Former prime minister Scott Morrison told controversial media personality Jordan Peterson about his failure to convince other world leaders of his vision for cheap renewable energy and his disillusionment with a major climate summit during a private chat in Parliament House yesterday, Crikey can reveal.
Peterson, a self-described “politically incorrect” Canadian psychologist, revealed the details of his conversation with the former Australian prime minister in an exclusive, if impromptu, interview at Gate 13 at Canberra Airport on Thursday night.
“We mostly talked about Australian energy policy and the relationship to net zero in 2050,” Peterson told Crikey.
“And we talked about the fact that he believed that part of what was necessary to solve the energy transition problem was to ensure that energy was provided — let’s say, if it was provided in an alternative way, renewable way, that it would also be equally inexpensive. He said he spent a lot of time trying to convince other leaders of that when they were orchestrating their environmental policy, but not with much success.”
Peterson said the pair agreed that renewable energy should not come at the expense of higher prices for consumers because “you really hurt people who are poor”.
“And you don’t save the planet either, but you definitely hurt people who are poor,” Peterson said.
Peterson spoke to Crikey hours after he gave a speech to a select group of conservative politicians in a lecture hall in Parliament that was closed to the public.
The Australian reported Peterson told the audience, which included Morrison, ex-deputy prime minister Barnaby Joyce, and One Nation Leader Pauline Hanson, that they needed to “fight for cheaper energy, smaller government and the nuclear family”.
Nationals Senator Matt Canavan organised the talk.
Afterwards, Peterson tweeted a picture of himself alongside Morrison with his hand on the ex-PM’s shoulder, and told his 3.5 million followers the pair had discussed a “renewed classic liberal/conservative vision”.
Crikey asked Peterson what that meant and got the following response: “Well, it was partly an extended discussion of similar policies. And policies that I’ve been discussing with centrists around the world. But that was part of it, energy policy — it’s fine, you can investigate diverse energy sources and hopefully cleaner ones, but yeah, they can’t be more expensive, because that’s not a solution, that’s actually a problem.”
When asked what his impression of Morrison was, Peterson appeared stumped and took several moments to formulate a reply.
“Well, I thought, I thought that he was… what was my impression?” Peterson said. “Well, we had a fine conversation. He’s very well versed in energy policy. I was very interested in talking to him about his reactions to events like COP26, which he was not impressed by.
“And I asked him why, and it was for reasons, I presume, he thought that it was mostly posture, which it is, and it was good to see that he was clear-headed about that.”
Morrison’s office has been contacted for comment.
