It’s not a fun time to be a Liberal Party moderate. This year’s federal election wiped out a series of heavyweights, reducing the faction to just 16 members out of a partyroom of 51. It was also the second election in which teals tightened their grip over the inner-city seats traditionally the domain of moderate MPs.

The faction has now been comprehensively steamrolled on net zero, with the party of Robert Menzies last week adopting the climate change policies of a bunch of reckless and ignorant political operatives otherwise known as the Nationals.

The final policy is actually far worse than it seems at first glance. Not only has the Liberal Party abandoned any commitment to net zero, it also pledged to scrap Labor’s legislated suite of emissions reduction mechanisms and opened the door to using taxpayer funds to subsidise new or extended........

© The Age