As someone who clearly respects his readers’ time, David Leyonhjelm wastes none of ours by setting up immediately the strawman he's about to knock down - letting you know you needn't continue reading.

For those who didn't...

He reduces the overwhelming scientific consensus on climate change to what “some people believe,” as if it’s just a rumour passed around at brunch. This lets him dodge any serious engagement with the evidence, framing climate action as some kind of lifestyle fad rather than a globally coordinated response to a planetary crisis.

From there, it’s a greatest-hits album of climate denial talking points.

He blames net-zero targets for high energy prices, despite the fact that wind and solar are now the cheapest sources of new power in Australia. He invokes the most well-worn denialist Whataboutism fallacy by pointing to China’s coal expansion, omitting that China is simultaneously installing record-breaking levels of renewables, with over 200 GW in 2023 alone.

He argues for removing subsidies while pretending fossil fuels aren’t still subsidised (both directly and indirectly) and fails to mention that market distortions like these are precisely why climate policy exists. His idealised “free market” can’t price what it refuses to count.

Snowy 2.0? A “white elephant,” apparently - even though it’s crucial for energy storage in a renewable-powered grid. EVs? Too expensive. Not because of a lack of domestic support, but apparently because reality just isn’t living up to libertarian expectations fast enough.

But the piece de resistance is his environmental concern for the visual blight of wind turbines, paired with zero mention of open-cut coal mines, ash dams, or global warming’s impact on biodiversity, agriculture, or extreme weather.

Leyonhjelm’s vision isn’t policy. It’s performance - a libertarian daydream where externalities don’t exist, markets are omniscient, and the laws of physics politely wait for ideology to catch up.

I clicked to make a comment then I realised it would just
not be worth the bother.

From a truly libertarian perspective, governments must not sign international agreements regarding which energy sources [if any] its citizens will use in future, simply because that is up to the citizens themselves and them alone.

Nor should government subsidise any energy source whatsoever, nor even care whether its citizens have power or not and whether or not it is reliable - that is plainly none of its business.

What concerns me is the author's suggestion of "no restrictions on exploration or extraction [of gas]": why should commercial companies be allowed to trespass and disturb people on their own land? Surely it is not right for government to hand power to big corporations against individual land owners - that is not very libertarian of him!