Net zero: WA MP Ben Small leaves Sussan Ley out to dry over party’s ‘inexplicable rush’ on timeline

A WA Liberal MP has issued a scathing public slam down of Sussan Ley’s timeline to discuss the party’s position on net zero next week.

Forrest MP Ben Small expressed frustration that Ms Ley had called a partyroom meeting on Wednesday, which would require WA members to travel to Canberra on Remembrance Day.

“Having insisted for months we should take our time, there is now an inexplicable rush to resolve the energy policy question, and the leader has called a meeting requiring all WA MPs and Senators to check in for the direct flight to Canberra at 11am on the 11th of November — as if there were no more important place for them to be, like their local RSLs paying tribute to those who paid the ultimate sacrifice for our country,” he said on Thursday.

“If that were an oversight, that would have been deeply regrettable.

“Perhaps they might have assumed we’d catch two red-eye flights through the night and arrive for an important discussion fatigued in a way that would be criminally negligent in any other workplace.

“But given that the leader’s chief-of-staff was explicitly and directly notified of this feedback several days ago, it instead appears to be a deliberate and shameless provocation of colleagues who have clearly expressed views on this policy.”

Mr Small said the sudden rush was unnecessary.

“The Liberal Party has had nothing to talk about for six months now because the Leader declared all policies were to be reviewed, in a serious and unilateral break from longstanding convention,” he said.

“Rather than fulfilling the primary job of leader, providing leadership that looks to the horizon and positions us accordingly, we have been left at sea with no paddle.”

After the Liberal partyroom comes together on Wednesday, a virtual joint meeting with the Nationals will follow on Sunday, November 16, to seek a Coalition position.

It comes after the Nationals last weekend decided Australia shouldn’t pursue a target to reach net zero emissions by 2050 — cutting emissions as far as possible and offsetting those that can’t be eliminated — and should slow its rate of emission cuts by about half, which would be in line with the OECD average.

The Liberals are widely expected to also drop the commitment to net zero by 2050, although possibly still train the target for some time in the second half of the century, and focus on power prices.

Former environment minister Tanya Plibersek labelled the Nationals “extremists” for abandoning net zero ignoring what business, agriculture and industry bodies wanted.

“The people who don’t back net zero are the extremists of the National Party and they’re dragging half the Liberal Party with them,” she said.

Prime Minister Anthony Albanese’s assessment was that “the modern Liberal Party is not so much a broad church these days as a temple of doom”.