By Vinay Kolhatkar
“It seems to me that the widespread acceptance of the global warming dogma has become one of the main, most costly and most undemocratic public policy mistakes in generations. The previous one was communism.”
Vaclav Klaus, October 19, 2010
Klaus was the president of the Czech Republic from March 2003 to March 2013. This was perhaps the only time a head of government, while in power, was openly defying a narrative that has become so entrenched in culture as a scientifically proven fact that no other head of government has been able to confront it head on—to call it openly a dogma.
In this essay, we assume that the reader is already aware of the logic and evidence opposing the climate change narrative. If you are, however, convinced of the climate change narrative’s scientific credentials, please refer to the Editor’s Note at the end of the essay about what the movement actually claims, then read Watts Up With That, the Galileo Movement, or the U.S. Senate Minority Report, and then make up your own mind.
Scientific truths are not gleaned by a majority vote but by theory and evidence.
The Australian Suicide
On Saturday, May 21, 2022, Australia held its triannual federal election. As with most democracies, Australia’s politics, too, has been dominated by two major parties—typically, one, a left-leaning, union-backed party that has steadily increased its support of legislative climate activism, free trade agreements, and woke issues—the Australian Labor Party, and equally typically, the other—a religious (in Australia, Christian leaning) conservative party, the “Liberal Party,” which has progressively deviated from the classical liberal principles still expressed as foundational on its website. The Liberals have been in a coalition with the National Party, a strong regional party, which has remained conservative and somewhat protectionist and has constrained the Liberals from overcommitting on legislative climate activism, to save rural jobs. Together, they are the Liberal National Coalition (the Coalition).
The electoral result confounded even the most seasoned of political pundits. Even as poll booths closed at 6pm on the eastern coast, no one predicted what was about to transpire. By 9pm, it was all over. The climate change narrative had won, decimating the party in governance. Independent candidates stole votes even from the left-leaning Labor Party, but their steal from the Liberals was far bigger and ubiquitous, and voters’ second and third preferences sealed the election for Labor, which won less than 33% of the primary vote, a historic low. Independent and minor party candidates won over 30% of the primary vote, a historic high well above their trend line.
The Victor
The new Prime Minister Anthony Albanese (pronounced al-bah-nay–see, but the anglicized version ending in nee-zee is ubiquitous in Australia) was sworn in on Monday morning, less than 48 hours after poll booths closed. We don’t need about 12 weeks of procedures like in the U.S. to let a new head of government take office after an election that isn’t disputed.
Albanese grew up in a housing commission flat, raised by a single mother who was on a disability pension. Like when the U.S. populace elected a person of color to the presidency, this was worth at least noting, if not celebrating. He is also the first person of a non-anglicized surname to assume the highest office in the land. His new Foreign Minister, Penny Wong, is a very articulate and intelligent long-term Labor warrior, half-Asian by descent, and openly gay. Tick a few more boxes. The two are close friends. She, too, was sworn in on Monday morning.
Within hours, Albanese and Wong were on a plane bound for Tokyo, to meet Fumio Kishida, Joe Biden, and Narendra Modi for a Quad meet, a forum of four democracies (Japan, the U.S., India, and Australia) to discuss “security matters” in the Pacific—specifically, China’s unbridled ambition and dominance of trade.
But, on election night itself, in his acceptance speech, rising above the shouts of “Albo, Albo,” as he’s popularly known, Albanese announced his first policy initiative—that he will end “the climate wars.” Will he? Can he?
The Climate Wars and the “Net Zero Emissions” Game
Here’s what the Climate Council says of the phrase net zero emissions:
Net zero emissions refers to achieving an overall balance between greenhouse gas emissions produced and greenhouse gas emissions taken out of the atmosphere.
We already have the technology we need to accelerate towards net zero emissions, including replacing coal- and gas-fired power stations with cheap, clean and reliable renewable energy backed by storage technologies.
The Coalition did promise net zero emissions by the year 2050. But, within the Coalition, there are three cadres of politicians:
- Those who have discovered and are prepared to say openly that human activity does not cause global warming, that human beings cannot control Earth’s surface temperature, and that current trends are not alarming.
- Those who have discovered the truth but will pretend, for political purposes, that they accept “the science”—meaning actually that they accept the real science, not climate alarmism, but let the conversation meander in a way that it can be taken as though they accept the alarmist assertions as real science. This group will enact minimal measures so as not to derail the economy while pretending “action on climate.”
- Those who truly believe everything the mainstream media says of human emissions and global warming.
Prominent Liberal and a former prime minister, Tony Abbott, was amongst the second lot. Only when he was out of politics, Abbott came out of the closet and started speaking truth to power. It appears to me that it’s likely that Scott Morrison, who, as Treasurer, made a speech celebrating coal in Parliament, was playing the same game. But, some of the prominent Liberals, including former PM Malcolm Turnbull and former leader John Hewson, appear to be genuinely convinced by the mainstream narrative.
But, as we said in our open letter to Scott Morrison in April 2019, the public isn’t fooled when actions do not match the rhetoric.
Craig Kelly, a former liberal MP was in the thinly populated first group. He became stridently forthright and vocal, setting out detailed charts, facts, and arguments. He garnered a huge following on Facebook. He was banned by Facebook for … you guessed it, “misleading information.” He was thrown out of the Liberal Party. Wikipedia labelled him a “conspiracy theorist.” He was silenced. But the whispers kept growing louder.
Leading up to the election, the internal conflict was too obvious. The pro-Left media made the most of it. Some National Party colleagues openly contradicted the “net zero by 2050” stance, which Morrison committed Australia to at the 26th climate conference in Glasgow in 2021 (COP26). During the campaign, one Coalition candidate said there was “wiggle room” in the commitment to net zero, calling it a “flexible plan” that was not legislated.
