When Napoleon remarked that one should never interrupt an enemy when it was making a mistake, he was referring to the way the enemy was disposing of his troops, not about the policies and programs with which he proposed to govern. Like all the countries arrayed against him, (even, effectively, England) Napoleon didn’t do elections.

In some senses, Anthony Albanese and Labor must be exulting about the way Barnaby Joyce and other Nationals are seeking to prevent any Coalition consensus about net zero on emissions. That may be popular among Nationals members and quite a few Liberals in the Parliament, but all the evidence suggests that it is a policy that will continue to kill the Liberal Party in urban seats. Coalition indecision about, or resistance to, climate action is one of the main factors that led to the Teal phenomenon in recent elections.

Until the Liberals get their act together on the subject, they can forget about wooing back Teal voters or anything like a majority of metropolitan seats. This is not merely a reaction to their historic failure to do much on the subject while in government and their seeming determination to do even less in future.

The subject has become a symbol of a party out of touch with popular feeling in the electorate. It can represent the selfish instinct – in effect the refusal to make any serious sacrifice in the face of clear evidence of global warming and its consequences, including sea-level rises. It can also represent the refusal to accept modern science and modern realities, perhaps in the hope that the nightmare will go away or cease to be before the chief proponents of inaction or limited action — old white men — have become ash in the sky.

It may be seen as a reflection of the way in which significant numbers in both parties — but particularly the Nationals — have become hostages to the hydrocarbon industry, and the mining industry, and will consistently put the interests of the polluters ahead of the public interest, even in their electorates.

But by whichever way it is seen, it is plain from poll after poll that the approach of the do-nothings is seriously out of touch with the views of most of the electorate, other than among the small mostly older male groups which control the conservative wings of the party. Not only out of touch with the need for already urgent action to address a serious threat to the physical environment, but also to the social environment.

And out of touch with reality, and any sense that we have, whether as Australians or citizens of the world, an obligation to take collective action to address the changes that are happening.

A terrible legacy from resistance, sabotage and inaction

Those who see the need for urgent and significant action include younger Australians, those who will inherit the earth, and who will find it a much harder environment, a more challenging economy, and a more difficult social and cultural living space if collective action does not succeed in slowing the rate of temperature change, pollution and impacts on our seashores, our agriculture and our safety and security.

They have every right to reproach generations who continue to make things worse. But also solidly getting the point are Australians who are in or........

© Pearls and Irritations