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National leader David Littleproud denies making Sussan Ley’s job harder by announcing the junior party’s new policy of abandoning net-zero climate targets while the Liberal Party is still debating the issue.
Some Liberal MPs are angry that the National Party is trying to pin them down on sensitive climate policy. Ley now needs to placate moderate Liberals who want to hold the Coalition together while maintaining support for some version of the net zero target.
Asked just now on Sky News whether he was causing problems for Ley, Littleproud said: “No, this is part of a long process that we started after the election.”
Liberal leader Sussan Ley and Nationals leader David Littleproud.Credit: Alex Ellinghausen
“We’re calm about it, we understand that the Liberal Party will come to its position at some point, and we respect that. We’ve come to our position, we haven’t hidden it. I think we’ve been very open with everyone,” Littleproud said.
“I’m sure they’ll be very interested to see where we should go as an alternative approach… We’ll create the environment for them to be able to get to that position, and when they do, we’ll have a process of working together to reach a consensus, and we’ll do that constructively with them.”
Littleproud would not speculate on the future of the Coalition partnership in a scenario where the Liberals decide to maintain net zero.
“When they get to that position, we cross those bridges with each other in a mature, open, transparent way. I don’t think it’s healthy to instill assumptions in myself,” he said.
