I'm Ruby Jones and you're listening to seven Am. Susan Lee describes herself as a moderate, a Liberal leader who wants to keep her party in the center. But last week, after months of internal pressure, she led the Coalition to formally abandon its commitment to reach net zero emissions by twenty fifty, a target first adopted under Scott Morrison, arguing that dropping it is the only way to deliver cheaper
power bills. The decision has pleased conservatives inside the party, but it's also raised questions about what Lee herself really believes on climate and the future direction of the Liberal Party today. Susan Lee on why the Coalition walked away from net zero and whether she can hold her party together. It's Thursday, November twenty Susan Lee, Welcome to the show. Great to be with you. A few days ago you decided to drop net zero.
Why While Australians deserve affordable energy and responsible emissions reduction and the Coalition believes that we can do both, but affordable energy must come first.
So the trifecta of failure.
Is under this government with prices up, reliability down and emissions flatlining.
Are all you need to know to.
Absolutely understand how Labour's energy policy is a train wreck. But at the heart of all this is affordability for families, for businesses, for communities. And as I travel Australia talking about our affordable energy plan, I'm hearing real world examples of mums and dads leading into Christmas, sitting at the kitchen table, worried about how they're going to pay the bills,
worried about next year, a cost of living crisis. And meanwhile, well, we've had a Prime Minister who's promised electricity prices would come down for two elections running. They've gone up by forty percent. And that's not good enough. It's not good enough for struggling families.
So are you saying the decision to drop the net zero emissions target it had nothing to do with Andrew Hasty threatening to quit the party over it, with just enter prices, public campaign against the policy, pressure from Angus Taylor.
This is Liberal Party policy coming out of the Liberal Party party room. Our team is behind it and our Joint Party Room signed off on it on Sunday. Now that's enough about process, because Australians don't want to hear about our processes. They want to hear about outcomes, and they want to hear what we're going to do for them, and.
They also do want to hear about you and what you believe. If you had been a supporter of net zero at one point, now you're not. You were once in the Parliamentary Friends of Palestine group but changed your position. You once supported Graham Samuel's recommendation on environmental reform, but you changed your mind. So at this point, is it fair enough that many Australians might feel that they don't really know what it is that you believe.
I can come to all of those examples that you've given me, Rubin, I'm very happy to. But I want to make this point. Leaders should always confront the realities that we see in front of us, and the reality of the economy and energy policy is one that demands the response that we've given.
Now.
We do believe in responsible emissions, we do believe in playing our part globally, and that's why we are signed on to the Paris Agreement. And we do believe that priority must be given to affordable energy. Because when you consider some of the data points, if I can call them, that of Labour's energy failures. You see Australians shaking their head in bewilderment. We're a country with abundant energy supplies. We've got the second or third largest resources of energy
in the world and our exports reflect that. Meanwhile, we're building import terminals for LNG that will come on a ship from the Middle East. Imagine the carbon footprint of that liquefying natural gas traveling thousands of kilometers and then being unloaded onto the East Coast to get back into our power grid. Costs are going through the roof. The renewable energy roll ad is blowing out in cost. We support renewables in the right place, but we support a
grid that has a balanced energy system basedload power, dispatchable power. Yes, renewables, and right now this government's policy is all wrong. So you talk about me, I'm here for the Australian people and for what they deserve to see from the leadership of this country when it comes to backing them in.
Let's talk about leadership. There are reports that Andrew Hasty or Angus Taylor, backed by members of the Moderates, could mount a challenge. So how worried are you?
This is just commentary speculation and it's commentary on commentary to be perfectly honest, and I won't lose focus for a single minute on what I am dedicated to, which is to our affordable energy plan.
And it's not just energy.
