If Albo kills the energy cartels, the LNP is dead

By in Australian LNG, Australian Politics

| 32 comments

It’s clear that the Dutton opposition is deeply confused by its own energy ambitions:

Speaking to the ABC at the weekend the opposition leader, Peter Dutton, was asked repeatedly if he would support the Albanese government’s target of a 43% cut by 2030.

“Our view is that, er.. we will end up … erm … people haven’t put a figure on it but I would suspect we will end up with something like 35% with just what we were doing,” Dutton said, saying the Coalition would not back any legislation that put the Albanese government’s target into law.

Senior Liberal senator Anne Ruston has said it will be “up to the party room” to debate its climate policy. Nationals leader David Littleproud said on Wednesday he supported the target the Coalition took to the last election.

Tasmanian federal MP Bridget Archer says the 2030 target should be looked at, saying “in terms of what the number is, I suppose that is arbitrary to a point” and what was important was how targets were achieved.

Caught between culture wars and a progressive electorate, the troglodytes don’t know which way to go.

There is only one thing that can rescue them from this impasse: relentlessly high energy prices. If Labor allows the current crisis to roll on then it will unite the Coalition around resisting decarbonisation all over again as Albo government polls collapse.

I have previously mused that the coming global recession might help ease the Aussie energy crisis but, increasingly, that appears unlikely. Indeed, recent weeks have seen a material intensification in global coal and gas market strife even as all other commodities are pricing for a slowdown in growth (black is thermal coal and orange is Asian spot gas):

Russia is squeezing European gas supplies even more as weapon of war:

And the EU has not yet even cut off coal, which happens in August.

In short, there is no end in sight to the war-profiteering of Aussie coal and gas exporters at home. Indeed, it’s looking more and more like it will go stronger for longer.

This is going to embed energy inflation into the Australian economy, drive the RBA higher than households can handle, crash house prices and render the entire decarbonisation program vulnerable to a populist backlash from the Dutton opposition.

Conversely, if Albo acts with either domestic reservation for coal and gas, export levies, or super-profits taxes, he will outflank Dutton & Co with cheap energy prices, reliability, and decarbonisation. The LNP will come apart at the seams.

I know the worry is that a new Labor fight with the miners will rerun Rudd’s RSPT debacle. But this is rubbish.

The companies at stake are not national champions like BHP, RIO and FMG. They are blood-sucking multinational planet destroyers like Exxon, Shell, and Chinese oil majors Sinopec and CNOOC. Australians have no emotional connection to them. And if the Coalition wants to sign on with them all the better!

Moreover, nobody can plausibly argue that acting to radically reduce energy costs will do economic harm to Australians.

Don’t waste this energy crisis, Albo. You can fix all of the mistakes of the past. You can all but destroy the Coalition for three terms. You can save the economy from a huge shock and put it on an altogether new path of low emissions, cheap and reliable energy plus manufacturing advantage.

All you have to do is grow some balls.

Houses and Holes
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Comments

    • AK

      We need more people from the burbs or the country, and less people from inner city Sydney/Melb/… as members. Labor’s members in Western Sydney always seem to be, at least on first glance, better quality than the ones based closer into the city.

      How can the average person expect representation when the member doesn’t even live the day to day life they themselves lead?

      • ErmingtonPlumbingMEMBER

        It always grates me the total lack of recruiting of new members I witness at my ALP.
        I imagine it’s the same with the Libs, Nats and Greens.
        The leadership apparatchiks and MPs fear a large and active rank and file demanding greater control over party decision making. Such a thing would threaten the control they have over their own careers and choice of future benefactors.
        Whenever I was at a meeting where the parachuting of more female candidates into safe seats was being discussed Id alway say that’s not fair when 80% of members I see turning up to branch meetings are male.
        Why aren’t we trying to recruit more females into the Rank and file membership I would always go on.
        I would then continue with the questions, “Why have I never seen a serious attempt at recruiting more male OR female members into the Party in the near decade I’ve been a member?
        Wouldn’t 500,000 members, instead of 50,000, help solve a lot of our funding issues?
        It’s not a quest they like asked and I’ve had said to me a number of times by different higher ups that the leadership don’t want to have to answer to a large rank and file.
        Don’t want to have to answer to a rabble.
        Well that’s not very democratic I always shoot back.
        These reasons alone should be reason enough for most citizens (who give a fk about their country) to step up and demand their right to participate.

