By Jo Nova
This is the state of national energy debate in Australia — preschooler taunts
The Nationals have finally decided to dump the Net Zero target (an excellent step*). In reply, Chris Bowen, the Minister of Electricity and Weather, could have reeled off all the countries with unreliable energy that are building aluminum smelters, except there aren’t any. He could have dazzled us with talk of terrawatt-hours, or fantasy hydrogen tankers that are just around the corner, but no one believes that any more — so he just went for dinosaur joke he heard in Grade two.
Mr Smug, Chris Bowen:
“The old National Party — deciding whether the Earth is flat, and whether the Earth rotates around the sun, or visa versa in 2025. Like get with the program…”
Effectively the Energy Minister has nothing at all, so he’s calling the National Party stupid like a rock. He hopes you don’t notice. It’s a cheap childish trick, but hey, it fooled the ABC. They were so impressed with his sneering condescension, they played it on the nightly news on Saturday night and introduced this wit as “standing firm on policy”, as if he said something meaningful.
Most of the climate change debate is a bluff. It has always been that way.
When an impertinent sod asks a hard question, the believers launch into a scathing pantomine — calling them deniers, or mocking them as lizard-brain flat-Earthers. It’s a rhetorical trick that implies the answer is so bleeding obvious, and the questioner is so stupid, they don’t even need to answer the question. When done well, the debate is won before it even starts. And onlookers learn that they don’t want to ask questions like that. It’s just a form of bullying.
What’s really extraordinary is the ABC didn’t recognise how silly this makes Bowen look. They usually work as the Labor-Green promotion team, so they must have thought this was not A-Grade moral-preening, but something impressive. Scary.
It will be a great day when we see the opposition mock Bowen (and the ABC) for this unprofessional petty behaviour.
Namecalling only works until someone calls it out. Make them pay.
If anyone wants to see the context, here’s the 40 second segment.
*The Nationals leader, David Littleproud, sadly, is still pandering to the “We Believe In Climate Change” crowd, which is a shame, because it will deprive The Nationals of their best points and funniest lines, but in order to get to the Land of Sensible, they have to get over the Net Zero bridge, so it’s a significant win, and may yet drag the Liberals over the line, or split them.