Category Archives: Australian Response

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18 July 2015, The Conversation, Australia’s ‘Carnival of Coal’ – can you feel the love? As the latest State of the Climate report reaffirms 2014 to be “the hottest on record”, the NSW Liberal Party is pressing ahead with plans for a “Carnival of Coal” in August. The party’s upper house whip, Peter Phelps, has appealed to members to download a sticker for MP office doors in support of the upcoming carbon love-in. It says: I loved carbon before it was coal. The Liberal paleo-love for coal, which Tony Abbott has declared “good for humanity”, is at least a point of differentiation with Labor. Labor does not promote such slogans at all – even if, in Victoria, the Andrews Labor government is still issuing coal exploration licences. Both parties are capable of romancing the coal industry. But Liberal parties around the country have had much more success in convincing voters that either coal is more important than climate, or have decided that – with a population drip-fed on attention-deficit-consumerism and its reality television advertorials – their connection can be comfortably sublimated. Whatever its form, the love for coal in Australia is going to end badly, like all relationships based on fantasy. To slightly misquote a 19th-century philosopher: the demand to give up the illusion that coal is good for humanity is the demand to give up a condition which needs such an illusion. Read More here

 

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17 July 2015, RenewEconomy, States reject Coalition and cross-bench crack-down on wind farms: State and territory environment ministers this week unanimously rejected a push by the Federal Coalition government and cross-bench Senators to regulate noise from wind turbines in the same way as pollution from coal fired generators, and to introduce uniform planning rules for wind farms.The proposals were presented by Federal environment minister Greg Hunt at a meeting of state and territory ministers on Wednesday. They part of a deal struck between the Coalition and the cross-bench Senators who oppose wind farms, and want tighter rules on their development. The cross-benchers wanted wind farm “noise” to be treated in the same way as the emission of particulates from coal mines and power plants, smoke stacks from factories and vehicle exhausts, and included in the suite of National Environment Protection Measures. The states rejected this unanimously, along with a proposal presented by Hunt for wind farm guidelines to become national-based rather than state-based, another recommendation from the draft release of the Senate inquiry into wind farms chaired by anti-wind Senator John Madigan. All the state insisted that planning was a matter for the states, and were not interested. Read More here

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15 July 2015, The Monthly, Of Clowns & Treasurers, Joe Hockey and the myth of Coalition economic management. Economists often speak in Latin, and in Greek. We love to wear folk down with a few deltas and gammas before finishing them off with a bit of ceteris paribus. But one of our best tricks is to use words that sound like English but to which we attach our own very specific meaning. We use simple-sounding words like “efficiency” and “unemployment” to draw the unsuspecting into our conversation. Then we slam the door on their fingers when they admit to thinking that unemployment is measured by the number of people on the dole (it’s not) or that efficiency means reducing waste (not to economists it doesn’t). While economics provides a bunch of simple tools to help break down complicated problems, the language of economics is more frequently used to confound and confuse. Especially when it’s politicians talking about economics. The primary purpose of the econospeak that fills our airwaves, most of which is complete nonsense, is to keep ordinary Australians out of the big debates about tax, fairness, climate change and the provision of essential services. Econospeak is a great way to limit the options on our democratic menu. Would you like a small tax cut and a small cut in services or a big tax cut and a big cut in services? What? You want to spend more money in health and education? You must be mad. Just imagine how “the markets” would react to such a suggestion. The whole strategy has worked a treat for the past few decades. But even the most impenetrable language can’t keep people believing that preventing climate change or letting sick people see a doctor is unaffordable, or that the best way to help the poor is to cut taxes for the rich. A year ago, the Coalition government said we were “living beyond our means” and faced a “budget emergency” that, if not addressed, would lead us “into the eye of an economic storm”. Sound scary? Relax. Joe Hockey did. This year there is no budget emergency. Indeed, during the May budget speech Treasurer Hockey was decidedly chipper. In 12 months he shifted from doom and gloom to urging everyone to look on the bright side of life. He used his budget speech to tell Australians to “have a go” and after the recent interest rate cut he urged us to borrow up big. Read More here

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13 July 2015, The Guardian, Abbott government extends renewable energy investment ban to solar power. Clean Energy Finance Corporation banned from investing in small-scale solar projects in move industry claims is ‘revenge politics’ that will strangle the sector: A directive banning the Clean Energy Finance Corporation (CEFC) from investing in existing wind technology will also apply to small-scale solar projects, a move that will effectively throttle the industry, the Australian Solar Council said. The federal government on Sunday confirmed that the $10bn CEFC will no longer invest in wind power, instead focussing on “emerging technologies”.

“It is our policy to abolish the Clean Energy Finance Corporation because we think that if the projects stack up economically, there’s no reason why they can’t be supported in the usual way,” Abbott told reporters in Darwin. “But while the CEFC exists, what we believe it should be doing is investing in new and emerging technologies – certainly not existing windfarms. “This is a government which supports renewables, but obviously we want to support renewables at the same time as reducing the upward pressure on power prices,” the prime minister said. “We want to keep power prices as low as possible, consistent with a strong renewables sector.”