It is an unusual double standard by which Malcolm Turnbull lives.
The common complaint against politicians is that they do not practise what they preach, that their private behaviour is of a lower standard than what they publicly advocate. But in Prime Minister Turnbull’s case it’s the opposite. He practises what he dares not preach.
On his Point Piper mansion, his office confirmed this week, Turnbull has an array of solar panels capable of generating 14.5kW of electricity.
That is a pretty big system. The current average capacity of new domestic solar systems in New South Wales is about 6kW, but people can get by with less, provided they are not profligate with their power.
The leader of the Greens, for example, Senator Richard Di Natale, runs a household of four people on 3kW of solar-generating capacity with attached storage, and lives completely off-grid. Occasionally, during the bleakest months of the Victorian winter, he tells us, he augments this with generator power.