Even while he was treasurer of NSW in Dom Perrottet’s Liberal government, Matt Kean faced accusations of disloyalty from the rightward fringes of the party over his outspoken belief that climate change is real.

The suspicion that green Kean was always some kind of tree-hugger turncoat grew even more feverish when last year he took a job as the Albanese government’s hand-picked chair of the Climate Change Authority, just days after quitting state politics.

Making his blue-tinged former colleagues see red: Matt Kean.Credit: Renee Nowytarger

No doubt those Liberals will be even more furious to hear Kean is set to speak at Electrify Bennelong at Macquarie Park this weekend, a community sustainability expo being promoted by that electorate’s Labor MP, Jerome Laxale.

Kean appearing in Laxale’s social media posts, under the Labor-red letterhead, for an event in the now-safe Labor seat once held by John Howard will no doubt send plenty of Liberals insane.

Not that they don’t have much to occupy their thoughts. Last week, while Kean was off in Belem, Brazil for the COP30 United Nations Climate Change Conference, his old party comrades were voting to win back urban seats by dumping net zero and adopt the Nationals’ climate policy.

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© The Sydney Morning Herald