Melissa McIntosh warns Australians are ‘disappointed’ and want issues resolved
Frontrunner Melissa McIntosh said Australians were more than disappointed with the Coalition and wanted the opposition to resolve its internal differences, as leading moderates demanded the party maintain its net zero commitment but signaled a willingness to compromise on the time frame.
The coalition’s junior partner abandoned its support for net zero emissions over the weekend and instead pledged to reduce Australia’s greenhouse gas output in line with the global average. Increasing pressure on Opposition Leader Sussan Ley to fall into line.
Leading moderate Andrew Bragg insists the Coalition maintains its net zero commitment in some form but is flexible on the date.Credit: Alex Ellinghausen
McIntosh, the coalition’s communications spokesman, said that despite rumors of a potential challenge to Ley’s leadership, he was optimistic about the party’s future due to the long history of cooperation between the partners.
“Australians want us to solve our problems pretty quickly,” McIntosh told ABC Radio National. “They let us down — they could probably use harsher words than disappointed — and they want us to get our act together.”
McIntosh, who is in the same Sussan Ley’s centre-right faction, said there was enough goodwill within the Coalition to keep the party together and argued that the media posed more of a threat to Ley’s position than was justified.
“It’s a difficult situation. He brought down previous leaders. It’s not an easy issue for the coalition to deal with and we lost a lot of seats across the country.”
“I think it’s a difficult position for him to be in, but with plenty of consultation, I think we’ll eventually get it right, things could get messy down the road.”
At a crisis meeting on Monday morning, Ley’s top right-wing lieutenants argued that the net zero slogan had become too toxic to be sustained in any form, according to sources familiar with the talks who were not authorized to speak publicly. Ley’s key ally, centre-right leader Alex Hawke, claimed he had always been skeptical of net zero.
Opposition housing spokesman Andrew Bragg said Australia should commit to net zero. But in a sign that his group is open to compromise, Bragg pegged his commitment to the Paris Agreement, which he said calls for net zero, in the second half of this century rather than 2050.
