Yesterday the government announced it was handing $1.5 billion to its fossil fuel donors, gratis.
Labor backed the handout — it too is a recipient of fossil fuel donations — and the media didn’t bat an eyelid.
David Crowe in Nine newspapers at least reported it, noting that it was part of the government’s campaign to wrest Solomon from Labor and that Barnaby Joyce made a false claim about the funding — not to mention that the government had approved the sale of the existing Darwin port to a Chinese company in 2015, which now looks like a major strategic blunder given the subsequent deterioration of relations with China.
That was far better reporting than an effort from Seven News that was simply a rehash of Joyce’s media release. But at least it covered it. Guardian Australia covered the Joyce gaffe angle as well. Otherwise, crickets.
The media silence is state capture in action. Indeed the whole handout is a cracking example of why Australia is a carbon state, not a democracy.
Leaving aside the fossil fuel aspect, the handout is simple pork-barrelling. Despite Joyce’s effort to pretend the project has been somehow approved by Infrastructure Australia, it isn’t even at the stage where it can be assessed. Not merely does no one know the costs and benefits of the project, no one knows what it will cost because it lacks any detail. All to try to win Solomon — a possibility now undermined by Labor, within hours, saying it would back the project.
Bipartisan pork-barrelling it still pork-barrelling.
If the project follows the same course as other large projects funded by the government, like the disastrous inland rail project, it will double in cost and more — even before factoring in the cost blowouts going on across major infrastructure projects in Australia due to a lack of appropriately skilled engineers.
But the project is principally for the gas industry, which is keen to begin exploiting NT gas reserves and ship them into burgeoning world markets where Russian gas is suddenly no longer wanted. In normal circumstances, the gas industry would pay for the construction of the infrastructure it will use to earn billions in export revenue (and on which it pays little to no tax or resource rents). Fortunately Liberal and Labor are queueing up to hand it the money to do it.
The beneficiaries will be Australia’s big gas companies — Woodside, Santos, Origin Energy. Santos and Origin are big proponents of fracking in the Beetaloo Basin in the Northern Territory, which the government is also subsidising. All three also have strong financial and personal ties with both sides of politics — though they’re stronger with the Coalition.
But as with so many other government handouts to the fossil fuel industry, the Joyce announcement has received minimal media coverage. The Beetaloo Basin handouts, the constantly ballooning budget for the inland rail project — which is in essence a subsidy for coal transport, and its extension to Gladstone to enable coal exports through that port — all received much the same coverage as the Darwin port statement. The lack of any rigorous assessment of the funding and the provision of subsidies to major political donors goes unremarked.
Indeed, given the Darwin port funding and the Gladstone inland rail extension were both given to the Nationals for not jacking up too much about Scott Morrison’s risible net zero by 2050 target (which, like climate change itself, has vanished as an election issue), the irony of subsidies for fossil fuel industries being the price for a useless net zero target would appear to be media-worthy, but so far only Crikey has pointed it out.
This is a crucial part of the process of state capture — when the mainstream media becomes part of the process. Far from being watchdogs, the media end up, as Seven did, acting as stenographers and propagandists for fossil fuel interests. Or, like the rest, they simple ignore it.
What would in other countries be fairly blatant corruption of government by fossil fuel companies is treated here as business as usual. Because, tragically, it is.
“What would in other countries be fairly blatant corruption of government by fossil fuel companies is treated here as business as usual. Because, tragically, it is”.
I have a sneaking suspicion the Iraq war might have had something to do with oil and a nudge nudge wink wink from fossil fuel companies. Corruption of governments by fossil fuel companies is everywhere.
The noisiest argument for dumping fossil fuels in favor of renewables is environment related. However the most compelling benefit for dumping fossil fuels is removing its corrupting affect on political systems around the world and funding many of the most objectionable governments in the world.
If fossil fuels were replaced by renewables, do you think there would be less corruption, exploitation and greed, Mr Phullpot-Gardyloo?
Yes, because
a) a big part of renewables is making your own via your rooftop solar.
b) renewable industry does not rely on an ecosystem of paid pundits and bribed politicians.
“renewable industry does not rely on an ecosystem of paid pundits and bribed politicians.”
Are you sure? It certainly relies on fragile and morally compromised supply chains that lead back into China for manufacturing, and to exploitative and dangerous cobalt mining in Africa. What’s more, for the UK, for example, to replace all UK-based cars today with electric vehicles would take 207,900 tonnes cobalt, 264,600 tonnes of lithium carbonate, at least 7,200 tonnes of neodymium and dysprosium, in addition to one 2m tonnes copper. This represents just under twice the total annual world cobalt production, nearly the entire world production of neodymium, three quarters the world’s lithium production and 12% of the world’s copper production during 2018.
In reference to item B), you need to add “yet” before the full stop.
Yep.
Democratising the means of energy production certainly will.
Absolutely because, apart from the points DavidArthur has made, the fact that they can (and should) be on much smaller scale makes them much less attractive to monopolists & greedheads.
Thus much less vulnerable to take over, manipulation and the resultant, malign social control resulting in “...corruption, exploitation ad greed…”.
Thanks so much Bernard. Every media outlet in the nation should be screaming the two phrases “carbon state” and “state capture”. But silence. You make a key point that a ‘sine qua non’ element of state capture is media capture – which we sure now have in Australia.
Perhaps the only extra point to make on the topic of this latest boondoggle is that all those gas giants – plus Empire Energy, which deserves a special mention here – are riding roughshod over the wishes of the traditional owners in the NT Beetaloo Basin, whose lands will be destroyed by the mad rush to frack the place.
If Mr. Keane’s analysis is correct, then the choice this election is straightforward. If you want climate action and lean towards the Left, vote Greens. If you want climate action and you lean towards the right, vote Teal … assuming you have candidates of either persuasion running in your electorate, of course.
It probably won’t prevent one of the big two winning government, but it might result in enough climate voices in parliament to get something done.
What would you like to see the next government do in the next parliament, Graeski, ideally?
They say Australian’s like a joke .Scott Morrison has a great joke as deputy ,the man who calls him a liar and a bully the one and only grand joke Barnaby Joyce .
Barnaby thought a scientific control for cervical cancer would make his 12-year-old daughter promiscuous. Certainly a deep thinker our Barnaby
So how does this fit with the fact that China has a 99 year lease of Darwin Port – does this put a Chinese company in the position of controlling the new facility in any way?
It doesn’t and China doesn’t lease the Port of Darwin anyway (get it right please Bernard). A Chinese private company has a 99 Year Operational Lease of the Port of Darwin and manages the Ports operations on a commercial basis. No different to an Australian, UK, Japanese or US company doing the same.
I think he’s trying to link the spend on fossil fuels with the (very conveniently timed I might add) announcement to build an additional Port in the Darwin area (presumably to handle the expected military traffic to the proposed future US Base). Barnyard is in full Khaki Election mode.