LNP’s ‘wait and see’ policy black holes count for zero

Credit: Illustration: Badiucao

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OPPOSITION ENERGY POLICY

Dan Tehan’s latest commentary (“Tehan maintains rage over Labor’s green agenda that is ‘trashing our economy’”, 28/6 ) is a masterclass in political hedging. He attacks Labor’s clean energy plan as too costly without offering any serious alternative – and without saying what he would spend, or do instead. Apparently, it’s too soon to say what the Coalition’s policy will be. But it’s not too soon to throw stones.
Tehan is trying to have it both ways: Acknowledging climate change is real, and we must act, but also undermining Australia’s existing pathway to net zero – one endorsed by 195 countries and backed by growing investment, jobs and global momentum.
Instead of proposing a credible, costed alternative, Tehan points to nuclear power – a decades-away, taxpayer-funded gamble that voters in proposed host communities clearly rejected. Meanwhile, his own Coalition partners, the Nationals, are openly discussing ditching net zero altogether.
If the Coalition really believes in climate action and affordable energy, it needs to stop hiding behind scare campaigns and internal reviews. Tehan’s “wait and see” approach isn’t leadership– it’s delay dressed up as strategy. The public deserves more than recycled talking points and policy black holes.
Alan Richardson, Warrnambool

Pace for renewables after Coalition inaction
Has it ever occurred to Dan Tehan (29/6) why the federal government has to move so quickly on rolling out renewable energy? May it have something to do with 20 years of Coalition governments’ climate change denial and inaction?
Geoff Wescott, Northcote

Time for action is now
I am surprised that Dan Tehan expects voters to be turned on by his plan to let Labor make all the running on climate for “18 months and two years and then work out what we can do”. There are indications enough that the Australian public knows that real emissions have to come down. We know that more severe climate deterioration can be expected as world average surface temperatures approach and exceed 1.5oC above their values in pre-industrial times.
We are already effectively at this threshold – and emissions, instead of coming down, continue to rise. Human-induced climate change will only ease if, and when, global action is effective in bringing the concentration of heat-trapping greenhouse gases in the atmosphere back down towards levels prevalent in pre-industrial times. The concentration of carbon dioxide in pre-industrial times was 280 parts per million. It is now 420 ppm and rising.
The responsible thing for the Coalition to do would be to work with the government in implementing the most cost-effective ways of reducing emissions, not in 18 months’ or two years’ time, but now.
John Gare, Kew East

More from the LNP policy wasteland
Angus Taylor believes quotas for women in his party would “subvert democracy” (27/6). This is what subverts democracy, Angus: Imposing false debts on half a million social security recipients, causing horrific stress and hardship (Robodebt); providing tax breaks and other benefits to wealthy individuals and companies in the hope some crumbs will eventually trickle down to everyone else (supply side economics – a bedrock LNP principle); ignoring the science of climate change for decades resulting in untold personal, financial and environmental damage (climate denialism).
From the same policy wasteland, Dan Tehan, in an accompanying article, suggests the opposition might have some ideas for a climate policy in a few years’ time, while railing against the Labor government’s commitment to renewables. Meanwhile, the gap between the “haves” and “have-nots” is at a 20-year high. Democracy has already been subverted under your watch Angus. Please make way for someone – preferably a woman – with some caring, careful and better crafted policies.
Peter Thomson, Brunswick

THE FORUM

Who is really responsible?
Oh dear, Angus. No quotas for women have worked so well for the Liberals. So who was responsible for failing so spectacularly? The “men” can’t blame quotas (there were none). Nor can they blame the women (as there were too few).
Jenny Bone, Surrey Hills

Merit in quotas
It’s worrying that quotas in politics is somehow an undemocratic idea (28/6). The insistence on “merit” seems like a way of effectively shutting women out of politics. It means that a male-dominated party will be the on-going pattern, to the exclusion of female voices and sensibilities.
Quotas lift opportunity for a fair representation in politics and isn’t this the soul of democracy?
The trouble with the “merit” ideology is that women have to compete with men on men’s terms, disadvantaging many women from the outset. Would that we could see the merit in quotas.
Ian Hill, Blackburn South