Later, Senator Matt Canavan, a former Minister of Resources, bluntly told the state-owned ABC that the Morrison government had not set a formal emissions reduction trajectory and had no intention of “following a linear path like the Labor party” and further, that:
The other thing to say is the net zero thing is all sort of dead anyway. Boris Johnson said he is pausing the net zero commitment, Germany is building coal and gas infrastructure, Italy’s reopening coal-fired power plants. It’s all over bar the shouting here.
We’re talking about something that is 28 years away. What will happen in 28 years’ time, or the policies that will happen in 10 or 20 years, I think, should be up to the Australian people in 10 or 20 years, some of who might not even be voting [now].
Meanwhile, Morrison announced a $70m hydrogen hub for Townsville, Queensland, and kept contradicting his forthright colleagues in the hope of winning over both sides of the climate war.
Labor’s policy, however, besides innumerable subsidies and grand plans, was to see Australia re-join key trading partners in their ambition to 2030, like Canada (with its similar economic base) at 40 – 45%, South Korea at 40% and Japan at 46%. These are the reduction targets, to keep Australia on track for zero by 2050.
The Coalition’s plan was to “kick the ball down the road” long enough to buy time. But without explicit confrontation, indeed, appeasement of the global warming narrative, the facts had no unsilenced champion and more people got converted to the falsehood.
The Greens
The Greens are known as the third largest political party in Australia (counting the Coalition as one, albeit technically they are two parties with an agreement to contest as one). The utopian but misguided Greens are fully committed to subsidizing inefficient, unreliable energy sources and heavily penalizing, and eventually banning, fossil fuels.
They explicitly say so (emphasis mine):
Net zero by 2050 is not a climate target, it’s a death sentence.
We need to dramatically reduce emissions by 2030, or it’s too late.
That’s why we’re calling on Scott Morrison to put in place a formal legislated plan to reduce Australia’s emissions by 75% by 2030 and phase out coal and gas. Our future depends on it.
In the 2022 election, the Greens’ primary vote increased nationally by 1.9% to 12.3%.
The Teals and the “Daddy’s Money Businessman”
In the Australian political map, the leftist Labor is shown red (how apt). The Liberals (the Coalition) are shown in blue, but they have long given up on classical liberalism.
Teal is a color halfway between green and blue. 22 new independents stood for the lower house, calling themselves “small l” liberals with a climate agenda, wearing teal outfits and jewelry (19 of the 22 were women, calling out Morrison’s insensitivity to victims of sexual misconduct, and expressing support for “gender equity”).
But the Teals were not conservative. Teal Zoe Daniels was accused of anti-Semitism after she signed the “do better on Palestine” letter. Simon Holmes à Court, who funded her, was also accused of Holocaust slurs.
Seems to me that the cloak was teal, but they were Green Lite in their philosophy.
These independents were funded in the millions by a businessman invested in renewables. Simon Holmes à Court is the son (and one of four children who each inherited part of the estate) of Australia’s first billionaire Robert Holmes à Court, a self-made entrepreneur who died of a heart attack at 53, in 1990.
Climate 200 is an Australian fund that “aims to donate money to election candidates who want to advance climate policy, to more effectively reduce greenhouse gas emissions by the country.”
In 2022, Simon Holmes à Court relaunched Climate 200, the fundraising group he founded just before the May 2019 federal election with support from 35 investors, including tech billionaire Mike Cannon-Brookes (who is also committed to undermining fossil fuels).
More on Holmes à Court and his strategy is here.
Wow—it must be a thrilling ride for non-celebrity political virgins—Billionaires will help you unseat long-established political careers and become an MP … a senator even.
A Win for the Billionaires
Read More at https://www.thesavvystreet.com/on-election-day-australia-commits-climate-suicide/
From the picture, I see roos have bigger balls.
Bigger brains than most politicians too.
And of more use.
Wait, how did small-brain politicians get into office? Weren’t there elections?
I recall some saying about people getting the politicians they deserve.
Perhaps triennial rather than triannual?
Triennial. Thank you, Forrest, for spotting the error. It’s been corrected on the original site.
But technically, triannual can mean both three times a year or triennial, so it can stand that way, too.
From Texas, it looks like Morrison gave the greens credibility by responding as if they were not fanatic dweebs. Playing by the other sides rules is a sure loser.
I notice that Holmes a Court and his billioniares club financed the so-called Teals and that 19 of the 22 are women. Here we have the Soros organization financing a large number of women in State offices (Governors, SoSs, AGs, DAs etc), and in each there are problems with elections and the criminal justice system. Apparently it’s a short cut for fundamental transformation.
The activist organisation GetUp in Australia is modelled on Soros related activist organisations in the US and other countries and GetUp was established here by the Union Movement. They also donate to the Australian Greens. Former Labor Opposition Leader Bill Shorten was a senior executive at the Australian Workers Union when GetUp was established and he was appointed to the Board of Directors.
In 2006 journalist Max Walsh wrote in The Bulletin Magazine that the Union Movement had completed a “corporate-style takeover” of the Australian Labor Party, union trained executives had been given safe Labor seats to enter Parliament, and the primary objective was to control and manage all of the governments of Australia. Of course the Union Movement and the ALP have always been close, Labor being the “worker’s party”. Well it used to be but since the takeover isn’t it clear that Labor is now hand in hand with the multinational and other public companies, bankers and billionaires, etc.?
I hope that an investigative journalist follows the money trail and the major changes that have taken place and continue to take place in Australian politics.
