“You can’t be too right too soon and win elections.” That quip from George Romney, governor of Michigan in the 1960s, is how many federal Coalition MPs feel about net zero.

At a time in Australia before wars in Europe and the Middle East and the cost-of-living crisis, when the public believed that anything was affordable, and when politicians (both Labor and Liberal) responded by creating or supporting Utopian schemes like “Gonski”, the NDIS and net zero, few Coalition MPs were prepared to swim against the tide of popular opinion and voice their concerns about the cost or practicality of what their colleagues were promising.