CAMERON MILNER: Liberals need to dump net zero and get some mongrel back

It’s time the Liberals let rip and dumped their commitment to net zero by 2050.

Under Sussan Ley, the party is sitting around waiting for death. They need to change it up and pump the volume to 11.

It’s a risk. It could tank the votes of the under 40s and hand the teals an urban seat hegemony. But being Me Too on climate has the party stuck in the slow lane.

Much better to grip the gear stick, drop it back into third and open the manifold of the petrol-guzzling V8 Chevy. Time to stop Driving Miss Daisy and channel some F1 Brad Pitt mongrel.

By dumping net zero, the Liberals would create a contrast with Labor, opening up a true competition.

Net zero isn’t zero cost. Hundreds of billions of dollars will be needed to fund the transition.

That’s billions we them can’t spend on more housing, better schools and hospitals or our nation’s defence.

Labor is benefiting from the group think on climate with no challenge from the Opposition.

In the midst of a roiling cost-of-living crisis, rising inflation and rising unemployment voters might like to hear a difference of opinion.

Climate action — but not at any cost — could be the Liberals’ new pitch to voters.

The Liberals might love to hate Paul Keating, but at 24 per cent primary vote they should heed his advice and throw the switch to vaudeville.

Australia under Anthony Albanese will miss the 2030 target even with skyrocketing power prices and complete absence of the promised $275 cut to power bills.

Albo now plans to pass on intergenerational debt to get Australia to net zero by 2050.

To put all this pain into perspective, Australia contributes less than 2 per cent of global emissions.

The Liberals would face the mother of all scare campaigns from Labor and the cabal of climate activists from the ABC, ”civil society” and big business who assuage shareholders with endless greenwashing.

It will be a pitched battle for voters and, like the Voice campaign, will take time and steely determination.

The Nationals started the case for No to the Voice, just as they have on net zero.

Early opposition to the Voice in Queensland was dismissed by southern elites as an aberration.

Six months later, the No camp triumphed nationally and in every State.

Voters didn’t just say No, they said hell No.

The same path is possible on net zero.

It’ll be ugly. There will be gnashing of teeth from the feral keffiyeh-wearing Left, outraged wails from Tesla-driving teals and the sound of Simon Holmes a Court spending Mummy and Daddy’s money through Climate 200.

But does Ley have what it takes?

Labor are providing a target-rich environment yet Ley has made herself the target daily.

It may well be the Liberals will need to dump net zero before Christmas and dump Ley in the new year.

On Wednesday, the bloke who lost the unloseable election, Liberal director Andrew Hirst will brief the party room on climate polling to help inform their decision.

You can only hope he hasn’t used Freshwater Strategy again. It’s little wonder a number of Liberal MPs refer to them as “F’Tard Strategy”, so bad was their polling for the Liberals at the last Federal election.

But polling won’t have the answer. The call to dump net zero will need pure political courage.

It’s not the Liberals saying climate change isn’t real, but that crushing our nation’s finances while wearing hair shirts and beating ourselves with birch branches at yet another COP might not be the only way to fight climate change.

We are producing more solar, more wind and starting to roll out massive storage projects across Australia. We are already in transition, though maybe we’ll need coal and gas for a little longer.

We should look seriously at nuclear power as every other G20 country uses it: safely, all while reducing their carbon emissions.

Albo will think he’s been given the proverbial kiss a second time the day after the Liberals dump net zero, but it’s also the first day he’ll have to explain his plan fully. He’ll have to argue for the billions he plans to borrow to fund his green dream.

The Liberals can argue a flatter glide path, in which technology and private sector investment continue to drive transition.

And it will free up billions to be spent now on cost of living, new housing, better schools and the world’s best health care.

Voters will then have a real choice to make.

And just like with the Voice, voters might well decide to reject the political orthodoxy, the woke groupthink and the rank climate ideologues.

As the late, great Richo so famously said, in the end voters always get it right.