One of many intriguing situations was the Trade Union Royal Commission into governance and corruption, the Commissioner was given access to Federal and State jurisdictions and referred a number of witnesses for further investigation and possible charging with offences. But when the Abbott Coalition Government Royal Commission requested an extension of time the Turnbull Coalition Government decided against it and the Commission inquiries were no longer in the news.
aavaaz is also heavily involved in aus and funded by soros
Holmes a Court isn’t a billionaire. Sure he comes from a wealthy family but his brothers and sister inherited shares of the wealth created by his father and mother.
The actual billionaire with his own party UAP was Clive Palmer . They had more money than even the Liberals to spend , could be around $75 Mill plus.
However the only win might be a Senate seat . Palmer was definitely pro mining , drilling and continued use of fossil fuels, but hardly anyone was listening . His biggest impact was the continupous anti green and anti labour advertising.
clive forgot? or avoided telling us exactly what his plans were, antivax and antigreen was fine but no substance otherwise
targeting the young gullible female voters who have the climatefaith but think theyre a bit above the greens dippyhippy memes
I completely agree. Rather than making this an election issue, Morrison essentially said to Albanese you were right the whole time. In which case why would anyone vote for Morrison? His handling of the pandemic as the national leader can also only be described as pathetic. Morrison was a massive disappointment – and the voters were only too happy to let him know.
You are wrong, maybe the Labor Premiers’ blame game has convinced you to blame PM Morrison? To begin with, handling the pandemic was a public health issue and State Health primary responsibility, there are no Federal public hospitals and related health care services. Lockdowns, other restrictions, vaccine mandates, interstate border closures, hotel quarantine and others are State areas of responsibility. State Parliaments passed legislation for Emergency Powers in each State, enforcement was by State Health, State Police and State Courts.
Challenges against the WA State Government for border closure and VIC State Government for lockdowns failed in courts of law and on appeal in the High Court, under the circumstances prevailing judged to be lawful.
National Leaders Cabinet was always a Forum, it should not have been called a Cabinet because it isn’t one and does not have the status of a Government Cabinet. At best the meetings were for discussion to try and gain cooperation and coordination between State and Territory governments. Unfortunately Labor State Governments abused the spirit of cooperation and played the blame game scoring political points with the 2022 Federal Election in mind.
However, the recession caused by State lockdowns and restrictions was dealt with by the Federal Government with economic stimulus supporting employers and employees. Interestingly, Labor is now critical of the debt creation but when the end date was announced Labor demanded that the support funding be continued.
The recession was recovered and now GDP growth is 3.5%, OECD estimate 4.1% will be achieved soon. Unemployment is now below 4,0% and the lowest since 1970s.
International border closure in Australia was at first criticised but soon realised to be an important initiative. Because of interstate border closures State Governments imposed hotel quarantine for international arrivals and interstate travellers. The PM and Cabinet tried to convince State Governments to ease the lockdowns and restrictions, and to open interstate borders, the NSW Coalition State Government was far more receptive than VIC and QLD, or WA.
Unfortunately too many voters do not understand our Federation of States and the areas of responsibility and powers they hold. Much more that impacts on our daily lives than Federal areas of responsibility and powers impact.
Published by the NSW State Government, this link is an excellent guide;
https://www.parliament.nsw.gov.au/about/Pages/The-Roles-and-Responsibilities-of-Federal-State-a.aspx
Thanks, Dennis. As an American, I have trouble deciphering how the Parliamentary systems work. I’m not alone. I appreciate the explanation.
There was much Morrison could have done but he was too gutless and he pandered to his political adversaries at the state level. He was hopeless and the electorate saw it that way.
The electorate was conditioned, relentless negativity towards PM Morrison in much the same way the Labor spin doctors and left leaning media attacked PM Abbott.
It has been correctly pointed out that when mud is thrown some sticks and the more that is thrown the more sticks until the target is covered in mud and mud is all that the general public can see.
The same thing happened in the U.S., .KcTaz, where Trump was powerless to stop lockdowns within states, enacted via state emergency powers.
Seems to me that the voters agreed with me.
Actually “the voters” support for Labor amounted to a primary vote of 32.7% as compared to the Coalition on 36.1%
One third of voters did not support Labor, however support for the Coalition was also low compared to the average of elections past.
If Australia did not have a preferential voting system, instead had the UK first past the post system which is based on primary votes only the Coalition would still be in government.
UK, India, Canada and many other countries have first past the post.
Our Australian Constitution over rides State directives BUT Australian ‘politicians’ and legal fraternities have conveniently ignored this.
Still in shock how a single health order, made by one person, has over ridden hundreds of years of law and legal precedent. One health order apparently removes the right to work, freedom of movement, right to bodily integrity. One health order removed all of that.
That is not correct, States also have Constitutions and the Federal Government cannot overturn State legislation passed in State Parliaments unless the legislation enters into Federal areas of responsibility.
Playing by the other sides rules is a sure loser.
______________________________________
Yes, buying into the bullshit doesn’t work.
The parliamentary system has many more ways for slimy pols to lie & obfuscate than with a federal
democracy. Don’t worry! Our slimy pols have found a short cut!
Self-abortion is the Choice of forward-looking profits (sic).
The fact that the Nationals retained their vote indicates that their faithful did not feel they were cast aside.
I did not give my first preference to Liberal because they were trying to be Labor.
There are a few political leaders like Trump and Putin who are willing to confront the scammers. When a politician is prepared to stand up in Australia and call out this CO2 induced Climate Change rubbish, they will get my first preference.
Excellent comment.
From my inner city Melbourne perspective the election was not at all about climate.
Probably “were sick of the current government. Let get another one”
Inner City Melbourne? I guess none of your neighbours know you are reading this stuff.
I specifically told liberal party polsters that the most important issue for me was them not being anti climate change enough.
Me too. But they ignored us.
More of your BS?
“Putin ……willing to confront the scammers”.
Putin and his best media mate Prighozin ARE scammers.
