Carbon Hysteria and the Death of Conservative Courage, By Senator Babet

Australians want sane environmental policy, not another party whispering Labor's lines and calling it opposition.

The Liberal party's sudden "conversion" to cheap energy doesn't deserve applause; it deserves a slow clap of disbelief.

If Sussan Ley had even a teaspoon of vertebrae, she would've called the climate panic for what it is - an oversized, taxpayer funded fairy tale - and walked Australia out of the Paris Agreement like someone finally leaving a cult meeting.

But no.

Instead, the Liberal leader has planted one foot in each camp and is now pretending the splits position is leadership.

Spoiler: it's not. It's political yoga for people terrified of offending the ABC.

Ley claims she's ditching Net Zero, while simultaneously whispering the sacred mantra that carbon is a "pollutant" - as though the very element that makes us is some sort of cosmic poison.

It's the same script as Labor, just performed with the cautious energy of someone who wants to disagree but doesn't want to be unfriended.

In our not too distant past we've lived through ice ages and warm periods. In fact, Vikings once farmed in Greenland, something you certainly can't do today. Our planet has been both colder than a Greens Senator at a mining conference and warmer than the Medieval Warm Period, when vineyards flourished in England of all places. And all of that happened long before coal, oil, or the invention of moral superiority.

But don't expect the Coalition to mention that. Doing so would require them to act like an actual opposition instead of Labor light.

Australians want a sane environmental conversation. Protect old growth forests. Reduce pollution going into land fill. Stop treating the oceans like a rubbish chute. Reduce the use of plastic. Keep forever chemicals out of our environment. That's sensible. That's real.

But carbon as a pollutant? That's theatre. And the Coalition is happily auditioning for Best Supporting Actor in Labor's climate production.

Their "We want Net Zero too, just slower!" routine isn't a policy. It's surrender performed in slow motion.

Meanwhile, the very transition they swoon over depends on questionable overseas mining to create Chinese made batteries and solar panels destined for Australian landfill before your youngest child finishes high school.

If the Coalition had any instinct for survival - or relevance - they'd oppose the climate orthodoxy outright.

Even a new leader won't save them. The party machinery is too muddled, too malleable, and too desperate to please everyone.

Australia doesn't need another polite echo. It needs a voice willing to speak the truth.

The Liberal Party has been on life support for a decade.

Treating Sussan Ley's latest wobble as a principled stand only prolongs the illness.

For the country's sake, it is time to pull the plug and let something real rise from the ashes.

I and the United Australia Party are here and the time has come.