Shielding predators
Rachael Patterson Collins’ powerful article (″⁣I was among this disgraced judge’s victims. Attempts to honour him are an insult″⁣, 27/6) exposes former High Court judge Dyson Heydon’s reprehensible behaviour: Systemic sexual harassment and alleged indecent assault, as confirmed by a High Court investigation.
Commentator Janet Albrechtsen’s defence, casting Heydon as a victim of “moral wardens″⁣, reeks of moral disengagement, normalising predatory conduct by prioritising intellect over accountability.
This isn’t just a legal profession problem. Recall the 2025 federal election, where a prominent surgeon was caught defacing election signs for a female teal candidate.
Entrenched systems across professions, including law and medicine, shield predators like Heydon while silencing victims. His scheduled Samuel Griffith Society speech around alcohol and young women, mocks justice and risks further harm.
I stand with Collins, demanding an end to cultures that normalise this reprehensible behaviour. No more excusing predators for their “contributions”. It’s time to dismantle these flawed systems and hold all professions accountable for transformative change.
Sue Barrett, Caulfield South

Super in the US
News reports indicate that as part of a recently reached agreement, the US will abandon its planned “retaliatory tax” on nations it deems unfriendly to American companies. The trade-off, or decree is that most G7 and other countries must tear up their plans to tax American multinationals.
Apparently, Australian super funds have roughly $400 billion invested in the US, most of it on Wall Street and much of it in America’s big tech firms. The likelihood that increased US taxes would severely diminish Australian super fund returns into the future has turned our inept negotiators into “losers”. Or, to quote an infamous American crypto salesperson, “they do not know what the (insert your own word) they are doing”. Maybe the super funds should invest elsewhere, maybe even in Australia!
Haydn Moyle, Flemington

Assange case runs deeper
While Gabriel Shipton’s piece (26/6) about his brother Julian Assange is a dramatic read, and the exposure through WikiLeaks of the US’ deplorable behaviour in Iraq was absolutely meritorious, as was Assange’s struggle to escape the US’ despicably vindictive pursuit of him, Shipton’s piece misses the opportunity of telling a more complex story.
Has everyone forgotten that his legal troubles began when he was accused of stealthing or, more precisely, betraying their trust, by two women in Sweden, and his fight to avoid facing charges there was motivated by his fear of possible further extradition to the US because Sweden was viewed as compliant under US pressure?
As regards the “publisher” dignifier: A professional journalist does not simply dump wholesale whatever they are fed by uncertain sources with their own motives. In the case of Hillary Clinton’s emails – it would be interesting to know their true source – some truth-loving idealist? Was that the start of Trump’s grateful infatuation with Putin?
In his own not-so-modest way, Assange helped the climate which led to the current US president’s first term, with the disastrous consequences for the world today that Shipton correctly describes.
Adam Thomson, Collingwood

Which way back to sane?
How on earth can dropping a powerful bomb qualify someone for a Nobel peace prize? Between the call for countries to significantly increase their military spending (Trump, NATO), and the vast global economic inequality that now exists and is unashamedly flaunted (Trump, Bezos, and other ″⁣tech bros″⁣), we seem to have strayed, like a large and mindless flock of sheep, a very long way from any vision of a sane and civilised world.
Fiona White, Alfredton

Victims not to blame
Talking this morning to the local Big Issue vendor, my friend Gerry, proved not only the salve to midwinter chill, it was also revealing. As he told me, most Melburnians try their best to ignore him, some scowl at him.
Not me and the nine or so others who buy the magazine, he said. He’s there doing his job, providing friendship and conversation, nothing more. People on the margins, like all of us, are simply somewhere doing something.
″⁣Facing up to boho blues: How St Kilda living lost its lustre″⁣, 28/6) shows all that matters, in St Kilda, is property price rises and that the homeless are best never seen nor heard. Ironically, one of the property people quoted suggests there’s not enough scarcity to raise prices, when economic scarcity causes poverty and homelessness and Australians’ generalised inability to rent.
I shouldn’t be surprised, however, as it took a potential breach of human rights to stop the local council from criminalising homelessness.
As with Gerry, it is a question of dignity – of being seen – and seeing the systemic problem of inequality is not caused by its victims.
Anders Ross, Heidelberg

Schools and ‘crime wave’
Given Melbourne’s current youth crime wave I’d be interested to know if there are any statistics on where these young offenders went to school (″⁣Off-the-books school suspensions fuelling Melbourne’s youth crime wave″⁣, 29/6).
How many of them were educated through the public system as opposed to a private or independent school? Nowhere in the article is this question addressed. The answer might be a useful addition to the perennial debate over which system provides the better education.
Greg Hardy, Upper Ferntree Gully

