Andrew Bolt: Shrieking climate ‘independents’ an insult to feminism

It’s an indictment of our infantile political culture that the ABC and many voters in richer suburbs support people who are all complaints and no solutions, with zero interest in consequences.

Dr Monique Ryan attacks the blokes without having a single practical idea to make things any better. Picture: Ian Currie

The coffee-shop climate “independents” – almost all privileged white women in richer suburbs – give feminism a shocking name.

Just listen to the likes of Monique Ryan and Allegra Spender. They attack the blokes without having a single practical idea to make things any better.

That was demonstrated by Ryan’s ludicrous answers when asked last week on 3AW about the costs of the extreme global warming policies pushed by these 20 “independents”.

That’s not “really a responsible question”, complained the candidate in Kooyong threatening to defeat Treasurer Josh Frydenberg, whose job is to indeed worry about costs.

“I’ve told you what the benefit is, I don’t quite understand how you can then ask what the cost is.”

No? I guess she assumes someone else will come along and, sighing, pick up her bill.

Dr Monique Ryan attacks the blokes without having a single practical idea to make things any better. Picture: Ian Currie

Indeed, I’ve never seen a candidate who cares so little about the cost of what she demands.

“Why is everyone so hooked up by the budget deficit,” Ryan said airily on a podcast with fellow “independents”, none sounding worried that this country is rocketing to $1 trillion in federal debt.

“Really, it’s not the primary concern,” Ryan blathered.

“We have services to provide!”

Yes, once again some poor schmuck has to pay – but how? – for the “services” Ryan demands, just like some dutiful Edwardian husband.

Indeed, Ryan and the other climate “independents” have even left it to blokes to stump up much of their campaign costs. Each gets typically between a third and a half of their donations from the Climate 200 group headed by billionaire’s son Simon Holmes a Court, and a blithe unconcern for who pays runs right through their climate policies, too.

None of these “independents” have explained exactly how we could cut emissions by as much as they demand, and at what cost.

In fact, we know the poor get hit hardest as power bills soar, but what does a rich woman in Wentworth, Kooyong, North Sydney or Goldstein care, when they can feel part of a superior coffee group by voting for one of these “independents” in their fetching teal colours?

As one supporter told columnist Katrina Grace Kelly, a sympathiser, these women are “educated” and against “the boganisation of the Liberal Party – not that there is anything wrong with bogans”.

Allegra Spender spelled out her tax policy: get unions and business and experts to tell us what to do. Picture: Richard Dobson

No, of course not! Bogans are wonderful at fixing the ice-maker on your second fridge. It’s just tiresome how they complain about prices and jobs.

It would be wrong, though, to think these women’s coffee-shop chatter approach to politics is limited to their posturing on global warming.

Take perhaps the most articulate of the climate “independents”, Allegra Spender, running in Wentworth.

On the ABC on Sunday, she spelled out her tax policy: get unions and business and experts to tell us what to do.

She also spelled out her policy on what party she’d back to form government if there was a hung parliament: “I will negotiate with either side”.

She spelled out her policy on other issues, with eyelids fluttering nervously: “Bring the people and experts back into politics”.

Yes, this is someone running for parliament without a clue what she’ll do. She’ll just ask someone else once she gets in, and you’ll find out then. Too late.

The “independents” even take this don‘t-sweat-the-details approach to the issue they campaign hardest on.

For all their alarmism about global warming, Spender, Ryan and other “independents” simply promise to create a “Climate Change Commission” headed by some preacher like Tim Flannery and just do what it says. And don’t ask about the costs.

I looked forward to more women like the late Labor Senator Kimberley Kitching but instead we get climate ‘independents’ waiting for pet experts to tell us what to do.

It is an indictment of our infantile political culture that the ABC and many voters in our richer suburbs support people like this who are all complaints and no solutions, with zero interest in consequences.

It is also a betrayal of feminism.

I thought feminism would give us women just as passionate in arguing for what needed doing. Just as practical in figuring how to do it. Just as responsible and clear eyed in working out costs and consequences.

I looked forward to more women like Margaret Thatcher and my much-missed friend, the late Labor Senator Kimberley Kitching.

Instead, we get these climate “independents” airily proposing climate policies that are all pain for no gain, and waiting for pet “experts” to tell them what else to do.

Oh, and leaving the bill on the table for someone else to pay.

They’re the Jacqui Lambies of the upper classes, still shrieking but not solving. What an insult to resourceful women everywhere.