A sense of despair or one of opportunity?

September 30, 2025

Does Andrew Hastie have, as Jack Waterford wonders, “a sense of despair over the Liberals’ lack of direction and current failure to project anything much in the way of ideas or values”, or does Hastie see this failure as an opportunity?

September poll results are in line with the May federal election, and yet there is a volatility in some quarters, perhaps most worryingly in the energy transition “space”, where Hastie has grabbed the anti-renewables baton from Peter Dutton and is running (with team Sky/Murdoch) to put spanners in the works.

The gaining of social licence for renewables infrastructure has at times been mishandled, but some of the opposition appears politically motivated. The Clean Energy Council’s submission to the Senate inquiry into climate and energy misinformation reported on intimidatory tactics used against hosts of renewable infrastructure: “Verbally abusing children, boycotts of a farming business, and painting threatening messages on roads” for example.

Could the industrial strength anti-renewables campaign being conducted in the US take hold here? Hastie rejects our net-zero target; who knows whether this would be an encumbrance in the cities, if the target is seen to be slipping away in 2028?