Vikki Campion: Nats attacking renewables but backing net zero is like gorging Tim Tams on a diet

As pressure mounts on yet another Coalition leadership team to go, net zero has emerged again as the sole triumphant victor, writes Vikki Campion.

The ABC trumpeted on May 12: “Nationals vow to ‘give stability and strength’ to the Coalition after Littleproud re-elected.”

What has occurred since has been anything but edifying – a clumsy split, run, stumble, then crawling home humiliated. 

In fact, the only place we had stability in both party rooms was where we should have been tearing the show apart.

Instead, throughout an exhausting week of juvenile backstabbing, backbiting and backflips, net zero emerged as the only policy that “Mr 131 votes” Goldstein moderate Tim Wilson, Liberal leader Sussan Ley and most Nationals were in fierce agreement to maintain. Along with the Labor Party and the Greens.

Apparently the one thing they agree on is the policy that’s choking regional Australia, taking over our farms and sending power bills soaring.

Net zero has sent our power bills soaring. Picture: iStock

Coolah’s Annette Piper copped a 90 per cent daily network charge increase on her bill, with the kwH jumping from $0.39 to $0.45 this week, despite being surrounded by wind turbines and fields of solar panels.

Nationals leader David Littleproud doubled down on this madness on ABC just this Wednesday: “Our position at the moment is to support net zero.” While the public screams for a return to economic sanity, you’re chaining yourself to a delirium from which you wake to the smoking ruins of an economy.

David Littleproud simultaneously claiming to be against renewables while staunchly sticking to net zero is like being on a diet and gorging on Tim Tams. Picture: Wikimedia

Littleproud simultaneously claims to be against renewables while staunchly sticking to net zero. You’re both on a diet and gorging on Tim Tams.

Support from the public for a split in the Coalition agreement did not rest on the four policies the Nationals claimed were why they left on Tuesday, nor on what had them crawling back on Thursday.

It was a conservative craving for a return to economic prudence.

A rusted-on tribe that was lost in an election where the Coalition promised everything the socialists did and more.

Nuclear? Most Liberals already want the ban lifted.

Supermarket divestiture? A weak bill that wouldn’t survive in court.

Telecommunications? Even the soggiest Liberal backs that.

Kevin Hogan, David Littleproud and Bridget McKenzie announce the Nationals decided not to enter a federal Coalition Agreement with the Liberal Party. A phoenix arising from a split coalition would have been a glorious reset on net zero. Picture: Facebook/Senator McKenzie

And a $1bn regional fund? In a $680bn federal budget, that’s a rounding error, not even enough for a decent dam or a bypass around a major country town. It was only squeaked out to little fanfare in the last days of the election campaign, with bare details of what it would deliver and funded from windfall gains which no one ever defined.

The public hunger for a Coalition divorce wasn’t about these distractions. It was about economic prudence, the kind Tony Abbott rode to victory with “Axe the Tax, Pay Back the Debt, End the Waste”.

All policies that demonstrated respect for taxpayers’ money and achieved a glorious thing, practically unseen recently: a Coalition that was playing to its strengths.

Instead, we were served up a Coalition outspending Labor’s wildest socialist dreams, matching every big-government promise without a shred of detail on what voters actually care about: defence, security, law and order, and our woeful unpreparedness for real threats.

The phoenix that could have arisen from a split coalition would have been a glorious reset on net zero.

Inside both party rooms, there were MPs itching to kick this ball and chain. Or at least loosen the clasp around our neck.

Garth Hamilton MP in the tug of war at this year’s Oakey Australia Day celebrations. The Toowoomba-based Groom MP has the guts to call net zero what it is. Picture: Nev Madsen

Step forward Garth Hamilton, the Toowoomba-based Groom MP, a mining and construction engineer with the guts to call net zero what it is.

Hamilton’s plan? Cap net zero spending at 0.5 per cent of GDP.

Simple. Sane. Responsible.

It’s the kind of economic discipline the Coalition used to stand for.

Labor slapped a red “unaffordable” price tag on the Coalition’s net zero nuclear plan yet their own green schemes are estimated at a staggering $9 trillion by Princeton, Melbourne and Queensland universities’ Net Zero Australia report.

But the Coalition couldn’t argue against it because they support it.

The Capacity Investment Scheme, paying wind factories whether their blades spin or not, is a black hole of waste hidden behind a “not for publication” against the budget line item. Why is it not for publication? It is a high-risk play with your money.

The Capacity Investment Scheme pays wind factories whether their blades spin or not. Why is its cost not for publication? Picture: NewsWire/Nadir Kinani

If the Liberals and Nationals are so wedded to net zero, at least be honest. Hear out Hamilton. Tell us what it costs. Tell us how much debt we’re dumping on our kids. You can’t claim to back a policy and be the political leader of fiscal prudence when you have no idea of the price.

The Coalition had a chance to be reborn as a serious alternative, promising careful stewardship of your money. Instead they have returned to the amorphous goo, the reason they lost the last election.

After all this mess, net zero is again the cornerstone of a Coalition (and the Labor Party) – a policy they have never put a price tag on and, since adopting it in 2021, have never won government. As pressure mounts on yet another leadership team to go, net zero has emerged again as the sole triumphant victor.

LITTLE TO BE PROUD OF IN POOR STRATEGY THAT IS, SIMPLY, COLD-HEARTED

In the country, there is the right way to treat the grieving.

When you have nothing but condolences to offer, there’s the gesture to offer nourishment, to drive over a home-cooked meal, still warm from the oven, knowing people without appetite may never touch it, and you never expect to see that casserole dish again.

So it’s an anachronism that the dish the Nationals, these supposedly tight-knit-community, wide-sky types, served to fellow regional MP and Opposition Leader Sussan Ley in her first moments of mourning after her mother’s death was a cold-hearted brine of self-interest. In crucial hours when you’re doubled-over in grief, you keep notes. You don’t forget even when you want to.

Opposition Leader Sussan Ley and Nationals leader David Littleproud.

It seems Ms Ley will fast forgive Nationals leader David Littleproud for rushing to split from the Coalition even as they were urged to take their time, after all, parliament was not to resume for nine weeks.

But she should never forget.

In gutting a daughter in mourning as she planned her mother’s funeral, instead of triggering the question of whether she is up for the job as Ms Ley’s enemies hoped (as they tried to condemn her for failing to keep the Nationals close), it instead spurred public sympathy for her.

What was the rush when on Tuesday there was still no date for when parliament would resume and Anthony Albanese had not even sorted out his own ministerial staffing arrangements?

It is another own-goal from the self-aggrandising architects who thought themselves so clever in reaching into the Nationals’ party room to pluck out their deputy, believing there would be no consequence.

Labor’s Climate Change Minister Chris Bowen – who, until this moment, I have never praised for any of his actions – was leaving a sympathy note for Ms Ley.

Not as a mate but as a bloody human being recognising the pain of losing a mother – right as Mr Littleproud was holding press conferences saying they had “generously” taken her grief into account as they announced their Coalition split.

And it was all for what?

For all the cheap talk of taking a pay cut for a better deal for the people, within 48 hours it began to dawn on them how hard life would be without the resources, staff and travel being in Opposition with the Liberals offered, and after that psycho-thriller tanty rolled over anyway.

LIFTER

Those using the Productivity Commission’s inquiry to “invest in cheaper cleaner energy and the net zero transformation” to make submissions on the damage caused by reckless intermittent power development.

LEANER

The ATO using their taxpayer-paid social media to hopelessly wax on about “how important pronouns are” to our “authentic” selves. Just go to work, bureaucrats.