Kellie Sloane is tipped to replace Mark Speakman as NSW Liberal leader. That should make life tougher for Chris Minns | New South Wales politics
Compared to its federal counterparts, the New South Wales Coalition is a relatively collegial conservative political group. But no more.
Over the next two weeks, the NSW Liberals may well dump their leader Mark Speakman and face the almost impossible task of reconciling differing positions on net-zero emissions with junior coalition partner the Nationals. There is a real possibility that the state opposition will be broken.
It’s likely to be an ugly fortnight and Labor premier Chris Minns will be more than happy to sit back and watch the chaos that has already destroyed the Liberal brand in Canberra descend on Macquarie Street.
The first drama to play out will be the Nationals’ party room debate on net zero policy on Monday and Tuesday.
Citizens are almost certain to abandon or water down their commitments until they become meaningless.
Grassroots Nationals voted in June to abandon net-zero emissions by 2050, and NSW Nationals leader Dugald Saunders faces increasingly angry backbenchers angry at wind farms, large-scale solar power and transmission lines that his voters see as being imposed on regions to power cities.
Anger is fueled by conservative groups such as Advance, which six months ago announced it would reverse net zero and return Australia to a coal-fired past.
Until now, NSW had bipartisan support for the 2020 energy transition roadmap introduced by the previous Coalition government.
But with the federal Coalition burned out on climate change policy and Donald Trump walking away from the Paris agreement, the NSW roadmap is in real trouble.
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The question is whether the more moderate Saunders, who has a tenuous position in the leadership, will survive or be replaced by the more conservative Paul Toole. And if he stays, what price is he willing to pay in terms of policy concessions?
Meanwhile, there are also problems for the Coalition’s senior partner, the NSW Liberals.
Unlike the federal Liberals, who revel in their self-destruction, the NSW division is reluctantly marching towards a change of leadership.
There is a view that Speakman, although much loved, lacks fluidity and fails to capture Minns’ shine.
A new Resolve poll out this week will likely show another drop in the Coalition primaries (hardly surprising given the feds have comprehensively trashed the brand).
Inside NSW Coalition drops to 32% primary vote in JulyWhile analysts stated that this could lead to a loss of approximately 10 seats, this rate was 38% for the Labor Party. This leaves MPs in marginal seats uneasy, while those in safer ones face at least two more terms in opposition without a major reversal of fortunes.
Federal Coalition now has pre-vote rights That’s just 24%, according to Newspoll, so the NSW Liberals fear the situation could get worse for them too.
Speakman’s death, if it occurs, will not occur until the second week of this final session.
His moderate friends hope he can be persuaded to resign, and the new leader takes office without asking questions, giving them a Christmas break to adjust.
The new leader is likely to be Vaucluse’s first-term MP Kellie Sloane; a moderate who stands out as a moderate communicator who at times openly meddles with Minns.
The former Channel Nine journalist is affable, good at delivering lines, has worked hard on the health portfolio and doesn’t shy away from a bit of conflict in parliament.
This is in stark contrast to Speakman, who struggled to get airtime and whose advocacy attacks were easily thwarted by Minns, who made her case largely through the tabloids and 2GB.
Sloane’s backers hope his better relations with the Daily Telegraph and 2GB’s Ben Fordham will combat, or at least neutralize, Minns’ wanderings.
But Sloane is also a political novice. He has been in parliament for less than three years and is a relative newcomer to the party.
A clean complexion would be great, but having no experience as a minister, no history with groups and not having been through a few political crises will make this difficult.
To remember Former Labor leader Jodi McKay and the former journalist appointed as leader of the opposition to remove the stink of corruption around the Labor Party?
McKay had served in ministry and parliament for nine years before becoming leader, but as an outsider to the Labor family, he was chewed up and spat out by factions and the hugely influential prime minister of the day, Gladys Berejiklian.
The public has seen how fierce the NSW Liberal factional conflict could get ahead of the 2022 federal election. Primary election fights spilled into the news.
Why is the parliamentary leader important? Because the absence of a functioning party mechanism and factional fights on everything from primaries to broad ideology erodes the ability to run an effective government or opposition.
There’s also an uphill dance with the Nationals that will be even more problematic if, as expected, the Nationals roll with net zero.
By agreeing to disagree, Speakman did his best to avoid a showdown with the Nationals on issues like wild horses and the massive koala national park.
However, managing different policies on key issues such as climate change and energy is a big problem.
While voters have shown they are willing to make changes to climate policy, how will urban Liberals avoid a teal wave on the north coast and elsewhere, especially if they perceive the Nationals to be wagging the dog?
The possibility of leaving the National Party is being discussed on Macquarie Street as the only solution.
It may make things easier in the short term, but in the long term it makes it more difficult to find common ground on policy and eventually persuade voters to return the conservatives to government.
Speakman, or rather Sloane, will have to navigate this minefield. The risk for Sloane is that inexperience will cause slippages that will leave him damaged, ineffective, and eventually indispensable.
Anne Davies is Guardian Australia’s NSW state correspondent
