The dirty heart of Frydenpork’s coal push

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Via The Australian:

Energy Minister Josh Frydenberg will meet pro-coal Nationals MPs and visit a coal-fired power station in a tour of marginal Queensland seats as he comes under pressure from the minor Coalition partner to underwrite three new baseload power plants.

Mr Frydenberg will meet ­Nationals MPs Michelle Landry and Ken O’Dowd — two of the most marginal seat holders in the nation — who yesterday questioned the value of Australia ­remaining in the Paris climate treaty and lobbied for a new coal-fired power plant.

The timing of Mr Frydenberg’s trip, in the coming weeks, raises the prospect of the government offering a concession to the ­Nationals, who have raised concerns over the government’s ­national energy guarantee, before the crucial Longman by-election in Queensland on July 28.

As revealed by The Australian yesterday, the Nationals are ­pushing for the creation of a $5 billion fund to allow the government to take out equity in at least three new baseload power stations as the price of their support for the ­NEG.

Operating under a “government-owned company model”, the fund — which is available only to new coal, gas and traditional hydro proposals — would keep any new power stations off ­the budget books by treating them as an investment, replicating the approach taken with the western Sydney airport and inland rail projects.

The electorates of Capricornia and Flynn. One Nation heartland.

This is not conviction or ideology, policy pragmatism or anything else with an external impact. This is pork pure and simple.

One Nation folks love coal and they are threatening in Flynn and Capricornia with 15-20% of support.

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About the author
David Llewellyn-Smith is Chief Strategist at the MB Fund and MB Super. David is the founding publisher and editor of MacroBusiness and was the founding publisher and global economy editor of The Diplomat, the Asia Pacific’s leading geo-politics and economics portal. He is also a former gold trader and economic commentator at The Sydney Morning Herald, The Age, the ABC and Business Spectator. He is the co-author of The Great Crash of 2008 with Ross Garnaut and was the editor of the second Garnaut Climate Change Review.