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Sussan Ley is hoping she can engineer a Tony Abbott-style swing in public sentiment on climate. But the political landscape has changed since 2009.
By scrapping net zero, Sussan Ley is tracing the path of the last Liberal leader to take the party from opposition to government. The would-be moderniser is now trapped in old dynamics and rifling through the historical playbook.
The winds have changed since Tony Abbott deposed Malcolm Turnbull in 2009, setting up a brutal political campaign that ultimately felled two Labor prime ministers.
A conservative Liberal party room, egged on by an even more conservative Nationals party room, may have driven this week’s reversal on climate targets.
But in tone and presentation, the Coalition cannot afford a repeat of Abbott who, months before knifing Turnbull, declared climate change was “absolute crap”.