I mean I can talk about the things that we've undertaken to do in the six months since I became leader, and I've set clear policy areas of living within our means,
budget responsibility. We don't have that from this government. Of a plan for lower personal income tax cuts in the lead up to the next election, changing the industrial relations rules so that employers and employees get a better deal, and of course keeping communities safe because particularly in Victoria, we're seeing a real lack of application by governments to
exactly that. But right now, energy is the economy and that's why it's such an important thing to be talking about because it's built in to every step of a supply chain, to the goods we receive, to our sovereign manufacturing capability that is declining rapidly. Do we really want to be a country where we don't make things in Australia anymore? Unfortunately, that's where we're heading. With nineteen hundred manufacturing businesses closing since labor came to power and everyone
feeling the pressure. So the message on energy is central to my leadership in terms of how we present to the Australian people because I'm here for families. I'm here for Australians who are struggling.
Would you like to comment any more directly? I mean, I'm curious as to what you think of Andrew Hasty. He posts a lot on Instagram, but he's been criticized for being absent during the last election, for not effectively arguing on his portfolio of defense. So would he be a good Liberal Party leader or do you worry that he might be a bit lazy.
Every one of my colleagues has participated in the policy direction that we have and the policy that we announced on energy came out of a party room where we were all participating and the Nationals and the Liberals met, and this is coalition policy. And I'm pleased and proud of every single one of my team and the role that they play, and the fact that I said from the beginning as leader, I would enfranchise every single person to have their say and contribute to policy.
But you know what, Ruby.
Australians, I don't know whether they necessarily want to hear about this in the bubble in the Beltway stuff. I think what they need to hear from us is what we're going to do for them. And it's vital that we demonstrate, as we are with this plan, what we are going to do for them, and that is have a plan that brings down power prices so we can have affordable energy for households and so that we can
be a country that makes things again. And I think of my six grandchildren, I think of the next generations, and I think of the fact that they are set to inherit a lower standard of living than their parents and grandparents.
That is just not right.
And will you consider that housing is just so important for the future of young people and for our standard of living, and that everything that goes into building a house is getting more and more expensive under this government's energy policy, where you're punished if you make in Australia steel, aluminium, cement, plastic, glass, bitumen. So these supply chains are going offshore. Do we really want to be a country where we bring everything in
on a boat from China? Do we really want a situation where we don't make the vital ingredients for our manufacturing industrialized base going forward, and we're able to offer houses that are affordable to all Australians.
That's what our energy policy is about too. Let's talk about the energy policy because the industry, so the International Energy Agency, this ESAR, the Australian Energy Council, which represents major energy companies, they all say that transitioning to renewables is the cheapest path for Australia.
Well, transitioning to renewables as done by this government is clearly not the cheapest path. Otherwise electricity prices, power prices wouldn't be going up by forty percent and gas prices wouldn't be going up by forty percent. So the first point to make is the government has got it wrong already.
They've spent seventy five billion dollars on the energy transition, and the Business Council has forecasts it will cost another five hundred and thirty billion to get to the twenty thirty five targets alone that they have recently talked about. But when they renount, when they announced those twenty thirty five targets, they didn't say how much they would cost,
and they didn't have any credibility surrounding them. So what we're dealing with is what I said at the beginning of this conversation, the actually economic reality that we're facing and how we must get energy affordable for Australians. And I support renewables. We support renewables, but the transition has to be managed in a way that puts affordability front and center.
So what is your answer to the question then of how will imagining and that zero target deliver cheaper gas?
Well, we need to get gas into the system. And when we consider that we're importing gas from overseas and that we're not using the abundance supplies of gas in this country, you can see immediately how expensive gas is if we don't do it right. So we have as part of our policy and East Coast gas reservation scheme,
and that's vital. Now you mentioned Graham Samu and you mentioned environmental approvals with respect the Samuel report that I commissioned and presented to the government at that time was refused by them, and there were many inputs into a final policy process that included that report and included.
Business and industry as well.
So we know that we have to put the need for approvals that generate the industries we need, the natural resources that Australians will rely on and always have relied on, balanced with environmental protection always very important. Of course, we just haven't seen that either in the government's record or in its policy proposals, because what it's proposing is actually not about increasing the supply of the natural resources that.