Nothing in the west even remotely compares with his revival of the new stasi-RF, hiding his game for 20 yrs, – even using another ex-stasi (Merckel & Warnig + corrupt Schroeder).
As a commenter at JoNovas site said “Australia has coal, methane and uranium. There’s plenty of oil if one were looking for it. To be suffering from energy proverty in such a nation takes real talent.”
It takes further talent to look at a grid that has evolved from high reliability and lowering prices to one now tettering on the edge of collapse simultaneous with increasing portion of generation from so-called renewables, and not notice the coincidence. Instead, people see faults in coal fired power plants and conclude that fossil fuels must be the problem, despite fossil fuels never being a problem before.
People who reason like this might look at trees waving back and forth on a breezy day as evidence that trees cause wind.
We have plenty such people in the U.S.
Agreed.
like with alcoholics, sometimes people have to hit rock bottom before they can learn.
Mr. Putin has taken Germany and others to rock bottom recently along with some other Europeans. They are returning, on tiptoes, to coal and gas and reconsidering nuclear.
The English-speaking world, however, still seems to cling to the climate change delusion. The Progressive movements in Britain, Australia, Canada, US, etc still embrace the Destroy Ourselves in a Useless Gesture to Save The World…..even if the evidence is clear that China, India, and Africa are planning to continue exploiting coal for energy and will increase CO2 emissions to a degree that will dwarf any reductions by others.
Scientifically, the good news is that the experiment to see if CO2 drives catastrophic climate change is going to happen. CO2 will double. Humanity will learn what that does to the climate, if anything.
Like the National Socialist Party in Germany in the 1930’s the current Marxists have intimidated, bullied, ostracized (say cancelled?), and threatened anyone not agreeing with their ideology/dogma. It’s always safe to support the prevailing snake oil salesmen until it isn’t, then it becomes a claw back to reality. Australia didn’t learn much when their new electrical infrastructure failed miserably in their South and took them back two centuries. We will find out how much more it will take for them to understand they are being duped. I hope they can do something about it.
The NSDAP wasn’t socialist at all. They were to the right of the actual socialist parties the Communist KPD and the more popular SPD.
Even today a conservative party of Bavaria has social in it’s name CSU or conservative social union.
Being less socialist than the official socialist doesn’t mean you aren’t socialist.
They werent socialist at all and when the nazis seized power jailed all the socialist and communists members of the Reichstag.
The name of NSDAP came from an earlier group , it was far from socialist.
I think your history is revisionist.
Hitler was explicitly socialist and anti-capitalist.
His socialism was German nationalist—-in opposition to Marxist Leninist socialism which was internationalist in theory, and subordinate to Moscow in practice.
Hitler’s view of capitalism was that it was too Jewish, hence unacceptable.
Hitler’s political “genius” was in his ability to fuse the leftwing impulses of socialism with the right wing impulses of nationalism and militarism—-particularly effective because German resentment over the Treaty of Versailles and its post-WWI punishment of Germany.
Hitler’s evil was fortunately defeated by the capitalist liberal societies mostly of the English-speaking world, with an assist from the communists of the Soviet Union (after Hitler stabbed them in the back).
Hitler was not initially a “fascist” in theory. That was Mussolini’s game. Mussolini was also, like Hitler, initially a creature of the Left—-a leader in the Italian Communist Party. Mussolini created “fascist” theory as a practical improvement over socialism. The national government would still control everything, but effect its control through large privately-owned corporations. Like Hitler, Mussolini seduced the Right with nationalism. In his case, his nationalism harkened a recreation of the Roman Empire around the Mediterranean. The “fasces” of fascism was the Roman Empire’s symbol of bundled sticks.
Hitler did use fascism. For example, Hitler used DaimlerBenz and Krupp family corporations to to effect some of his military build up.
Btw, by way of illustration, Mussolini would have approved of Obamacare——a federally controlled national health program implemented by the private health insurance corporations—-classic fascism in action.
The current incontinent use of “fascist!” as a political epithet is usually hurled by historically ignorant morons.
oh theyre raving SA as a model state ignoring the fact without vic coal and tassie hydro theyd be in the dark
And the diesel gennies, don’t forget the diesel gennies.
“Australia is already a net zero CO2-e emitter-thanks to our forests and rangelands”-
See Dr.Bill Burrows’ paper recently.
australia-is-already-a-net-zero-CO2-emitter-thanks-to-our-forests-and-rangelands-2.pdf
Is Australia unique in Western democracies in achieving Net Zero,however the “Net”is defined?
As Dr.Burrows points out, Australia is a carbon sink not a carbon emitter by 455 MtCO2-e annually.
Almost universally this is ignored by main stream media in Australia and internationally.
Yes. I have been ostracized by The Conversation for showing the satellite data. Even NASA agrees. But you can’t fix stupid.
I was going to say just that! The only way for Oz not to be net-zero would be for every local government to build a non-HELE coal-fired power station. So, let’s get crackin’ I hear you say!
Trees are only effective CO2 absorbers in the abstract I have discovered. Suggesting that a given number of trees result in a net sink won’t impress the activists.
So I have discovered every time I have suggested that Canada’s 9000 trees/capita might be offsetting our climate footprint.
Life has completed a circle for PM Albo, raised in public housing and now he is back in public housing again.
The Coalition at COP26 refused to formally commit to net zero emissions by 2050, no agreement signed, PM Morrison expressed instead “an aspiration goal” subject to research and development of new technology and with no damage to the economy to achieve net zero emissions by 2050.
He also refused to stop coal mining and coal exports or to increase Australia’s Paris Agreement emissions target and to change the target completion date from 2030 to 2025.
Despite being urged to do all three by the Leaders of Australia’s closest allies, UK and US.
