Deputy Liberal leader Sussan Ley has clarified that the Coalition’s newly announced energy working group is not a one-off review but an evolving, long-term process aimed at building a credible alternative to the Albanese government’s energy policy.
Speaking a day after unveiling the group in her National Press Club address, Ley said the panel—chaired by Shadow Energy Minister Dan Tehan—would “develop a plan underpinned by two goals: a stable energy grid providing affordable and reliable power for households and businesses, and reduced emissions that show Australia is playing its part in the global climate challenge.”
“This group is iterative and continuous,” she said, ruling out any hard deadline for the policy review.
“It’s not ending at a certain point in time. It’s not landing on a certain date,” she told ABC radio.
Ley also positioned the group as a direct accountability tool against the Albanese government.
Coalition Seeks Unity Amid Policy Tensions
The review marks the most public step yet in the Coalition’s efforts to reconcile internal tensions over energy and climate policy, particularly around the net-zero by 2050 target.
While Ley backed emissions reductions as a national priority, she stopped short of committing the Coalition to the net-zero goal.
“We will develop a policy as a Coalition,” she said. “Every single person in both of our party rooms—Liberals and Nationals—will be able to contribute and bring forward their ideas.”
Asked whether she believed a unified position could be reached, Ley responded, “We will get energy policy right—and we do need to take the time to get it right. Australians would expect that of us, because it’s too important an issue not to.”
Cost-of-Living Pressures A Driving Force
Ley framed the energy policy reset as part of the opposition’s broader responsibility to respond to worsening cost-of-living pressures under the current government.“Our job as an opposition is to hold [Labor] to account,” she said. “We’ve got people now who are struggling to pay their household bills in winter—actually choosing between heating and eating.”
She highlighted the burden high power prices have placed on small businesses and manufacturers.
“I’ve walked on so many factory floors where people have been crippled by the cost of energy—processes shut down, operations moved offshore, companies gone insolvent,” she said.
Return To Liberal Roots
In her Press Club address on June 25, Ley signalled a broader reorientation of the Liberal Party’s platform—one centred on economic management, rebuilding voter trust, and reasserting the party’s traditional values without adopting rigid policy orthodoxy.“We are the alternative government, and we must act like it,” she said. “Australians want better answers from us.”
She made a point of distancing the party from top-down quotas to improve female representation, instead advocating for structural changes that build support at the grassroots level.
She also renewed calls for lower taxes, saying the Liberal Party is “at its best when we focus on building aspiration in our country—that thread which connects every part of Australian society.”
