LNG in Asia is being put to the sword. Newcastle coal is following:
European gas prices are falling even faster:
This is equivalent to around AUD13Gj net back equivalent.
Given that Europe is massively short of gas, and Australia has an abundance of it, why is the local price only $1Gj cheaper than Europe at $12Gj?
The plundering gas export cartel, of course.
Which is, once again, forcing up electricity prices:
These rising energy costs are the death knell of manufacturing. Susan Ley made some good points yesterday:
In pursuit of the Albanese industrial doctrine, one of the very first actions taken by the Prime Minister was to rip up the Coalition’s $1bn Modern Manufacturing Initiative. It was a real program putting real dollars into real manufacturing projects, securing real jobs. Albanese axed it.
In its place, Labor promised a $15bn National Reconstruction Fund that would work like a state bank buying into manufacturing businesses.
…But with just more than a year to go until the next election, this fund has yet to invest a single cent in a single Australian business.
Businesses can’t even apply for funding on the government’s website.
Almost a year after it passed the parliament, the NRF is still without a chief executive.
…Labor’s industrial policy vacuum has real consequences. Just like Albanese’s promises to deliver cheaper electricity and cheaper mortgages, the promise that Australia would be making more things at home is dead in the water.
…Just halfway into the 2023-24 financial year, 243 manufacturing businesses have already become insolvent. In 2021 across the same period this number was in the double digits.
Too right. We need cheaper energy.
Sadly, there is no Coalition policy to produce it, either.
Also, one must observe that the Coalition in power did more to throw manufacturing into the sea than Labor ever did via cancelled car subsidies, gas shocks and housing bubbles.
It’s good to hold Albo’s dills to account. It’s better to offer a solution.