Dennis – Scott Morrison was a total idiot with his “aspiration goal”. People who wanted net-zero wouldn’t vote for that, and people who wanted no target at all wouldn’t vote for it either. Their only way out was to remove Scott Morrison and wait three years.
Incidentally, I am not convinced that we are looking at a pending disaster with Anthony Albanese. He hasn’t put a foot wrong so far (OK it’s early days), he has an absolute majority so he can tell the greens they can shove it, and he is on record as supporting coal till 2050 and beyond. He doesn’t have to have too many brain cells to understand more about Australia’s energy needs than Scott Morrison did, and I intend to judge him purely on his merits (with energy and foreign policy being the two major arenas for judgement).
Mike I agree with your first paragraph, Morrison did not really understand any of the climate science or what Tony Abbott thought, he believed what the CSIRO, BOM and the Climate commission alarmists told him about dangerous GHG’s and their future risks. So he swallowed the devious precautionary principle argument promoted by the UN IPCC, and thought that agreeing with Net Zero limits would settle the climate issue in his favor or put it out of peoples mind. He could not have been more wrong to the conservative voter, he lost our votes there and then.
I have my doubts that Albo can change his spots as a socialist left progressive, however, if he can learn like Hawke to listen to both sides of an argument, perhaps we can get a more sensible climate/ energy policy out of Labor. But more likely we will have to have more energy disruption, blackouts, brownouts etc, this winter that will help focus on the initial national need to make our energy grid more sustainable and reliable. We should legislate to allow sufficient local gas and new generators to plug the gaps when the unreliable, intermittent energy sources are failing.
However, my real wish is for the global scientific community followed by the UN IPCC to come clean on the underlying issue behind all the torturous virtue seeking non-debate on the presence or absence of anthropogenic forcing (AGW) in climate science. In other words, show some real proof, apart from ineffective climate models, that humans are in any way involved in modern mild natural global warming. If, as is increasingly likely, that CO2 has had little or no effect on atmospheric temperature control, then the whole AGW climate house of cards falls down, and the related fossil fuel energy paranoia goes away. We can only hope this comes soon before the Developed nations commit virtual energy suicide for absolutely no benefit to climate or real pollution for that matter.
Scott Morrison was elected late in 2018 and took over from Malcolm Turnbull who replaced Tony Abbott as PM in 2015. Turnbull from the Liberal In Name Only faction (Black Hand self named) was of course keen on the transition to renewables and family members had investments in wind turbine energy operations.
The aspiration goal … read with “based on research and development of new technology” and “without damage to the economy”, was clearly a diplomatic manoeuvre to get around urging by our major allies’ leaders and IPCC at COP26, and don’t ignore the maybe 40 per cent of Australian voters who believe the climate hoax who vote. And the Labor-Greens-Teal combined opposition the Coalition had to deal with. Politics is all about perceptions.
I understand that Scott Morrison and the other traditional Liberal Party of Australia MPs are supporters of coal, they understand the power station baseload generator value and export coal revenue streams. But they cannot build power stations or approve coal mining ventures, etc. They are State Government areas of responsibility. The Adani Coal Mine in NTH QLD was held up for years by QLD State Government requirements and lack of interest in the mine, greater interest in stopping it.
When the Snowy Mountains Hydro Electricity Scheme was constructed it took over ten years of negotiations before the State Governments agreed to approve the project. When recently the addition of Snowy 02 pumped hydro was proposed the Federal Government ended up buying State Government shares, value $6 billion from memory, to obtain State development approval.
It’s not the only explanation.
I don’t know much about Australian affairs. But obviously the local oligarchy is a clone, the original being in USA. And what those are is well known. The recent highlights include mention of «glass of water with letter ‘D’» as a slight exaggeration of how high are requirements for a viable candidate in certain districts, recurring dead voters… and more recently plain ban on mentions of Benford’s Law on one of the unofficially official preaching platforms.
So, either Inner or Outer Party actually caring about what the voters believe? Funny.
I also wonder how many believe in The Cow Fart Apocalypse to begin with. After all, even 10:10s visibly don’t. And if there are many true believers, why bother making up such packs of fake believers rather than simply send preachers to steer the real thing?
Not good enough, I’m afraid. They’ve overseen the spread of wind and solar and made us poorer in the process. Would we need an energy market regulator if we had steady, reliable energy supply?
Wind and solar transition is based on Labor’s Renewable Energy Target and subsidies, the Abbott Government tried to repeal that legislation but only succeeded in reducing the percentage of RET, but did succeed in getting rid of the Labor carbon tax and renewable energy surcharge. The original RET was 2% and with no subsidies offered on a “trial basis”. The Morrison Government established an end of RET timing of 2030.
There is a lot of misinformation floating around, like how many know that a Federal Government was able to establish the RET but had no power to approve development applications and other requirements which are State responsibility?
The Morrison Government proposed 1 new coal fired power station for NTH QLD and offered to underwrite the funding, because bankers are no longer willing to fund fossil fuel related projects. They also proposed 4 gas fired generators, 1 each for VIC and SEQLD and 2 for NSW, only 1 for the NSW Hunter Valley has yet been approved.
The Morrison Government legislated to force greater pricing competition between electricity supply companies based on company law. They were also in discussions and negotiations on modular nuclear generators, the UK Government has been negotiating with Rolls Royce UK and plans to buy several and the Morrison Government was involved with Rolls Royce considering future modular generators for Australia.
It was Labor State Governments that following the Federal Labor RET being established commenced privatisation of State owned power station and transmission lines, the privatisation was well underway, for example, when the NSW Coalition State Government was elected.
SA Labor was the first State into the renewables transition and that Labor Government arranged for demolition of coal fired power stations to ensure that they could not be recommissioned.
Anyone know a good stock index vehicle to short the total Australian stock market?
