Rarely has the gap between political reality and fantasy peddled by a government and press gallery been wider.
Today we have yet another round of the “inching towards 2050” game, with Treasurer Josh Frydenberg — the man who used to be the next prime minister — making the anodyne observation that capital markets are moving more quickly than the government on climate (and being applauded by press gallery journalists for doing so) and speculation that the Nationals will agree to a deal on a 2050 net-zero target, doubtless in exchange for yet more billions of taxpayer dollars.
In the real world, Energy Minister Angus Taylor is still trying to push through his “CoalKeeper” tax — which would require every household to pay up to $400 a year to keep coal-fired power stations going — in a meeting with state energy ministers today. 2050 in the streets, CoalKeeper in the sheets, as it were, with the press gallery dutifully averting its collective eyes.
Taylor is facing growing difficulties with his tax. Victoria made its position clear last week when its Energy Minister Lily D’Ambrosio said Victoria wouldn’t support it. Yesterday she repeated that: “Victoria will not sign up to a scheme that delays the transition to clean energy or locks in outdated technology… A capacity mechanism that only incentivises new investment in zero emissions technologies would be welcome.” The ACT will oppose it too.
What started off as Taylor’s plan to funnel subsidies to the Coalition’s fossil-fuel donors may end up only supporting new storage infrastructure, if it gets that far.
You can see why Taylor and the Morrison government are so anxious to find a way to subsidise coal-fired power. Yesterday EnergyAustralia flagged it had brought forward the closure date of the Mt Piper coal-fired plant in NSW to 2040, and might bring it even further forward. It says it wants out of coal by 2040, but the timing of yesterday’s announcement is clearly designed to encourage support for CoalKeeper among the states — especially New South Wales, where Energy Minister Matt Kean has emphasised trying to keep prices down.
CoalKeeper isn’t the only way the Morrison government is backing coal — at the behest of Nationals it is likely to add another multibillion-dollar extension of its inland rail line to extend it hundreds of kilometres to Gladstone. In a document now well-hidden on the Infrastructure Department’s website, the complete lack of any case for such an extension has been detailed in a “pre-feasibility study” of the idea, that brutally concludes “an extension to Gladstone would not be economically viable”.
However, it did note that “the expansion of inland rail to Gladstone, via an inland route, could potentially extend the port’s coal hinterland and ultimately improve the region’s export opportunities” and that “the inland route via the Surat Basin has the potential to open up numerous thermal coal deposits for export”, though the cost of shipping coal through Gladstone would be very expensive.
Given that the existing, loss-making $15 billion inland rail project will act as a subsidy for coal exports, an inland rail extension to Gladstone would further confirm that the entire $20 billion (minimum) project is based on increasing coal exports.
Again, that’s a nuance that has bypassed the press gallery. Like carbon capture and storage, inland rail is all about feigning climate action while encouraging the continued use of fossil fuels at current disastrous levels.
That will presumably continue when Morrison boldly announces a net zero by 2050 (hey, what about 2045 to make it look really ambitious), a wholly inadequate target that will do nothing to address the climate emergency, and stand in contrast to other countries committing to significantly reduce, even halve, emissions in the next eight years.
The fantasy and the reality, with voters being urged to ignore the latter and concentrate on the former.
Poor Josh, thinking we’re all obtuse enough that we’d vote for him …..
In concert with a sizeable lump of our media.
I have come to despise the parliamentary press gallery. With few exceptions, a fawning chorus of pretentious sychophants who uncritically spruik government pronouncements and think they are somehow superior…..
Hear, hear. Can’t argue with that.
Political activists on behalf of the LNP government masquerading as journalists….
I still think it’s hilarious that JoFry has styled himself one of the Coalition’s “hard men”. The phrase ‘Like being savaged by a dead sheep’ comes to mind.
Dennis Healey on debating with Geoffrey Howe who then sharpened up a bit when he knifed Thatcher as her exChancellor.
Josh was savaged by Jay Wetherill and left for dead in Adelaide. His resurrection is temporary.
Ah yeah, good times. My esteem for Jay leapt enormously from that. He had the advantage of being right, but his demolition of Josh was beautiful to watch.
klewso, I live in his electorate and, sadly, I have to inform you that over 50% of the electorate are indeed that obtuse!!!
His margin is only around 6% so don’t despair.
Further ground has been lost since then.
This line gave me a laugh: …Treasurer Josh Frydenberg — the man who used to be the next prime minister ...
I thought it was Christian Porter who used to be next prime minister. But maybe I am confused and he was simply in the line up of future LP PMs.
I trust that nobody has told Timmy “Freedom Boy” Wilson about the ambitions of those other two pretenders?
Al Gore popularised the quip, it was his opening line when spruiking his “Inconvenient Troothiness” hucksterizm.
Hopefully there’s a looong line up of used-to-be future LNP Prime Ministers
There certainly are on the Labor side, from Calwell to Bumbler Beezelblubber, yay even unto the utterly unworthy like Shorten.
I suspect that Jo$h may be angling to be the next Liberal leader, assuming he gets re-elected! If he manages to sweet talk the electors in Kooyong, he may well be the next Leader of the Opposition. He has left his run too late to have any credibility in starting to comment on the ‘cost of not moving to net zero’.
Do you think that maybe this announcement is because he has dawned that he might lose his seat?
I definitely think so Jane. I’m sincerely hoping he loses his seat. Kooyong used to be the jewel in the liberal crown. To lose that would indicate how far they have moved from earlier versions of liberalism.
I live in the Kooyong electorate and will be doing my bit for the greater good and definitely not vote for Joshie. Australia deserves better than having a village idiot as the federal treasurer.
Some of my friends are also in the Kooyong electorateand are going their best to get rid of Jo$h.
Go Bill. Take all my energy and use it to vote that clown out. I can’t work out which is more egregious, Josh thinking he’s PM material or Porter. I wouldn’t piss on either of them if they were on fire.
Send him to Qld, he’d feel right at home in the deep north. One minor setback is that he has been heard to speed in coherent sentences.
The next election will be interesting with the rise of independent candidates referencing climate issues. This is also gaining traction in some country areas that are National strongholds. Remember people are moving from the cities into these areas so the voting dynamics are changing.
Sharing similar thoughts, Anne B, as you will see from the comment I was composing at the same time as you.
Frydenburg’s announcement is for the voters in Kooyong and no one else. Until the Government commits to an actual policy to reduce our greenhouse gas production, it’s all hot air.
Is there a “Voices in Kooyong” yet? I suspect the liberal luvvies there will be very displeased with Morrison/Joyce efforts re global warming to date and will be looking for somewhere else to park their vote. Of course Labor and the Greens would be a vote too far, so they will be looking for the New Liberals and independents. Watch on election night to see how the independents fare in Kooyong, Flinders, Higgins and Goldstein. Not that it means anything. They will go out on a limb and send a stern message to Frydenberg, Hunt, Allen and Wilson by voting for an independent, then park their second preferences with the incumbents, and tell themselves they are on the front line of protest.
There is a “Voters in Kooyong “ ,and they have been out and about for some months. In the last State election ,Pesutto ,one of the very few decent Liberals lost his seat of Hawthorn to Labor. It is one part of the Kooyong electorate ,and there are possibilities for the coming Federal election. Josh has been anti Victorian pandemic policies and lots of people cannot see why the big corporations and private schools and churches should not pay back over payments. We live in interesting times.