TV

Waleed Aly Demolished Tony Abbott And Bill Shorten For Cutting The Renewable Energy Target On ‘The Project’ Last Night

Australia's John Oliver?

by Alex McKinnon  17 April 2015

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The quest to find Australia’s vague equivalent of John Oliver continues apace, and with Charlie Pickering’s The Weekly due to start airing on the ABC on Wednesday, Project co-host Waleed Aly (aka Nazeem Hussain) is having a crack at it too.

In a short and fiery segment that aired last night, Aly turned his sights on both Prime Minister Tony Abbott and Opposition Leader Bill Shorten over the rapidly-disintegrating renewable energy industry, which has suffered massive falls in investment due to the government’s plan to cut Australia’s renewable energy target. Labor have been trying to reach a compromise with the government on a revised target for some time, but some in the industry have not taken kindly to the Opposition’s willingness to reduce the target on principle. Aly summed up the immediate and broader problems the deadlock has led to, with a few Justin Bieber references thrown in to keep Da Yoof interested.

“Let this be the first news report for an audience that doesn’t exist,” Aly said (besides anything on Sky News, amirite guys? Guys? Haha, burn); “not only are the people this affects not watching and not voters; they’re not even born yet. It’s the generations to come who’ll look back and see this for what it is — a wilful disregard for the future of this nation by the people we’ve elected to lead us.” The segment has since gone viral, with Twitter either singing praises or yelling about conspiracy theories depending on who you follow, and even the Herald Sun asking its readers if they care about “this climate change issue,” presumably in a tone of wealthy befuddlement.

It’s not the first time Aly has tried his hand at John Oliver-style comedy politics — his segment on negative gearing last month encouraged viewers to call Treasurer Joe Hockey and let him know what they thought of the issue. Considering Shaun Micallef’s Mad As Hell is due to be off the air until next year at least, the jostling between Aly and Pickering to take his place as Australia’s resident political satirist is likely just getting started.

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