With the Greens in charge of the economy, and an impending recession coming to the U.S. in the not-so-distant future, then a serious correction seems to be almost a sure thing.
P.S. Sorry Rick and our other commenters from Down Under. As we are learning in the U.S., “voting harder” doesn’t do any good when a critical mass of idiots has been reached.
short the total Australian stock market? By my reckoning there is still a lot of upside in gas, coal and uranium.
and gold and rare earths
Good points!
However, if the parasite class stops the producing class from producing anything, can any of that value be realized?
As an American, I think, this is coming to your town soon…
PM Abbott proposed an independent audit, that due diligence be conducted at the BoM following evidence by letter from Dr Jennifer Marohasy and colleagues indicating that BoM media releases etc did not match historic record data, but his proposal in Cabinet was defeated.
Christopher Monckton released a video warning to Australians (and also to Canadians and New Zealanders regarding their own leaders) that climate hoax forces were preparing to get rid of Australia’s PM Abbott and that we must watch his back, he and the other targeted leaders were not cooperating with UN IPCC and fellow traveller’s objectives.
PM Abbott upset many of the hoaxers referring to IPCC computer modelling of climate as “crap”. In response they accused him of being in denial and claimed he said climate change is “crap”.
It is important to understand that a Prime Minister is chairman of the board being the Cabinet of Ministers and decisions are usually what the majority vote for. The Abbott Cabinet contained a small majority of centre left MPs, Abbott being centre right and a traditional Australian Liberal Party member.
You didn’t finish the story Dennis. Traitor Turnbull the arch climate alarmist and his wet mates on the left including the Environment minister, destroyed Tony Abbott after he had given the Lib-Nat government a huge majority.
That’s right, and in 2016 the “Turnbull Government” lost all of the seats the Abbott Coalition picked up in 2013.
Abbott was undermined from 2009 when he became Opposition Leader until 2015 when his political opponents finally managed to replace him with Turnbull.
And the same LINO left faction effectively assisted Labor to undermine Morrison from 2018 onwards.
Recently, meaning days ago, the Labor advertising agency confirmed when questioned that a similar get Abbott campaign was used to get Morrison, in other words character assassination: doesn’t get on with women, failed to support a staffer who alleged she had been attacked in a parliamentary office after business hours, went on holidays during bushfires (ignored that the Acting PM was on duty and bushfires are State responsibility), “not my job” those words used but the questions asked and replied to not provided, “don’t hold a hose” and again the question not provided so taken out of context deliberately to smear the PM.
Totally ignored was the many initiatives and successes of the Morrison Government. Blamed for State Parliament legislated Emergency Powers, lockdowns and other restrictions, vaccine mandates, interstate border closures, etc. Hotel quarantine was State interstate border closure related so international arrivals after international border closure restrictions were quarantined by State Governments. State Health care, State hospitals, State police enforcement, etc. And when we complained the Labor Premiers blamed the PM and Federal Government.
Global Cooling since Feb2016 or Feb2020 – take your pick – even as atmospheric CO2 increases. The Global Warming (CAGW) narrative is proved false – again!.
See electroverse.net for extreme-cold events and crop failures all over our blue planet.
Food shortages, fuel and food inflation, imminent famine, caused primarily by cold and wet weather and green energy nonsense.
The world has suffered from woke, imbecilic politicians. We need a few leaders with real science skills and real integrity, not the current crop of gullible green traitors and fools.
Told you so 20 years ago.
In my view campaigning as an Independent candidate for election while clearly being supported by Climate200 and campaigning in the same teal colour on the same platform is deceptive conduct. And those candidates, as for the 2019 election “Independents”, were also supported by the Union established GetUp activist organisation (orange campaign colour), and supporters including volunteers and hired people alternated between teal and orange shirts depending on the campaign venue and planning. A major objective was to appear to be a very well supported candidate electorate by electorate.
Interestingly only Liberal and National MPs were targeted by the Teal not a Party candidates.
And the candidates had very narrow political interests primarily climate change based.
That was well known , and yet they won. Hardly need to Target Labour as they are on board with the climate nonsense.
I voted for the Better Weather party. Now I expect them to keep their election promises, with perfect sunny days, mild winters and great surf.
Wait it’s already like that everyday.
It must be nice to be a billionaire and be able to buy politicians who will do your bidding. That it will, no doubt, make those billionaires invested in useless, expensive Renewables even richer while destroying the economy and well-being of the people whom they rule must be icing on the cake since many billionaires seem to subscribe to the WEF theory that a planet with only 500,000 people on it is ideal. PT Barnum was right, ” There’s a sucker born every minute. ”
Meanwhile, while Aus. closes coal mines and puts its workers on the dole, China will continue on its merry way building new coal fired power plants every week at home and abroad.
CNN Report: China Proudly Going Coal (clean, new generation plants at forefront)
October 22, 2019
https://www.masterresource.org/china-international/cnn-report-china-coal/
EXCERPT
Li Fulong, director of development planning of the National Energy Administration … stopped short of saying China would halt ongoing or future plant constructions. “We have developed clean and efficient coal-fired generating units, that have large capacity, high energy efficiency and low pollution emissions,” he said.
Not only is China’s funding of coal power stations domestically a problem, but a 2019 report … found that Chinese companies were helping or promising to finance at least one in four newly-constructed polluting plants globally. [below]
The article is titled “China struggling to kick its coal habit despite Beijing’s big climate pledges.” Authors David Culver, Lily Lee, and Ben Westcott add to the mainstream confirmation that China is business-as-usual when it comes to coal.
I’m not an Aussie but it sounds to me like Aus. watched the US elect Biden and said in the immortal words of Amercan Rednecks (God bless them all,) “You think that’s something, here, hold my beer!”
It seems to me that people will have to learn the hard way that this net zero nonsense is going to hurt.
