional Australia, but it hands the Teals free content and drives metropolitan voters further away. Which is precisely why Liberals shouldn't follow their junior coalition partner on this issue. If the Liberals follow the Nationals over the cliff of opposing net zero, they can stop pretending this is a strategy for government. It's a strategy for opposition, indefinitely. So here's the blunt truth the Liberal party room needs to hear on Wednesday: Of course you should sign up to net zero by 2050. You're obese; the doctor is telling you to lose weight. The argument that matters is how you'll do it, not whether you think you even should. Lay out what you think is the best method to do so, and promise steady and measurable progress. Then hold Labor to the same standard. That's an argument the centre-right can win. Tearing up the target instead isn't bold, it's plain silly. Share or comment on this article: 'Kiss goodbye': Insider tells PVO the real reason why some Liberals are melting down over climate plan Add comment
