Trying to duck the climate fight has made the next election harder for the Coalition

Now they appear to have repudiated the promises of the last election, which gave them record swings in Central Queensland seats. This is to appease the Holmes a Courts of this world, and possibly the British and the Americans. But the Holmes a Court faction in the community won't vote for a party that promises to implement policies they think it only pretends to believe in – who knows what it will believe tomorrow. They'll go straight across.

Last election the Coalition said net zero by 2050 was unaffordable. Now their document declares net zero will actually increase wealth. How? Don't ask me – I've scanned the document and it's more a picture book than a plan, with lots of pretty diagrams, but not one skerrick of modelling. And even if there were modelling it would be a manufactured result because the physics says that using low density forms of energy, like wind and solar, produce less energy per dollar than high density forms, like gas, coal and uranium.

If I were a central Queensland voter who has voted at various times for each of Labor, Liberal, National, Katter, One Nation and goodness knows what else (as many have in the last 21 years), I might switch my vote to Labor this election. If I'm going to get policies I don't like, I might as well get them from a party that actually believes in them.

Such voters might think that if politicians are short-term thinkers, uninterested in policies or keeping their promises; careerists, only interested in saving their own jobs; then they'll use the employment lever and sack the current crowd hoping to send a message to the next political generation that if they don't align with their principles, then they won't have a career.

Morrison and Taylor could have used the levers of government to explain to voters the real costs of transitioning; that if it is not a truly global effort, which includes China and India, it is futile and weakens our defence and economy for no tangible gain; and that complete electrification is not going to happen in the next 30 years.

Instead, they have ducked the fight, and now find themselves exposed in the run-up to a federal election to the taunts of their friends, as well as their foes. No wonder the latest Morgan poll has the ALP on 54% of the vote. I'm surprised it's not more.