Dark times are coming.
I was impressed watching Sky News last night when a guest who is an environmentalist (Green) talked about why Australia must give up on the transition to wind and solar energy, she showed photographs of a hill in NTH QLD being prepared for a wind turbine installation and the loss of trees and other vegetation resulting in bar earth as an example of the environmental damage.
She recommended modular nuclear generators and converting the existing coal fired power stations with nuclear heating modules built for that conversion and imported.
And she talked about the UK Government planning to build more nuclear power stations and using modular nuclear generators from Rolls Royce UK.
Yikes – 8 stations in 8 years. I wonder what the likelihood of that happening is.
cf. France: ’65-’75 over two dozen
Europeans may depend on France, Winter 22-23.
Actually, they are just talking about the possibility of building more nuclear. I’ll believe it when I see it happening!
mention the N word(nuke) and see ABC the greens and the rest come out screaming
in the early warmist days I said the ONLY option of they were serious WAS nuke power and laughed a lot and still am cos they will NOT do it here
Of course there is a ban on nuclear in Australia, to proceed with nuclear power stations and/or modular nuclear generators requires a bipartisan agreement.
And of course State support as well.
that windsetup is IN a designated national reserve “special” place etc
and the aboriginals as usual claim sacred places
Nobody seems to be learning anything. We’ve seen green energy fail in Spain, Germany, etc., etc.
Sure, it doesn’t help when the media keeps repeating things we objectively know aren’t true. Nevertheless, the facts are there. How does this keep happening?
“The previous one was communism” ? I would consider “Climate Change” or at least what’s been made of it as communism with a new name, or at least as an enabling narrative for a communist takeover.
The Lord High Executioner in the town of Titipu had a list. A list of people worthy of losing their head.
Time to make such a list in the land of Oz? Would come in handy when the climate chickens come home to roost big time. And come they will.
and within days of Labor in we have gas and power issues hes doing NOTHING about but talk as he jets off to indonesia with penny WRONG 2+weeks in and away for half that
god help aus for the next 3yrs of mismanagement its almost bidenland here
He did address Chinese fighter endangering Australian recon aircraft.
“Albanese and Wong were on a plane bound for Tokyo, to meet Fumio Kishida, Joe Biden, and Narendra Modi for a Quad meet, a forum of four democracies (Japan, the U.S., India, and Australia) to discuss “security matters”
Why was Canada not there as well?
Since his totalitarian trucker’s beatdown, Trudeau has justifiably not been welcome at anything that involves protecting democracy.
It seems Trudeau was in Chile signing an international treaty with Chile on gender rights, especially indigenous alphabet+ rights….seriously…. he had no time available for the quad meet…
Sorry he did that in Ottawa.
https://ottawa.citynews.ca/national-news/canada-chile-sign-memorandum-of-understanding-to-advance-gender-equality-5448085
Because the “Quad” (see Wikipedia) does not include Canada. Not even NZ. Maybe they were invited and declined to join to avoid the wrath of China.
I’m an Australian voter and I kept telling many people to look at party policies before you lodge a protest vote against the Liberal government but many of the Australians are too ****ing lazy to do any research and realise the realities of what the Labour Party now offer in power in partnership with the greens. I voted for Liberal democrats and for policies that benefited Australians in general (and not for faceless scumbags in WHO or the UN). But , here we are, bent over and ready to be driven home from behind with a red hot poker stick 10 foot long. To my fellow, dumb and stupid aussies, you have made your bed and you can now sleep in it.
Same problem we have here in US where the “independent voters” can’t seem to notice that every time the Democrats are in charge of anything that make it worse. This time they elected a senile man without considering for whom he was the front man. All those complaining now about the worst president every got what they voted for.
Yes and it’s all too late to have buyers remorse when gas is 8 dollars a gallon. The American voters were even told what was going to happen and still dementia Joe was elected…….well, and some very questionable vote tallying that doesn’t look right but that’s a topic for another day.
Just to be clear…
80%+ of Australians did not vote for any significant climate agenda.
.
The ‘winning’ party, that won with just 32% of the primary vote (vs a 36% primary vote for their main opponents) campaigned on a platform of 30 policy points – non of which was labelled ‘climate change’.
Climate change actions was a 2nd/3rd tier aspect to just two of those 30 policy points.
.
Climate Change was an election platform in 2010, 2013, 2016 and 2019 and each and every time LABOR lost.
.
Labor campaigned on lowering the price of power – only to throw up it’s hands in their first week to claim they can nothing about increasing prices, despite their reticence to implement a trigger provided by the previous government to ensure that gas is allocated for onshore needs rather than export.
In that very first week energy providers announced an average increase of 10%.
Not to mention the fact that Australia is committed to ‘net zero carbon’ by 2050 – which (based on 2015) means a total reduction of just 13% across the next 28 years.
Not committed at all, no formal commitment entered into, PM Morrison referred to “an aspirational goal” and based on development of new technology and no damage to the economy.
“We don’t need about 12 weeks of procedures like in the U.S.”
To be clear, the actual date of the Presidential election in 2020 was December 14th. In the U.S. the people do not directly elect the President. The “election day” in November is to select Electors who will then vote for the President, which they did on December 14th. However, those elector votes are not counted until Jan 6th. So 2 weeks from the actual vote count until the new President is sworn in.
Technically, yes, but electors almost never defy the will of the people. And over 3 weeks to count elector votes? I am not critical, just stating the facts here. Australia is too fast and the U.S. too slow.
“Australia Commits Climate Suicide”
Well, it’s nice to have some company
In many State elections, the Liberals had more extreme climate policy than Labor. Federally there was little difference between Labor and Liberal. There is no conservative party in Australia at the moment. That may change, but there is little evidence.
