Before the 2019 election there was commentary aplenty about the cost. Now it doesn't seem to matter.
No one wants to destroy the climate or any other part of our environment.
On this we are united.
How we steward this planet so future generations can also prosper is the point of contention.
But like so many debates driven by fashionable elite opinion, mere questioning the assumptions of climate policy invites ridicule, not reasoned argument.
Like same-sex marriage (Tom Connell on Sky news drew the link yesterday), the debate is over, we are all supposed to move on.
And so it goes. As climate yet again dominates Canberra politics with the Nationals agonising over whether they should support net zero Carbon Dioxide emissions by 2050, there is an air of inevitability about where this will land.
Scott Morrison has said he’ll take net zero to the United Nations COP26 summit in Glasgow on October 31.
The fact of climate change replete with rising and falling sea levels through the millennia, before man-made machines started contributing just three percent of the atmosphere’s CO2, make accepting its modern presuppositions difficult.
Despite apocalyptic predictions of climate catastrophe; storms, droughts, fire and flood have been no more aberrant.
That Australia contributes just 1.3 percent of man-made emissions – not enough to make a difference if cut – leaves one scratching one’s head about the fuss.
To make matters worse, the countries responsible for 45pc of emissions – China, India and Russia – won’t have a bar of COP26.
You never see Extinction Rebellion gluing themselves to the fence at the Chinese Communist Party’s embassy, yet a bunch of Christians were protesting for “climate justice” outside Morrison’s Cronulla electorate office this week.
Instead of Xi Jinping, the political pressure is piled on Morrison to go to Glasgow and promise Australia will do whatever it takes to restructure our economy by 2050 so that we emit net zero CO2.
And no one can tell us what it will take.
Well, that’s not entirely true.
Before the 2019 election there was commentary aplenty about the cost.
Morrison said of Labor’s policy to cut emissions by 45pc by 2030, that it was “a reckless target … (that) will come at a tremendous cost to Australians”.
As chairman of the National Party’s think tank, the Page Research Centre, John Anderson commissioned research by respected economist Brian Fisher.
It showed that Labor’s plan would rip $472 billion out of the economy and slash 336,000 jobs while cutting average wages by 8pc.
This modelling, along with then Opposition Leader Bill Shorten’s inability to say how much his CO2 reduction policies would cost, effectively cost him the election.
Fast-forward two years and its as if none of this happened.
No one has explained what’s changed, apart from perhaps the US and the UK extracting a climate promise from Morrison as the price for the AUKUS nuclear submarines deal.
Shorten is entitled to feel what Old Testament prophets feel when events transpire as they said.
Despite the Nationals under Barnaby Joyce 2.0 saying not so fast and demanding to know the costs of net zero by 2050, we are none the wiser two weeks from Glasgow.
It’s like asking a girl you haven’t met to marry you, quipped Nationals Senator Matt Canavan.
That’s trite but it’s true. Just as the other analogy Canavan spruiks – dining at an expensive restaurant where the menu does not contain any prices.
Already Australia’s transition to “green energy” has cost middle and lower socio economic people dearly.
Their electricity bills have doubled.
We may not have a carbon tax, but plenty of taxpayer money continues to be pumped into unreliable wind, solar and unproven battery storage.
Now the purveyors of “green hydrogen” have their hands out.
Ironically the UK, which is further down the net zero path than us, is experiencing energy shortages as world leaders are about to jet in.
We are told we have no choice but to go to net zero because international investors won’t bring money to Australia.
Since when did we outsource our sovereignty to global bankers?
No one can tell us how net zero works, what the poor and vulnerable to do for electricity or what happens to the resources jobs in regional Australia.
Yet my fellow Christians outside Morison’s office, well-meaning no doubt, seemed oblivious to the social impacts.
“You only have to go for a walk along the beach here to see the deterioration of the sand and the swelling seas,” protestor Terri-Ann tells the Christian website Eternity news.
“You can see they haven’t looked after the earth.”
Swelling seas as evidence of climate change? Sea level record at Fort Dennison in Sydney Harbour, kept for 200 years, show no swelling.
Eternity reports that a handpainted banner declaring “For the sake of all beings, no new coal or gas” is hung.
The protestors didn’t explain what that would mean for people struggling to pay their energy bills or for those beings in extreme poverty overseas who would be lifted by new coal and gas.
Whether it’s gender fluid ideology, critical race theory or the “climate emergency”, the biggest thing missing from the political agenda of our globalist elites is truth.
Lyle Shelton is Director of Campaigns and Communications for the Christian Democratic Party. To keep in touch with Lyle and the CDP, sign up here.