Well, CoalKeeper looks dead after yesterday’s meeting of energy ministers to address the east coast energy crisis.
Coal and gas haven’t been explicitly excluded from the “capacity mechanism” that forms part of the 11-point plan for the crisis — that’s the proposed mechanism through which energy retailers would pay suppliers for dispatchable power even if it wasn’t used — but the post-meeting communique hinted that it wouldn’t include fossil fuels.
“Energy ministers agreed to advance the work on a capacity mechanism as a priority to bring on renewables and storage to support stability for the national energy market,” it said. It later repeated the reference to “work on a capacity mechanism to support renewables and storage”.
That’s exactly what the capacity mechanism should have always been, but the previous government twisted it into a plan to force households to pay up to $400 a year to keep coal-fired power plants operating even when their expensive output wasn’t needed.
The meeting also outlined a way forwards on energy policy beyond a series of measures designed to address the current energy crunch created by the unreliability of coal-fired power.
Energy ministers agreed the time is right to work together on a new agreement to set the vision for Australia’s energy sector transition to net zero. To this end, energy ministers have tasked energy senior officials to work together intensively ahead of the ministerial meeting in July to consider how a new agreement could reframe and reset existing priorities, frameworks and governance to ensure the sector can chart the course out of the current challenges, and set the sector up for a stable transformation towards decarbonisation.
Stripped of its bureaucracy-speak, that means the goal is that the energy ministers’ meeting next month will consider an agreement between governments on a path to decarbonisation, and officials have only a few weeks to put the basics together.
The first thing to note is that the stand-off of the Angus Taylor era is over — the Commonwealth is now an active and engaged partner in decarbonisation. In the Taylor era, there was incessant and open conflict between the Commonwealth and the states — with the states, and much of the energy industry, deciding to ignore the Commonwealth and get on with decarbonising their energy networks.
Taylor was openly ridiculed by other ministers as he seemed to deliberately sideline himself from energy policy and interjected only to attempt to prop up coal-fired power and criticise the states’ and energy producers’ plans to accelerate renewables investment.
Now the Commonwealth brings the possibility of better coordination across the east coast, Tasmania and South Australia, Labor’s plans for transmission investment, and the potential for additional funding to achieve its higher 2030 emissions reduction goal.
And there’s an urgency to the task. There’s a lot of lost time to make up.
10 years of lost time and opportunity to make up. How Taylor is even still regarded by some as a talent worthy of opposition spokesman on anything is beyond me.
Perhaps it says much about the absolute lack of talent in their ranks.
And the lack of any alternative in his electorate. Who the hell would vote such a recalcitrant, dour liar.
The voters of Hume inflicted him on us.They should be ashamed.
I suspect that the “thinking” runs along the lines of “he might be a stupid, conniving b*stard, but he’s our stupid, conniving b*stard!” See also the electorates of New England and Dickson, to name just two.
No, it’s very much just an old Liberal seat with a bunch of conservative voters. And it’s not as bad as New England, since at least Taylor isn’t a complete imbecile like Joyce – he’s corrupt, conniving and only just barely competent even at being corrupt and conniving, but he doesn’t radiate “I’m a banana” every time he speaks.
Taylor radiates “I’m a boofhead” every time he speaks.
Never forget, the voters of New England dumped Tony Windsor for Barnaby Joyce when he moved from the Senate in 2013.
“There’s nowt so queer as folk.”
Especially rural voters – something to do with the shallowness of the gene puddle?
Well, we had a teal candidate running, who did mange to get 15% and /may/ end up being the second place getter when they finalise the count – if she decides to run again next time he might find himself kicked out.
But definitely, the fact that this is the first time the count has had to go to preferences since he’s been in the seat is pretty dire – it’s been very frustrating.
At least as far back as April 2021, Matt Murfitt co-founded the Vote Angus Out campaign. At some point Penny Ackery became a candidate. Penny’s husband died in April 2022 but she kept on going.
Below is an extract of an email Matt Murfitt sent to supporters/contributors three days after the election:
“While our campaign did not succeed in its initial goal – we were one of the 20 Independent campaigns who had a serious shot. And we gave it everything.
“We had some major challenges in comparison to other independent seats who did manage to pull off wins.
“As a huge geographical seat with an entrenched conservative voting history it was difficult to convince people to doorknock across the electoragte. (Kooyong, for example, knocked on over 20,000 doors). Our initial team was small but it worked hard and we grew rapidly.
“The obvious win was that Penny Ackery amassed 16% of the primary vote. This is no mean feat. And while he will almost certainly squeeze in this time, we eroded Angus Taylor’s vote by 10.3%. That is massive and would be the death knell for the incumbent in many other seats around the country. The seat is no longer ‘safe’. He is now on notice.”
Fair go, he is very talented at stealing our taxes and squirrelling them away in secret offshore accounts..!!
And there was a very viable alternative in his electorate, but there are a lot of wealthy greedy people in the Highlands who quite like the cut of his cloth.
We’re going to have an energy policy!!! 🙂
Everyday since the election, i feel a surge of happiness and relief whenever i see or read an article that reminds me that the government has changed.
Or when you’re watching TV and you reach for the remote after hearing the words ‘prime minister’, only to put it down again, when you realise that the term now refers to Anthony Albanese.
or when you’re not embarrassed when an australian minister goes overseas to a meet someone
Or when you realise that Sky-After-Dark is truly S-A-D and only just not pouring out-of-control vitriol. Actually as I never watch S-A-D, I’d be surprised if they aren’t and losing viewers and revenue – both of which I could live with very happily, for ever after!
We’re treated to a weekly column by Andrew Bolt in the local Murdoch. Rather than pulling his idiotic head in since the election that proved his irrelevance, he has become even shriller and more deranged. Very entertaining. “There is nothing so shrill as a narcissist scorned” – if that did not used to be a well-known maxim, it is now.
The saddest of the sads Paul Murray thinks his bunch of sadists are up for the arse, after the Royal Commission that is.
We can only hope so Gerryinoz. And they call the ABC biased!
Fantastic. Angus, great move , well done
One day this meme will age out of relevance, and I for one will be delirious with joy.
It will never get old!
Angus Taylor deserves to be humiliated.
God knows we’ve tried, but there are some people who just cannot understand why “we” won’t listen to or agree with them and they consider us to be lefties, to be avoided at all costs and kept in our place.