Opposition Leader Sussan Ley guarantees she will remain leader until next election
Sussan Ley says she is confident she will remain in the top job despite leadership speculation. (ABC News: Ian Cutmore)
Opposition Leader Sussan Ley says she can guarantee voters that she will lead the Coalition into the next federal election.
Ms Ley made the statement during an appearance on 7.30, where she also said the Coalition had no plans to fund new coal-fired power stations.
Ms Ley's leadership has been under threat in recent weeks as reports have emerged that Andrew Hastie and Angus Taylor may be potential challengers, and the Liberal Party has dropped its commitment to net zero.
On 7.30, Ms Ley was asked if she could "guarantee to voters that the party will keep its first female leader until the election".
"Absolutely," she said.
"I am the leader and was elected six months ago."
Asked about what was going on inside the Liberal Party and what Mr Hastie might be planning, the opposition leader instead highlighted her policy priorities.
A potential leadership challenge from Andrew Hastie has been suggested. (ABC News: Matt Roberts)
"I've talked about several critical areas, including managing the budget responsibly, delivering personal income tax cuts, fixing industrial relations … keeping communities safe and today, the most important of all things, which is affordable energy," she said.
"I think people have the right to know what policies we are developing, how we are doing it in the interests of them."
Ley promises no new coal
Asked whether those energy policies involved the use of taxpayer money for new coal-fired power stations, Ms Ley said there were no plans for new coal under the Coalition's energy plan.
"There are no plans, no proposals for new coal," Ms Ley told 7.30.
"What people should understand in this conversation on coal, every state government is extending the life of its coal-fired power because the renewables are not ready to deliver the electricity that Australians can rely on, and we do need baseload power.
"This is not building new coal-fired power stations."
Former National Party leader Barnaby Joyce has previously spruiked coal. (ABC News: Ian Cutmore)
Ms Ley said coal was "highly unlikely" to be a major part of Australia's energy future but gas should be a key area of focus.
"Where we are going with the transition, [we] should rely on another important fuel source, which is gas. That is a critical difference between our plan and the government's."
Ms Ley said she believed the price of gas would come down if domestic supply increased, and said the Coalition would like to see it more widely used.
"Part of our proposal is to … unlock the abundance of natural gas we have in this country," she said before criticising the government for "demonising" it as an energy source when it came to power.
"Why would we ignore the abundance of gas in this country?
"We have in Australia more LNG than probably only two countries in the world. We export it to help our near neighbours in South-East Asia decarbonise. Meanwhile, we don't unlock it for our own use. That makes no sense."
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