Well, I’m glad our illustrious PM thinks it’s all a bit of a giggle. When he’s not scurrying overseas to pose for selfies in batik shirts while dodging questions about the cost of living, supply chain, and energy crises engulfing Australia, Anthony Albanese is going on breakfast radio to chortle about KFC burgers.
The impact of the supply chain crisis on the cost of living has been brought starkly home by fast food giant KFC’s announcement that it has had to substitute cabbage for lettuce on its burgers. The price of the leafy staple has gone through the roof, reaching up to $11 for a head of iceberg lettuce.
So, what does our country’s leader do?
Mr Albanese told the Kyle and Jackie O show it was “just wrong”, saying he would raise the issue of “cabbage-gate” at Thursday’s cabinet meeting.
“This is a crisis,” he said while laughing.
I don’t see anyone else in here laughing.
Adding to the cost-of-living crisis Australian households are facing is the possibility of higher power bills, given the electricity crisis caused by global gas shortages and ageing coal-fired power stations.
Mr Albanese was not asked to weigh in on the issue during his 12 minute interview with Kyle and Jackie O.
The Australian
Of course not. Albo doesn’t do hard questions, we all know that.
Because, if he was forced to answer hard questions, he might have to explain how he and the rest of his cabinet got us into this mess.
Just ten years ago the then Labor government rejected outright the very proposal to preserve 15 per cent of Australian gas production for domestic use on the eastern seaboard which is now being considered as part of an emergency answer to apocalyptic gas shortages […]
In August 2012 the then Gillard Labor government rejected a proposal from its own task force into how to protect jobs by maximising Australia’s natural advantages with a domestic gas preservation scheme based on the WA model.
Of the senior Labor leadership in 2012 when domestic gas preservation was rejected there are now 13 who were then in Cabinet or the outer ministry.
The Australian
But the contribution of Labor politicians to our current energy crisis go far beyond stupid decisions made in Canberra a decade ago. Is anyone surprised that Victoria and Dan Andrews also take centre stage?
The shortage of gas in Victoria and NSW is an event created by Victorian politicians and the ignorance of its voters.
With a small caveat, Victoria almost certainly has enormous reserves of low cost, non-fracked onshore gas that, uniquely in the world, can be carbon neutral.
The nation is being forced to consider importing gas or reducing Queensland exports by the Victorian politicians who are blocking development of the gas.
The Australian
The gas reserves in question are massive reserves of onshore natural gas in the Gippsland Basin. It is contained in deep brown coal seams which are still biologically active, forming methane gas. The lignite layers also contain over 50% water, buried much deeper and not connected to the surface aquifers used by farmers for irrigation. The gas does not require fracking and the water could be used for irrigation, including carbon-trapping trees.
But the Andrews government has repeatedly banned further gas exploration or development.
And so we have an energy crisis induced by the ideological idiocy of deliberately running down Australia’s coal-fired generation and forcing a transition to unreliable, expensive “renewables”.
It’s gotten so bad that even the Teals are spruiking fossil fuels. “The federal government and the gas companies need to have frank conversations about reserving more gas for domestic use,” claims rich kid Allegra Spender.
Why does Australia need gas so badly, all of a sudden? One day, even the Teals might work it out.
But that would destroy their entire worldview. So, of course, they’ll blame it all on Vladimir Putin.
