Table of Contents
Should opposition leader Sussan Ley start watching her back more carefully than usual?
Historian Patrick Weller dubbed the last parliamentary sittings of the year, in late November and early December, ‘the Killing Season’, in his 2014 biography of Kevin Rudd. Weller’s argument is that, with the year drawing to a close, political machinations reach a peak of urgency.
How true that is is debatable: only Rudd and Hawke were knifed in December in the last 50 years. Still, it’s become a favourite meme of the chattering class, so all eyes are on Ley’s flailing leadership. The political pointy end of the stick has just been made a bit sharper by the Liberals’ coalition partners, the Nationals.
The Nationals are set to dump a net-zero emissions target after a special partyroom meeting on Sunday, raising the stakes for Sussan Ley to quickly unveil a new course on climate and energy policy that keeps the coalition united.
Nationals leader David Littleproud said his party would finalise its position on net zero after a 9am meeting in Canberra on Sunday, with senior party sources telling the Australian it was nearly certain the Nationals’ commitment to a carbon-neutral future would be junked.
The party is instead likely to back a climate policy that links Australia’s emissions reductions with what is being achieved globally, in line with a recommendation from a Nationals-commissioned report by the Page Research Centre.
This ought to be a no-brainer for the Liberals. ‘Net Zero’ has been an unmitigated disaster: wasting billions, with trillions more to go, for no discernable gain. In fact, ‘Net Zero’ is a net negative on almost measure.
Until two decades ago, cheap and abundant energy was a clear comparative economic advantage for our nation […]
Back in those days Australia’s electricity prices were among the lowest in the developed world because we exploited our abundant and cheap coal and gas.
Now our power prices rank among the highest as we deliberately abandon coal (and to a lesser extent gas) in pursuit of a renewables-plus-storage model. Our energy advantage over Europe and Asia has disappeared; the US and Canada have electricity about half the cost of ours. We also refuse to use our uranium for nuclear energy. Instead, it fuels a nuclear renaissance across Europe, Asia and the Americas.
Meanwhile, more than 200,000 manufacturing jobs have been lost, along with the competitive advantage of cheap energy. And household power bills have doubled.
But these retail costs paid by consumers, business and industry are only part of the additional energy expenses we have imposed on ourselves. A report by the Centre for Independent Studies found that in the decade to 2023 the federal government paid subsidies to renewable energy suppliers totalling $29bn.
So, $29 billion in subsidies, to drive up power bills. Is this government insane?
Yes. Because, not only do they subsidise ‘renewables’ in a deliberate strategy to force the closure of coal-fired stations by making them uncompetitive, the government also subsidises the last remaining coal stations. Because we desperately need them to keep grids stable, and for when ‘renewables’ inevitably stop generating at all.
But, wait! There’s more!
The government is also subsidising household power, to try and hide the staggering cost of ‘Net Zero’. The government is also paying subsidies to our last remaining smelter – a critical defence resource being driven to bankruptcy by high power costs.
So, they’re subsidising households, subsidising industry and subsidising coal power, because of the effects of the subsidised ‘renewables’.
Even the Soviet Union would blink at such socialist madness.
And for all that, the gain is… practically nothing.
As a result of all this spending, Australia’s greenhouse gas emissions have been cut by about 12 per cent since 2010 – from 602 million tonnes a year to 440Mt or a reduction of 162Mt a year. Across the same period global emissions have increased by about 15,000 million tonnes (or 15 gigatonnes) from 38Gt to 53Gt.
So, while we have up-ended our economy to cut greenhouse gases by 162Mt annually, the global increases have made up for that more than 90 times over.
On any rational or scientific analysis, our incredibly expensive and debilitating effort has made no perceptible difference to global carbon dioxide levels and therefore can have no discernible impact on the climate.
As I said, this ought to be a no brainer.
No government has been elected in Australia because of ‘pro-climate’ policies, but Tony Abbott won a thumping victory by openly opposing them. Voter support for ‘Net Zero’ has always been notably soft, especially with the coalition’s centre-right base. People answering polls might support what sounds like a good idea, but frame it in the context of the hip pocket, as Abbott did, and the support collapses.
Figure it out, Sussan.
