Teal MP Monique Ryan’s stance on Taylor Swifts jet use means its easier than ever to be green, writes Tim Blair
Under Monique Ryan’s rules even blow-dried glam rockers may consider themselves climate conscious, writes Tim Blair in the wake of the Teal MP’s stance on Taylor Swift’s jet use.
Opinion
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It’s possible, though not entirely likely, that Teal voters occasionally feel faint traces of guilt about their gigantic personal climate impacts.
After all, Teal voters lead a movement that demands significant sacrifice from the rest of us – while not changing a damn thing about their own carbon-churning ways.
As is well established, your ordinary Teal types are absolute environmental butchers.
The Guardian reported last year that eastern suburbs residents in Allegra Spender’s posh Teal seat of Wentworth were on average each responsible for nearly 30 tonnes of carbon emissions per annum.
Certain individual sacrifices would have dramatically slashed that super-sized carbon footprint.
Citing a 2017 University of Sydney study, our lefty Guardian mates found “the average Potts Point resident could reduce their footprint by 60 per cent simply by living like someone 25km to the west in Auburn”.
We may measure the commitment of Teal voters to saving the planet by seeing how many have taken up that Auburn lifestyle option.
To date the number is zero. It will always be zero. Even if Australia hits net zero, the total headcount of Wentworth fancy folk relocating westwards will remain at zero.
The earth’s viability just isn’t that important. Consider the postcode, darling.
But all of that hypocrisy is fine. Perfectly acceptable. Nothing to worry about.
Because senior Teal MP Monique Ryan, who represents the millionaire-swamped Victorian seat of Kooyong, last week provided every one of Australia’s cashed-up climate frauds with a epic get-out-of-jail-free card.
According to Ryan the climate’s fate is now nothing at all to do with individual behaviour. The member for Kooyong arrived at this conclusion after considering singer Taylor Swift’s travel aboard her $75 million Dassault Falcon 7X.
“Taylor Swift has been criticised lately for flying her private jet so much that she’s become the world’s most carbon emitting celebrity,” Ryan told her TikTok followers.
Swift’s private flights, Ryan continued, “produce about 10,000 tonnes of carbon emissions a year. That’s equivalent to the average emissions of about 600 Australians”.
At this point you’d expect Ryan to rail against the singer’s terrible emissions orgy. Perhaps she might also demand laws restricting pop superstar arrivals to commercial flights, or banning such climate-chewing visitors entirely.
Not so. For a start, no Western politician – even a Teal – is stupid enough to condemn Swift during her current universal popularity wave.
Prime Minister Anthony Albanese even debased himself by dad dancing at one of Swift’s Sydney shows. Don’t search for it. Look up something more watchable, like footage of someone sawing his own arm off to escape an avalanche.
But back to Ryan. Unwilling to sacrifice 10 percentage polling points by slamming Swift, Ryan instead came up with a brand new way of calculating personal climate responsibility.
Incredibly, the Teal boss lady announced that individuals were off the hook.
“That’s not ideal,” Ryan said of Swift’s (checks notes) TEN THOUSAND TONNES of carbon emissions a year.
“But the reality is, what we’re missing here is, it’s not individuals who are responsible for climate change. It’s large corporations and governments.”
This is brilliant. At a stroke Ryan has absolved every posh suburb dwelling, high-consumption, high-carbon output Australian – every Teal voter, in other words – of climate blame. They’re not governments or large corporations, so they’re completely innocent.
Just keep things down to no more than one private jet per household and you’re sweet. This also works, of course, for those of us in outer suburban and regional Australia.
Green-minded relatives who previously rolled their eyes at our Dodge RAMs, V8 ski boats, mobile homes and other fossil-fuelled artworks will have to check themselves and their scoldy ways.
At the very worst, even if we add a freakin’ private jet to our fleet, we’d still only be classified as “not ideal” on the Ryan scale.
We can live with that. Frankly, we can live with any rating the Teals wish to apply. It’s not as though we’re the ones with 30-tonne carbon outputs for every electorate resident. (By the way, 30 tonnes? What are those Teal voters up to? Processing junked sea freighters? Running backyard aluminium smelters? Presenting 24/7 footage of election night 2022 on SCG-sized big screens?).
“The way to fix climate change is not to talk about individual’s private jets,” Ryan added.
Again, this is an absolute breakthrough and we should join as one to thank her for it.
The next time someone lectures you about buying an electric vehicle (as Ryan often does), we simply turn to them and say: “The way to fix climate change is not to talk about individual’s private cars.”
And when bureaucrats barge into our kitchens we reply: “The way to fix climate change is not to talk about individual’s gas stoves.” And so on.
Thanks, Teals. See you in the sky.
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NOTE: This article was edited to correct a mathematical error.
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