In shepherding the Coalition party room to a truce on net zero emissions by 2050, Opposition Leader Sussan Ley risks walking straight into the same dilemma that felled her predecessor.
Still reeling from the Coalition’s 2022 defeat, MPs from across the ideological spectrum praised Peter Dutton for uniting them around a common cause. Then they suffered an even worse fate in May.
Now, the mood in the Liberal party room has shifted towards abandoning the 2050 target altogether, prompting a rearguard action by a diminished moderate faction bearing the scars of the consecutive election losses.
For Ley, whose MPs will begin arriving in Canberra today for crunch talks, the policy debate has become a de facto bid to save her leadership.