Increase services
Your correspondent ″⁣No case for SRL″⁣ (Letters, 29/6) nailed it when they wrote that the Suburban Rail Loop is an ″⁣immense distraction from the lack of adequate services in areas where the demand existsnow but is not being catered to″⁣. When the Eastern Freeway was planned, there was talk of rail along its median strip which was desperately needed and all but promised again before the 2014 election. How did we let such a transformative and credible case slip through our fingers, only to be replaced by the North East Link and car dependency for generations?
Cynthia Pilli, Doncaster East

Greenwashing gas
No doubt some Australian politicians, from the Nationals in particular, would like to follow the example of several Republican (no surprises here) US states, Louisiana, Ohio, Indiana and Tennessee, that have officially redefined natural gas (methane) as green energy.
Greenpeace has rightly described this move as ″⁣Orwellian greenwashing″⁣ but it also highlights the quandary these states have placed themselves in. They clearly recognise that green energy is a good thing – otherwise why the redefinition?
But rather than actually do something to address climate change by reducing their use of this climate-damaging gas, they have simply shuffled the deck chairs. A pathetically craven response to the fossil fuel industry and their king, Trump.
Ross Hudson, Mount Martha

No Hobart stadium
A majority of Tasmanians already see the AFL as corporate bullies. (“Essendon boss warned on “bullying”, 26/6). Our desire for an AFL team of our own has been tied to the construction of a totally unnecessary, grotesquely expensive stadium perched like a giant bedpan in Hobart’s historic precinct. Tasmania is broke, with an estimated net debt of $13 billion by 2027-28. The stadium will not fix this problem, no matter how many concerts, cricket matches or conferences we might like to imagine will book events under its roof. The AFL resolutely repeats the mantra, “No stadium, no team”. We say “no social licence, no stadium”.
Sadie Roberts, Mowbray, Tas

Slugged for snail mail
According to a report about the budget winners and losers (Sunday Age, 29/6), snail mail users are about to get hit again with increased postage costs. It was only 12 months ago standard postage costs went up to $1.50, the year before they went up to $1.30, and now they want to hike it again to $1.70.
These price hikes are having an impact on my small business, and I am sure I am not alone. Meanwhile, the appalling service Australia Post and StarTrack, its delivery arm, provide continues to decline. Last week, four boxes of stock I stayed home to receive, were not delivered.
A deliverer left a card saying no one was home, and the goods had been returned to the StarTrack depot. I have written to the communications minister and ombudsman and urge all small business owners and authors to do likewise.
Michele Finey, Altona Meadows

AND ANOTHER THING

Tasteless display
When there is so much pain and suffering in the world, words cannot describe my disgust when I opened two pages of The Sunday Age filled with photos of so-called celebrities celebrating some billionaire’s wedding.
Wendy Brennan, Bendigo

How much more feel-good kudos could Jeff Bezos and his wife have bathed in, if, instead of an extravagant wedding, he had very publicly donated the money to a good cause, like the homeless?
Colin Bellingham, Glen Iris

That wedding: OMG – it had class with a capital K. I’m a little miffed I wasn’t invited, I would have worn my clapped-out outfit and mum’s pearls.
Myra Fisher, Brighton East

The wealthy jet-set puffed and buffed – obscenitas extrema.
Anne Lyon, Camberwell

Furthermore
The article about spontaneous romantic relationships (″⁣Are our must-have love lists killing our chance at happiness?″⁣, 28/6) was interesting. My defacto wife and I met on a plane, flying between Nottingham and Paris. The flight only lasted about 40 minutes, but, almost 37 years later, we are still together.
Mervyn Robbins, Coburg

Re Letters, ″⁣Be super thankful″⁣, 29/6, I would like to believe our taxes contribute to a better country, but I have serious doubts.
Susan Munday, Bentleigh East

Is the AFL being offhand about those who put it where it is today? This year is the first time in television history in Melbourne that there is no Saturday free-to-air footy. Too bad that many battlers squeezed out of the pay TV option will be families and pensioners foundational to the game.
Ian McKail, Cheltenham

How does Metro Trains publish lists of commuter numbers when it is my observation only about two in 10 people tap on and off?
John Guy, Elsternwick

Finally
Did she or didn’t she? Diddy or diddn’t he?
Meredith Taylor, Richmond

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