Compared to their federal colleagues, the New South Wales Coalition has been a relatively collegial conservative political grouping. But no more.
Over the next fortnight, the NSW Liberals could well dump their leader, Mark Speakman, and face the almost impossible task of reconciling divergent positions on net zero emissions with junior coalition partner the Nationals. There is a real prospect that the state opposition could fracture.
It’s likely to be an ugly two weeks, and the Labor premier, Chris Minns, will be delighted as he sits back and watches the chaos that is already trashing the Liberal brand in Canberra come to Macquarie Street.
The first drama to play out will be the Nationals’ party room discussion of net zero policy on Monday and Tuesday.
It is almost certain the Nationals will abandon or water down their commitment to the point that it becomes meaningless.
The grassroots Nationals voted in June to abandon net zero by 2050 and the NSW Nationals leader, Dugald Saunders, faces increasingly angry backbenchers whose electorates are resentful about windfarms, large-scale solar and transmission lines, which they see as being foisted on the regions to provide power for the cities.
The anger is being stoked by conservative groups such as Advance, which announced six months ago that it would overturn net zero and return Australia to a coal-fired past.
Until now, NSW had enjoyed bipartisan support for the 2020 energy transition roadmap, which was put in place by the previous Coalition government.
But, with the federal Coalition eating itself alive over climate change policy and Donald Trump walking away from the Paris agreement, the NSW roadmap is in real trouble.
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The question is whether the more moderate Saunders, who has a slender hold on the leadership, will survive or be replaced by the more conservative Paul Toole. And if he stays, what price is he prepared to pay in terms of concessions on policy?
Meanwhile, there is trouble afoot for the senior Coalition partner, the NSW Liberals.
Unlike the federal Liberals, who seem to revel in their self-destruction, the NSW division is walking reluctantly toward a leadership change.
There is a view that Speakman, while well liked, lacks cut-through and has failed to take the shine off Minns.
A new Resolve poll, out this week, is likely to show a further slide in the Coalition primary vote (hardly surprising in the light of the comprehensive trashing of the brand by the feds).
In July, the NSW Coalition slumped to 32% primary vote, compared with 38% for Labor, which analysts said could result in a loss of about 10 seats. That makes MPs in marginal seats nervous and those in safer ones facing at least two more terms in opposition, absent a massive reversal of fortune.
The federal Coalition now has a primary vote of just 24%, according to Newspoll, so the NSW Liberals fear it could get worse for them too.
Speakman’s demise, if it happens, won’t materialise until the second week of this last sitting period.
His fellow moderates are hoping he can be persuaded to resign, and the new leader slotted in without facing question time, giving them the Christmas break to settle in.
The new leader is likely to be the first-term MP for Vaucluse, Kellie Sloane – a moderate who has cut through as a communicator and clearly got up Minns’ nose from time to time.
The former Channel Nine journalist is personable, good at delivering lines, has worked hard in her health portfolio and doesn’t shy away from a bit of a skirmish in parliament.
That’s a contrast to Speakman, who struggled to get airtime and whose lawyerly attacks were easily swatted away by Minns, who largely prosecutes his case through the tabloids and on 2GB.
Those backing Sloane hope that her better relations with the Daily Telegraph and 2GB’s Ben Fordham will combat, or at least neutralise, the unfettered run that Minns gets.
But Sloane is also a political neophyte. She’s been in parliament less than three years, and is a relatively new recruit to the party.
A cleanskin can be great, but no experience as a minister, not having a history with the factions and not having lived through a few political crises will make it tough.
Remember Jodi McKay, the former Labor leader and former journalist who was put in as opposition leader to deodorise the whiff of corruption around Labor?
McKay had been a minister and in parliament for nine years before she became leader, yet as an outsider to the Labor family she was chewed up and spat out by the factions and by the highly effective premier of the day, Gladys Berejiklian.
The public glimpsed how bitter NSW Liberal factional infighting can be ahead of the 2022 federal election. Preselection fights spilled into the news.
Why does it matter for the parliamentary leader? Because not having a functioning party machine, amd having factional brawls over everything from preselections to broad ideology is corrosive to running an effective government or opposition.
Then there is the difficult dance with the Nationals that will be even more problematic, if, as expected, the Nationals dump net zero.
Speakman has done his best to avoid a showdown with the Nationals over issues like feral horses and the great koala national park by agreeing to disagree.
But managing divergent policies on fundamental issues like climate change and energy is a big ask.
How do the urban Liberals avoid a teal wave on the north shore and elsewhere when voters have shown they are willing to shift on climate policy, especially if they perceive that the National party is wagging the dog?
There is talk in Macquarie Street of a possible split from the Nationals, as one solution.
It might make things easier in the short term but longer term it makes it even harder to find common ground on policy and eventually convince voters to return the conservatives to government.
Speakman, or more likely Sloane, will need to navigate this minefield. The risk for Sloane is that inexperience will cause slips that will leave her damaged, ineffective and eventually dispensable.
Anne Davies is Guardian Australia’s NSW state correspondent