We need to power our country. It's not about that at all.
It's about holding us back and the energy cost failures are a clear demonstration of that.
Coming up, why Susan Lee says she's not going to pay attention to the polls, Let's talk about public support for the Coalition under your leadership right now. I don't have to tell you how bad the polls are. But as well as that one nation is right now enjoying its highest support ever and many of their new supporters, I think is safe to presume our ex coalition voters.
So why do you think those voters are leaving? We're Australians every day, and we vote every three years, and our policy reaches every Australian in every corner of this country, and it's important to make that clear. I'm not going to reflect on how voters might change their votes from time to time. Yes, we did very badly at the last election. I said so then, and then I said about developing a serious, compelling policy agenda that answers the
questions that Australians want answered. How are we going to support our families, maintain our small businesses, bring out our children in the country where they have a higher standard of living than we do. How can we bring affordable energy to every step of the process. So these are important, important policy areas and ones that my team and I
are fighting for on behalf of Australians. You've been widely regarded as a moderate leader of the Liberal Party who doesn't want to see the party lurch further to the right. But can I take you back to January twenty sixth of this year. You said that the colonization of Australia was like Elon Musk going to Mars, and the first settlers were like astronauts. So is comparing first Nations Australia to Mars your idea of moderate.
I think I would encourage you to read the entirety of my speech because the takeout there is not the correct one. And I said in that speech, well, I reflected as I always do on the three great strands that make up modern Australia.
Our first Australians with.
All of their history, culture and heritage, our European settlement, and our modern migrant nation. And those three strands are interwoven through every sector of Australian society today. And clearly we didn't get it all right at the time, and we need to be clear eyed about that. So for those who quite frequently like just quote one or two sentences from a speech I made, I always encourage them to read the whole speech and the whole context.
At the time you stood by those comments. It sounds like you still do, yes, I do. Just finally, back to net zero. For many voters, walking away from net zero, it equates to walking away from climate action. That's how they see it. So without that emissions reductions goal in place, how will the coalition reduce emissions enough to combat the catastrophes are very real catastrophes of climate change.
Will reduce emissions year on year on average, in line with comparable countries and as fast and as far as technology will allow, and that is part of our plan. Our plan is about responsible emissions reduction, and I do care about the climate. And when I was elected, I said I would meet middle of Australians, young as Astralian's, Old Australians, rural, suburban, everyone everywhere. And I've done that
and I have heard people's concerns. But what I've also seen is government policy and how it's genuinely letting down people who are concerned about the climate. I have that in mind when I look at the next generations and my own grandchildren. What we've got is prices going up, reliability going down, and emission flatlining. And I talked about the supply chain of building products to build houses in Australia,
and I'll give you another example. If we're pushing that supply chain offshore so that we're importing what we need to build houses increasingly over time, then that's not helping reduce emissions globally because the emissions in the production of
those parts of building a house or go offshore. So we have to be clear eyed, we have to be honest, and we have to look at how Australia can responsibly play its part while remaining committed to the Paris Agreement, which is about the global challenge of climate change.
Susan Lee, thank you so much for your time. That's a pleasure. Also in the news, the US Senate has approved legislation to force the release of Justice Department files on convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein following a vote in the House. It's an outcome. President Donald Trump had fought for months, dismissing criticism of the government's handling of the Epstein case as a Democrat hoax, before finally ending his opposition, saying he'll sign the measure when it reaches his desk.
Survivors of Jeffrey Epstein gathered on Capitol Hill to watch the outcome of the vote, and police and courts will be given greater powers to combat public displays of Nazi ideology in New South Wales following a rally outside state parliament earlier this month. The rally saw a group of about sixty men clad in black, displaying a banner calling to abolish the Jewish Lobby and chanting slogans associated with
Hitler Youth. The New South Wales government says it'll move to ban conduct which indicates support for Nazi ideology without reasonable excuse and in public. I'm Ruby Jones, this is seven am. Thanks for listening,