As a consequence of Labor and Liberal policy, a week after the election, our electricity and gas grids started there inevitable collapse.
And still the woke egged on by a few rich investors are calling for more Renewables to prop up our failing base load power. Australians cannot learn. We are too arrogant as a whole.
Step 1 – Albo announces Australia climate capital of the world
Step 2 – Albo cries out “Dude, where’s my gas”, as he pursues a gas reservation policy on local gas producers.
It’s okay Albo can crawl to Adam “the Nutcase” Bandt to bring Scarborough Gas Project online.
https://www.afr.com/politics/federal/mcgowan-defends-scarborough-gas-project-for-lowering-emissions-20220525-p5aoh8
Australia welcome to the ‘Third World’. California has elected success Democratic and Republican “Climate Change” advocates (snake oil salesmen) and the result is telling. Shortage of electricity due to lack of power generation. [CA gets over 50% of its electric power from other States.] As a result, we’ve had success years of power cut backs – ‘brown outs’ and ‘black outs’. Continuing on this trajectory will accelerate the move of industry and people out of the State. Inconsistent power is not the answer to creating jobs, higher incomes, and reducing emissions. The number one major product flying of the shelves at Home Depot is back up [Honda] electricity generators powered by gasoline or diesel. When they take away those, people will just buy wood which will pollute the atmosphere even more. The ‘Climate Change’ zealots will create even more pollution because people will always have an alternative, albeit an expensive one.
Regarding the Vaclav Klaus quote, it’s telling that the same people who pushed communism before, are pushing the Climate Emergency now.
One thing that needs to be pointed out, is that the party being called “conservative” in this article would be to the left of most Democrats a few years ago.
Yes, Gramscian Marxists now instead of Leninists. But Marxists all the same. Neo-Marxists we call them (that includes Cultural Marxism).
Remember Jung’s Psychic Epidemics?
Indeed, it is becoming ever more obvious that it is not famine, not earthquakes, not microbes, not cancer but man himself who is man’s greatest danger to man, for the simple reason that there is no adequate protection against psychic epidemics, which are infinitely more devastating than the worst of natural catastrophes.
The supreme danger which threatens individuals as well as whole nations is a psychic danger. Reason has proved itself completely powerless, precisely because its arguments have an effect only on the conscious mind and not on the unconscious.
The greatest danger of all comes from the masses, in whom the effects of the unconscious pile up cumulatively and the reasonableness of the conscious mind is stifled. Every mass organization is a latent danger just as much as a heap of dynamite is. It lets loose effects which no man wants and no man can stop.
It is therefore in the highest degree desirable that a knowledge of psychology should spread so that men can understand the source of the supreme dangers that threaten them. Not by arming to the teeth, each for itself, can the nations defend themselves in the long run from the frightful catastrophes of modern war. The heaping up of arms is itself a call to war. Rather must they recognize those psychic conditions under which the unconscious [tsunami-like] bursts the dykes of consciousness and overwhelms it.
Carl Jung, The Undiscovered Self
Lots of great discussion about this article. Much of it is about who and/or what is to blame for Australians voting for an economic and social suicide pact based on the fraudulent CAGW scam. I am not overstating the malfeasance of those who keep perpetrating this nonsense as too much time and too many failed predictions have passed at this point for any of the main proponents to be ignorant of the fact that what they are predicting is ridiculous and not scientifically supported.
The discussions remind me of the Swiss cheese model of failure in industrial process engineering. Major failures in industrial processes that have oversized consequences are often seen as the culmination of many small failures that, on their own, would have minor or no adverse consequences. We all experience similar outcomes in our own lives. Being stranded on an unused desert highway with a flat tire and no water, food or ability to call for help could be such an outcome. Any number of small errors if they had not occurred might make the event benign but if all occur together you might end up food for the buzzards. The list of small things that could prevent tragedy includes checking the tire pressure before travel, ensuring an inflated spare and tools are in the vehicle, stocking food and water just in case, using a more populated route, ensuring a charged cell phone and telling others your route and when you are expecting to arrive.
I suspect this Swiss cheese model is a reasonable way to look at our current catastrophe of logic that could pull down our modern functioning civilizations. The list of all the failings that must be in place for us to get to our current sad state is long: failing and unskilled political leadership, entrenched unintelligent bureaucrats without accountability or adequate oversight, a failing academic system that no longer works within a scientific framework but rather is driven by financial and professional incentives which have nothing to do with science, a bevy of massively wealthy autocrats who can afford to buy policies that are self serving but bad for middle class and poor, an education system that is captured by socially progressive nonsense and has long ago lost interest in teaching critical thinking and basic intellectual skills, a public that is fascinated by entertainment and bored by real facts and which votes emotionally for every next shiny thing, a press corps and social media that are all about selling advertising and currying favour with political celebrities, and finally, decades of success that made it easy to live well with only modest effort and little critical thought.
In short there is a lot of blame to share around. And, just as in the industrial model, there are many starting points where a bit of effort and correction could change the course of history dramatically without having to fix every error up front. If we allow our civilization to collapse because of an entirely false belief in a climate catastrophe caused by our own good fortune then we will all be to blame.
re: “the logic and evidence opposing the climate change narrative”
Yep, just like the “logic and evidence” opposing the evolution narrative.
And the “logic and evidence” opposing the heliocentric solar system narrative.
The whole thing reminds me of RAKE. Clive standing in for Australia.
The Liberals made the mistake of not offering an alternative to the lunatic left. In fact, tried to compete with them on their home issues. Stupid. Also pandered to the covid 19 bed wetters too much as well. Hopefully, they will learn from this and stop trying to be trendies. Because that is all they were doing.
Also, for a single-article analysis of the big picture, there’s “Climategate: history’s message” by Mencius Moldbug.