Andrew Bolt: Sarah Ferguson interrupting Sussan Ley 35 times shows ABC can’t handle a net zero debate
ABC host Sarah Ferguson cutting off Sussan Ley 35 times during her 7:30 appearance confirmed what we already knew: the real scandal isn’t the Liberals junking the net zero target, but Labor sticking to it.
There was panic at the ABC last Monday. Liberals must see that junking the disastrous net zero target is a winner.
There was 7.30 host Sarah Ferguson “interviewing” Opposition Leader Sussan Ley, but so apoplectic at her “radical change” that she interrupted Ley an astonishing 35 times in 13 minutes — once every 22 seconds.
It was as if Ferguson was terrified that viewers might hear Ley’s global warming heresy and — no! — agree the net zero target is causing huge damage, driving up prices.
And all without actually cutting emissions. Yes: emissions last year under the Albanese government’s net zero schemes actually went up.
So the real scandal isn’t the Liberals junking the make-believe target of cutting Australia’s emissions to zero, net, by 2050, but Labor manically sticking to it, despite the horrendous cost and fact that Australia is too small to measurably change the climate, anyway.
But Ferguson, like many ABC hosts, couldn’t bear to hear Ley turn the attack on Labor. They prefer to defend the government’s great game of “let’s pretend” — pretend Australia can change the climate, and even pretend Labor is cutting emissions.
Ley could hardly complete a point as Ferguson accused her of going “back to coal”, and demanded to know “how is it the fault of renewables that the cost of electricity has gone up”.
And when Ley tried to explain just that, Ferguson accused her of “still not accepting the facts” and threatened to “come back for the sake of all of our viewers with a fact check”.
Desperate. And you can see why. The government’s “let’s pretend” transition to renewables is collapsing.
An Australian Energy Council report this week quoted bosses of electricity and gas suppliers confessing this supposed transition was in deep trouble, with bills sure to rise for another decade.
A typical quote: “People that are already struggling to pay their power bills are going to get slammed.”
Another: “Having no thought through detailed plan on how to achieve it, the cost of doing it, and your backup plan when things don’t go your way as they invariably don’t, is probably going to halt the transition at some point in time over the next three to four years when the populace go ‘hell no, can’t afford it’.”
The Liberals have just put themselves ahead of that curve. No wonder Labor and its ABC allies are screaming.
The lesson to the Liberals: attack, attack, attack.
Originally published as Andrew Bolt: Sarah Ferguson interrupting Sussan Ley 35 times shows ABC can’t handle a net zero debate
