As we wait in vain for our Prime Minister to energise Australians about the threat of climate change, the new British Prime Minister, Andy Burnham, has made it a central issue in his approach to what he deems “the climate crisis threat.”

Writing in The Guardian (17/9) he says “British people understand the climate crisis threat. Today I’m empowering them to tackle it.”

His first major initiative is to fund People’s Power projects so that communities across every nation in the UK will soon have the chance to build and control their own clean energy supply”.

“This investment means villages, towns and cities can harness the natural resources around them with solar panels on libraries, publicly owned wind farms, hydro schemes in rivers. Or whatever else works for them,” he said.

The plan envisages local councils and community groups having at least part ownership in their renewable energy projects.

As part of the plan, from October this year, he will remove VAT on household electricity bills.

Burnham said: “I believe there are two routes we can follow. There is the traditional Whitehall way: make people pay for the change with more regulation and higher costs. Or we can pursue a different route: help people make the change by creating jobs, lowering bills and bringing power back to them.”

It should be said that – as it should be given our climate – Australia has been a world leader in rooftop and other solar power initiatives including subsidies for installations. Individual States have led the way on much of this.

We have also embarked on major windfarm initiatives – opposed needless to say by the Liberal and National Parties.

Nevertheless, in the forefront of One Nation campaigning – along with its first priority of ending migration – has been climate change denial. The Liberals also still have Tony Abbott raving about net zero.

All the opposition is given more and more exposure by the insidious and dangerous role of the Murdoch media.

Although the Murdoch influence in the UK is probably less than in Australia, following its telephone hacking and other crimes, and there is greater media diversity in the UK than in Australia.

But the biggest difference seems to be in the urgency of the Burnham approach and its central placing in his approach to government.

It is difficult, however, to see our Prime Minister employing the passion and fluency Burnham brings to the debate.

Meanwhile the British Tories are following in the One Nation footsteps in a bid to avoid being outflanked by Reform and Nigel Farage. Kim Badenoch, the current Tory leader, told The Weekend Financial Times that nobody would be allowed to stand for the Tories at the next election if they supported the 2025 net zero climate change target put into law in 2019 by Theresa May’s Conservative Government.

Badenoch also said anyone supporting the European Convention on Human Rights – an agreement promoted by Winston Churchill in the late 1940s is also on the nose.

As the Financial Times columnist remarked – Badenoch’s policies would, at the least, help support a key China strategic aim – to own the clean energy future.

Donald Trump and the Australian Liberal and National Parties are all going down the same path.

Meanwhile, the market is speaking and the Australian Automobile Association reported in its June Quarter 2026 Electric Vehicle Index that “almost half (49.6%) of June quarter new car sales were electric or hybrid with battery electric vehicles and plug in hybrid electric vehicles both setting records – taking 21.03% and 10.58% of market share respectively.

Internal combustion engine vehicles’ market share fell to 50.8% in the June quarter – down from 64.23% in quarter one.

Since the EV Index began in 2022 the internal combustion market share has fallen from almost nine in 10 new cars sold to about five in 10.