BEN HARVEY: Liberals’ honesty on net zero is hurtling the party into electoral oblivion

We voters are so conditioned to politicians lying that we give them a leave pass when they do it and don’t bother pulling them up when they disguise their fibs as “errors of judgment”.

Lying is a cost of business because we expect the impossible of our elected representatives and then punish them if they concede the futility of any absurd public policy mission we assign to them.

Voters demand first world outcomes delivered on third world budgets. We want our cake (balanced books) and to be able to eat it (tax cuts).

Politicians worked out a long time ago that it’s easier to take the temporary pain when a lie is exposed than endure a slow death at the altar of uncomfortable truth.

Anthony Albanese knew he was going to screw us on those stage three tax cuts well before he actually did, but he maintained the lie right until the second before the U-turn.

Before him, John Howard knew when he said he would “never, ever” introduce a GST that a consumption tax was well and truly on the table.

And then there were the L.A.W tax cuts promised by the man Howard replaced. Paul Keating must have known they were unaffordable when he made the pledge before the 1993 election but decided it was better to get the votes and then beg for forgiveness.

Political lies can be big, like when Bob Hawke told us no Australian child would live in poverty, and they can be little, like when Albo claimed he never fell off that stage when he quite obviously did.

Politicians are excellent liars. It’s second nature.

So, why is the Federal Liberal Party so wedded to telling the truth about the reality of net zero by 2050?

That reality is the only way we get to net zero by 2050 is by the economy collapsing because we tried to get to net zero by 2050. There isn’t much of a carbon footprint when you’re living in a cave.

In being honest about the enormity of the task ahead the Libs seem to be dealing themselves into electoral oblivion.

Why didn’t they just all agree to lie when they came out of that never-ending party room meeting and say “we are committed to net zero by 2050”.

Sure, it’s a policy that may as well have been crafted in Geppetto’s workshop but it’s sure-as-hell working for the Australian Labor Party.

Instead, we were treated to the absurd spectacle of the Libs trying to be half-pregnant.

Deputy Leader Ted O’Brien apparently suggested the party replace the policy of achieving net zero by 2050 with a policy of welcoming net zero by 2050 if it happens.

Even Sir Humphrey would blush at that one.

Andrew Hastie wants a future Coalition government to hold a double-dissolution election to repeal Labor’s climate legislation. It’s a bold policy based on the heroic assumption that there will one day be a Coalition government.

Dan Tehan told the media after Wednesday’s meeting that the conversation was guided by “two guiding principles and then eight principles underneath that”.

Good grief.

It would have been so much easier to lie.

How many current Liberal MPs are going to be around to face the music in a quarter of a century?

Sussan Ley will be 88. She won’t be suffering from guilt about a promise unfulfilled; she probably won’t remember the promise in the first place.

Politicians have been lying about climate change for 30 years, so why the sudden compulsion to tell the truth now?

John Howard fibbed when he signed the Kyoto protocol. He was dragged kicking and screaming to Japan and had no intention of ratifying it.

Julia Gillard flat out lied about the carbon tax.

Scott Morrison’s net zero plan could have been written by Enid Blyton. This work of fiction was based on Australia’s reduction targets being “85 per cent achieved by strategies already announced” with the shortfall coming from “further breakthrough technologies”.

It was a policy straight out of Muppet Labs (“where the future is being made today”).

Scomo clearly believed the adage that the bigger the lie, the more people believe it because he doubled down on the deceit, claiming Australians would be nearly $2000 a year better off, with gross national income 1.6 per cent higher and 62,000 new regional mining and heavy industry jobs created.

He said it without blushing!

Albo surely knew our electricity bills would not drop by $275 a year courtesy of green power but he made the promise anyway.

Lies, lies and lies.

But in this instance, a rare act of principled politics. The Libs told the truth even though it would have been so easy not to.

Saying you’ll get to net zero by 2050 is the perfect lie because people have to wait until 2050 to prove that you lied.

Politicians can spin bullshit all the way until 11.59pm on December 31, 2049, and then at the last minute say “we did our best but it’s just not possible”.