For three elections now, the “teal” independents have eaten the Liberals’ lunch with such gusto that the once-great conservative party is electorally starved.

It is malnourished to the point of near oblivion in the nation’s inner-metropolitan seats – those populated by voters often lazily written off as “elite”, but who become much harder to dismiss when you realise how numerous they are.

Illustration by Simon LetchCredit:

The teals have engineered this lunch-eating with an effective campaign line: the National Party runs the Liberal Party’s climate and energy policy. And a vote for Scott Morrison/Peter Dutton is actually a vote for Barnaby Joyce.

The teals might have to adjust that last line now that Joyce is engaging in an attention-seeking sulk outside the Nats’ party room, and is flirting with joining One Nation.

But the claim that the National Party is running the Liberal Party’s energy policy? It is no piece of campaign puffery. The Liberal Party seems hell-bent on proving its truth.

Barnaby Joyce: “I’ve played my part.”Credit: Alex Ellinghausen

It appears increasingly likely that the Liberal Party will dump its commitment to a net zero emissions by 2050 policy, its hand forced by the Nationals’ public rejection of net zero. (For which, on Tuesday, Joyce claimed credit, saying: “I’ve played my part. I could be faux humble and say, ‘Oh no, no.’ Definitely, I played my part. Had a big part.”) Never mind that it is the policy the Coalition adhered to during a near-decade spent in........

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