        https://www.alp.org.au/about/join-labor/

  2. RomulusMEMBER

    They are waiting for the ACCC report – that way they can say hey look its not our idea, these were the recommendations from the competition regulatory body and we are just following it.

    Now the question is whether the ACCC will actually go hard enough recommending gas & coal reservation.

  5. bolstroodMEMBER

    I never saw a privatisation that delivered anything other than less service for $ more.
    Australia must take back ownership and control of it’s natural resources from private interests.
    How many gold platings of the grid are we up to ?
    How many profit taking entities are sucking on the National electricity supply ?
    Why is Gina Rhinehart Australias richest person ?
    What has she done to deserve to be ?
    Whose f#@%ing resources are they ???????????

  6. hnurrMEMBER

    The miners control the country. Labor will not take them on, the most they’ll do is some weak muddle headed gas subsidy to consumers which will feed the miners more, obscure the real problem (price gouging by the gas giants) and destroy the budget.

    And the media? It’s either straight out funded by the miners (murdoch) or so obssessed with woke (ABC -Fairfax) that it is simply incapable of seeing raw economic plutocracy for what it is.

  8. hnurrMEMBER

    Already, all of Fairfax’s commentators and subscribers have gotten totally obsessed with the distraction this is something about green energy vs old energy, when it’s really about a foreign price cartel using monopoly power to gouge and destroy the economy.

      • CarlosMEMBER

        Well bowen does keep saying renewables will fix thing ……. without adding ‘in 5 to 10 yrs.
        He has no feet left, he’s shot both off. Talk about own goals. Cause it’s about renewables, he’s made it so.

      • alwaysanonMEMBER

        A coworker had a 3rd culprit – government intervention. He was like it’s the greens & Labor (even though they’ve only been in for like 5 minutes), it’s renewables and it is not *enough* private sector/markets i.e. too much government meddling going on. When I told him it was actually the private sector run amuck on gas exports without enough regulation like a reservation he wouldn’t believe me. And when he finally 1/2 agreed (I think just to shut me up) he was like “it is a complex issue and *maybe* that is a part of it”.

        The only paper he reads is The Australian so I recon he must be getting this from Murdoch-land…

  9. ColinMEMBER

    “Few today remember or are even aware that leading members of America’s elite, Corporate America, were busily engaged in planning to overthrow the United States government in 1933.” – David Turner, Corporate America’s Failed Coup d’Etat, Jerusalem Post, June 17, 2017

    These undermining tentacles of Greed blurring the lines, are now much further ingrained & globally stronger than ever before, & they may well have already won considering the weak actions of what we just voted in, their “red tie” acolytes under a false alternative “choice”. You Can show us otherwise Albo!

  11. Fishing72MEMBER

    Albo is actually showing courage by staring down electoral rejection and defeat in his brave crusade to maintain the continuum of entrenched corruption in full view of 25 million angry Australians.

    It’s not his courage in question, it’s his integrity.

  13. Max

    “Russia is squeezing European gas supplies even more as weapon of war”

    I must have missed this press release. Russia was heavily sanctioned by the collective West, NordStream 2, fully built and operational, did not receive approval from Germany, some in the the collective West are refusing to purchase gas nominated in rubles, yet it is described as Russia’s aggressive action?

    • RomulusMEMBER

      If you are sticking to that line. The contract is in Euros not Rubles and so it would be Russia that are unilaterally changing the terms of the agreed contract.

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