Matt Kean’s appointment as Climate Change Authority chair is frankly astounding

Then-NSW Treasurer and deputy Liberal leader Matt Kean on the campaign trail in Bondi last year. Picture: Jane Dempster

Matt Kean’s appointment as Climate Change Authority chair without any due diligence or formal recruitment process is astounding and diminishes the independent, expert advice expected of the role.

Kean – a vocal proponent of renewables who conveniently is now anti-nuclear – is a career politician whose 13-year tenure in the NSW parliament ended with a whimper.

Putting Kean’s CV next to his three predecessors at the CCA illustrates just how comparatively unqualified he is for a part-time job that pays $65,170.

The inaugural chair was Bernie Fraser, a former Reserve Bank governor and Treasury secretary.

Fraser was followed in 2015 by Dr Wendy Craik, a former Productivity Commissioner, National Competition Council president, National Farmers Federation executive director and Murray-Darling Basin Commission chief executive.

Grant King, who was Origin Energy managing director for 16 years, a former Business Council of Australia president and currently chairs HSBC Australia and Sydney Water, will depart as chair in early August.

Kean, a NSW Liberal Party moderate-faction powerbroker and protege of lobbyist Michael Photios, made his name as one of Australia’s most senior Liberal figures backing renewables and batteries as the future.

Elected to the NSW parliament in 2011 as a 29-year-old after previously working as a Liberal staffer, Kean enjoyed a meteoric rise into Cabinet by age 35.

As Energy Minister from 2019 and Treasurer from 2021, Kean fast-tracked renewable energy zones across NSW and announced a 70 per cent emissions reduction target by 2035. As CCA chair, Kean will have major input into the Albanese government’s 2035 target.

In April this year, Kean questioned the need to bailout the Eraring coal-fired power station despite fears the plant’s early exit would trigger blackouts between 2025 and 2027.

Thankfully, NSW Premier Chris Minns in May announced a package extending the life of Australia’s largest coal-fired power station.

Standing alongside Kean and Anthony Albanese in the Prime Minister’s courtyard on Monday, Climate Change and Energy Minister Chris Bowen confirmed the former Liberal politician was a captain’s pick.

Asked about the process of selecting Kean, Bowen said he recommended the former NSW treasurer to Albanese and the Cabinet approved the appointment because “he was the best for the job”.

Kean is a solid communicator with plenty of energy and ambition.

But at a time when business leaders, investors and Australian families are desperate for certainty and an end to the climate and energy wars, Kean’s appointment is hyper political.

It is hard to imagine Fraser, Craik and King waxing lyrical at a press conference smashing Peter Dutton’s nuclear policy.