Scott Morrison wants to be Australia's Prime Marketer ? but voters aren't buying his woeful climate rebrand | Peter Lewis - The Guardian Australia

The Australian Way recycles old commitments into a new shiny brochure of vendor-generated graphs and talking points while refusing to set 2030 climate reduction targets, undermining tougher restrictions on coal and efforts to reduce methane emissions.

Early indications are that the Australian Way is struggling to cut through to its key segment, Coalition voters trapped between the denial of its rural outposts and the desire for even a modicum of meaningful action from its city base.

But a hill constructed on just 25% of the electorate is not one that is large enough to fight from, let alone die on; and when only just over a third of Coalition voters are on the team, with similar numbers wanting to see something more ambitious, it begins - exposed on all fronts.

But as we have seen over the past week, the Australian Way is about more than simply dodging accountability on climate action; it reflects a broader engagement strategy with the world.

The PM has shown how the Australian Way is to play friends off against each other, lurching into complex relationships like a drunk on a bender, upending tables and demanding someone buy you your next drink.

This contradiction has become more pronounced over the pandemic. We have isolated for our own protection more successfully than most, while relying on global scientific cooperation to deliver the vaccine that will allow us to live with this ongoing threat.

Now he is endeavouring to do the same thing with the nation he leads, giving the impression of movement on climate and embracing the promise of untested technologies while refusing to actually do anything different.