Andrew Bolt: Wind turbines the latest Labor ‘moral crusade’ after the Voice

Bowen’s dumb plan to get 82 per cent of our electricity from wind and solar in just seven years stinks in the same Labor seats that hated its Voice, but have the Liberals got the message?

A week before Australia voted a loud No to Labor’s Yes, a crowd in the marginal Labor seat of Paterson had a message for Labor’s other great “moral” crusade.

“Bugger off, Bowen,” they chanted at a rally against a hideous wind farm Labor has planned for off the coast of NSW’s lovely Hunter Valley.

A month earlier, they booed him.

The Liberals had better be listening, because here’s step two after their big win on the Voice.

Bowen is Energy and Climate Change Minister Chris Bowen, who is to Labor’s global warming push what Indigenous Australians Minister Linda Burney was to its Voice.

As in: in denial. Incompetent. Pushing a useless but disastrous gesture backed by inner-urban elites.

Energy Minister Chris Bowen’s dumb plan to get 82 per cent of our electricity from wind and solar in seven years stinks in the same Labor seats that hated its Voice. Picture; Lukas Coch

But there’s another parallel: Bowen’s dumb plan to get 82 per cent of our electricity from wind and solar in just seven years stinks in exactly the same Labor seats that hated its Voice.

Take that rally in Paterson, which would fall to the Liberals with a swing of 3.3 per cent. Locals there and in the neighbouring Labor seat of Hunter (4 per cent) are outraged that Bowen wants a huge wind farm built on their horizon, out where whales swim and charter boats take fishermen.

They accuse Bowen of bullying them, ramming through fake consultations to get his way. He’s been called out of touch.

And this is their second reason to wonder whether Labor really gets the people it supposedly represents, especially battlers.

The first was the Voice, and a week ago the voters of Paterson – to repeat, a Labor seat – voted No by more than 70 per cent. So did the voters of Hunter.

It wasn’t just them. Further down the NSW coast, in Gilmore, held by Labor by a tiny 0.17 per cent, the No vote was 56 per cent.

Around the country, the Voice was rejected in poorer Labor seats as divisive, offensive and a folly pushed by Labor and its rich mates.

For instance, in Bennelong, a western-Sydney seat held by Labor by 1 per cent, the No vote was 52 per cent. In Robertson, the NSW Central Coast seat Labor holds by 2.3 per cent, the

Prime Minister Anthony Albanese claims No voters were victims of “misinformation”. Picture: Martin Ollman

No vote was 57 per cent. In Tasmania’s Lyons, which would become Liberal with a swing of under 1 per cent, 68 per cent said No.

Labor would lose its majority if it lost just three seats. But as poll analyst John Black, the former Labor Senator, has noted, in 29 Labor seats the No Vote was more than 20 per cent above what the Liberals got after preferences at the last election.

I know, a vote against the Voice isn’t a vote for the Liberals, but real damage was done to the Labor brand, and Labor and its cheer squad are now making that lots worse by abusing millions of Labor voters for voting the “wrong” way.

Sean Kelly, a former adviser to Labor Prime Minister Julia Gillard, says No voters are racists. ABC presenter Patricia Karvelas calls them “uneducated”.

Prime Minister Anthony Albanese claims they’re victims of “misinformation”, as if they’re too stupid to see through lies.

In truth, most No voters just didn’t want us divided by race. Pretty smart.

What’s more, battlers didn’t want this Voice to push them further down the queue for help in these tough times, just because they’re not of the right race.

Has a light gone on now for the Liberals?

Labor’s global warming crusade fits this pattern.

Global warming is a religion of the urban elites, but the people who pay the price are again people in poorer electorates. On the margins. In the bush.

They’re the ones now revolting against the massive transmission lines Labor is building across their land, to hook up all the wind and solar farms that will ruin their landscapes.

They’re also the ones In Labor’s battler seats struggling to pay the electricity bills that keep soaring as coal-fired generators close. They’re asking why Labor lied to them by promising their bills would fall by $275 instead.

All this, and warnings of blackouts, too. Talk about Labor being out of touch, when even the uneducated can work out these emission cuts wouldn’t make a difference, just like the Voice wouldn’t either.

Have the Liberals got the message? Different Labor crusade, but same flaws, same Labor myopia, same Labor battlers in marginal seats getting upset.

Labor might get away with one stupid elitist plan built on pixie dust, but two? That would deserve a real smack.