Eastern suburbs politicians talk a big environmental game but don’t want to change

Sydney’s eastern suburbs are full of rich climate worriers who want Australians to change everything about their lives but won’t change anything at all themselves, writes Tim Blair.

In order to save the planet, ­climate-crazed politicians want Australians to endure seismic change.

They want entire vital industries to be fundamentally altered in the cause of reduced emissions.

They want your jobs to be erased or decarbonised.

They want you to swap your ­affordable petrol-powered cars and reliable coal-generated electricity for expensive electric vehicles and power that is delivered at the whim of wind or sunshine.

They want Australia’s economy to be rebuilt as a shrine to the climate gods. It must be, if we are to reach their goal of net zero emissions by 2050.

Dave Sharma and Allegra Spender are happy to preach about climate action but not prepared to take any action personally. Cartoon: Terry Pontikos

All of that will impose massive changes upon our population. But what of these politicians themselves? What examples do they set? What changes and sacrifices are they prepared to make?

None. At. All.

This became clear during a Sky News debate last week between the sitting member for the wealthy Sydney seat of Wentworth, Dave Sharma, and his “independent” Climate 200 opponent Allegra Spender.

Liberal MP Dave Sharma and Independent candidate for Wentworth Allegra Spender during the Sky News Wentworth People’s Forum. Picture: Richard Dobson

Audience member John, who described himself as an “environmentally aware, environmentally conscious elector”, put this question to both candidates: “Do you have solar panels on your house and how many electric vehicles are in your garage?”

Sharma, who told the crowd he was one of several moderate Liberals “who convinced our party to support net zero by 2050”, answered first.

“I live in a terrace house and I don’t have solar panels on the roof,” Sharma said.

“And I don’t have an electric vehicle in my garage.”

Instead, Sharma drives around in a petrol car supplied by the Commonwealth vehicle scheme.

“My family’s got one car between the five of us,” he added, as though that’s an issue in Sydney’s eastern suburbs, with its abundant public transport.

“I’ve also got a little scooter, a Vespa, a 125cc thing. That’s what we get by with.”

Liberal MP Dave Sharma doesn’t have a single solar panel or an EV car. Picture: Richard Dobson

The poor bloke. He’s open to using an electric vehicle, however – but on one condition. “If an electric vehicle is offered under the Commonwealth vehicle scheme, I would take it,” Sharma said.

So he’ll drive an EV if the government gives him one. That’s about it for Sharma’s personal commitment to the climate-saving cause.

Remarkably, Allegra Spender’s answer was even more embarrassing.

Remember, climate change is the be-all and end-all of her campaign. But just like Sharma, Spender doesn’t have a single solar panel or EV to her name.

“I tried very hard to get solar panels on my house,” Spender told her audience, “but I’m in a strata area and I couldn’t in relation to what was happening with neighbours.”

Independent candidate for Wentworth Allegra Spender says she can’t have an electric vehicle because she doesn’t have a garage. Picture: Richard Dobson

Damn neighbours. Eastern suburbs types talk a big environmental game, but they ditch all of that if something threatens views or property values.

So, what’s Spender’s EV situation?

“I can’t have an electric vehicle because I don’t have a garage and I don’t have a driveway,” she said. “So I’ve got a hybrid and I also have a diesel car actually, and we use those really separately.”

Sharma can’t install solar panels because he lives in a terrace house. Spender can’t get an electric car ­because she doesn’t have a garage.

Here’s an idea for these advocates of wholesale, nationwide change: try a little change yourselves. Move somewhere that allows solar panels and has EV-friendly off-street ­parking.

To hear Sharma and Spender describe it, their circumstances are unable to be altered in any way.

It’s not their fault they live in joints that don’t allow any sort of significant carbon-cutting. That’s just how things are.

But what these two are really saying is that they don’t want to change. They enjoy living in the fancy eastern suburbs and are disinclined to move.

And who could blame them? Why would anyone give up nice restaurants, dinner parties and harbour access just for the sake of something trivial like, I don’t know, principles and beliefs?

Here’s the thing, though. Other Australians don’t much care for change either.

They don’t want to change their jobs in mining, power production, transport, building and other carbon-intensive industries.

They don’t want to surrender the freedom and versatility of petrol-powered cars. They don’t want to be penalised for flying.

And they don’t want to be pushed around by the likes of former diplomat turned net zero scooter boy Sharma or multi-millionaire Carla Zampatti heiress Spender.

Dave Sharma and Allegra Spender during the Sky News Wentworth People’s Forum. Picture: Richard Dobson

“We absolutely have to (move to electric cars),” Spender told the Sky debate crowd. But she won’t move somewhere that will allow her to do so. Change – expensive, wrenching, lifestyle-altering change – is for other people.

“If we just actually had emissions standards, which would increase the supply of EV and low carbon cars to this country, we would reduce emissions,” Spender added.

Australia has had progressively tighter vehicle emissions standards for about 50 years.

What Spender presumably calls for here is emission standards so punitive they would take numerous petrol-fuelled cars off the market and force families to go expensively ­electric.

If Australians won’t change voluntarily, change will be forced upon them – by a wealthy political class that wants its own privileged situation to remain exactly as it is forever.