Even after Secret Harbour, Albo still sledges hapless voters as “misinformed”

By the Stig, an anonymous beltway insider

Albo scorns the voting mass who query his immigration (and climate) directions. Post the Secret Harbour ON surge, he’s still blaming them as “misinformed” or racist. 

It’s a fashion among Australia’s governing classes to yearn for halcyon days. When supposedly curated and agreed “facts” could be packaged by willing media and spooned out to the lower orders, take it or leave it.

Here’s former ANU Vice-Chancellor Brian Schmidt sighing for some lost era of “curated” and “homogeneous” facts before AI and bad-old social media. Check ANU professor Jill Shepard rejoicing that the “stakeholder” classes get to decide policy for who’d want to know “whatever is happening” in ordinary voters’ minds.

Just recently, Albo’s woke Governor-General tut-tutted that democracy no longer has a “shared set of facts”. Australian adults, she shudders, no longer “understand” democracy. “New migrants” and schoolchildren could help them out.

A similar command mentality as regards the “facts” imbues the new Climate Change Authority misinformation paper. Labor’s Misinformation Bill was defeated, but their arrogance is undimmed. 

A politicised Treasury powers Albo’s population/climate bureaucracy

Albo is typed by his journalistically-assisted Australian media – also by progressive advocacies – as a “cautious” reformer. This glosses over key exceptions – immigration/population and energy/climate – where he’s a radical, divisive PM.

Diverging sharply from other Anglosphere nations, he’s taken immigration off the scale with nearly 1.6m net in four years. That’s 65% higher than Rudd-Gillard even. Before 2007, Australia had never exceeded 200,000 in a year. Over 1945-2005, 90,000 annually was about par.

In poll after poll, from COVID times through to now, ordinary voters want much lower immigration. In retaliation, the government (and government media) sledges them as racist – while snowing them with misinformation – much more so than previous governments.

In Labor’s post-truth truths, net migration can’t be managed, yet it’s down 45%, 225,000 is “normal” or long-term average, it was “higher” under the Coalition, (lol) we’ll reduce the visa “backlog”, “skilled” migrants are priority, migration keeps us young, etc.

Who’d now believe these partisans will find the steel and savvy to dial immigration right back?

Nearly all the government’s immigration information (or misinformation) comes from Treasury/ABS and Home Affairs. Unless you count the “Centre for Population” sock-puppet that Morrison created inside Treasury.

As the CCA paper notes, there are “multiple” agencies fighting (or is it fomenting) climate misinformation. The paper, however, only shows the iceberg’s tip.

Again, Treasury itself is Labor’s key climate-advocacy, purporting a Future Made in Australia (FMiA) whereby net-zero transition will magically make us a renewable energy “superpower”.

But supporting Treasury, are myriad climate/energy agencies, acronyms like AEC, AEIC, AEMC, AEMO, AER, ARENA, CCA, CEF, CEFC, CER, CSIRO, DCCEEW, ICEDS, ISP, NZEA.

Established in 2012 by Gillard’s Labor, CCA itself is Albo’s “independent” adviser on climate change policy, notably our emissions-reduction targets towards nationally determined contributions towards UN net-zero emissions.

It’s now chaired by Matt Kean, who, as NSW Liberal Treasurer and Environment Minister, badgered Morrison over emissions targets and net-zero.

Albo presumes that “misinformation” sits outside government

Ever since the UN sidelined (practical) population control in favour of climate action (less practical), the world has poured untold wealth and ingenuity into carbon research, planning, budgeting, mitigation, measurement, and markets.

This UN prospectus literally claims that global greenhouse gas emissions can be “netted” to zero by 2050 or thereabouts. Year on year, much-reduced human emissions [A] minus much-increased emissions “captures” [B] would gladly equate to zero.

In 2022, the UN IPCC asserted the world could halve emissions by 2030. But they quietly admit that ever-growing population and (per capita) GDP are key drivers of growing emissions and CO2 levels, which keep hitting new records, as do global fossil fuel consumption.

Earth’s carbon-cycle, though huge, mops up only half of human emissions. Even climate policy insiders query human capacity to geoengineer the mega emissions “captures” for B to eventually nix A. And even then, would that ever “save” Australia’s wracked environment or neatly contain global temperatures and natural calamities?

Despite these overwhelming cautions, the paper proceeds from a position of serene certainty. Correct in its climate information, virtuous government is being undermined by bad external actors.

Yet the paper begins with disclaimers. This is general information only, not representing national policy, with no liability accepted for accuracy.

It’s assumed, not directly stated, that misinformation’s always down to non-government sources. These are said to be “well resourced” but shadowy in their funding, this contributing to “project delays, higher costs and community division”.

Apart from an OECD playbook, the key citation for these assertions is a Labor-Greens-dominated Senate Inquiry. Nor has misinformation much to do with the farcical overruns on the Snowy 2.0 project, the face-saving Tomago smelter bailout, Albanese’s failed $275-lower energy-bills promise, and the lengthy necessity of his energy rebates.

It’s claimed that the “playing field” is tilted unfairly in favour of non-government climate information, or misinformation. AI and social media are scapegoated as bad actors.

In fact, the government and the stakeholders, including a virtual clean-sweep of our universities and scientists, support and proselytise the net-zero agenda. Although the Liberal opposition now pushes back more than it did under Dutton or Ley.

Far from dominating, informed concern around the renewable “transition” or net-zero is pursued by scattered media (including this one) and lobby groups.

The paper is striking for its few and selective numbers. Like, “78%” of Australians rate climate change as important. Fair enough, but other surveys also suggest they’re not keen to pay heavily towards net zero and would rather have cheaper power.

Australians also underestimate our “46%” renewables-powered electricity generation. OK, it’s a notable achievement, but what about the backstory?

Ambitiously or is that unrealistically, the government targets 82% renewable energy by 2030, with a 62-70% reduction on 2005 emissions by 2035. As CCA itself reports, getting there leans heavily on the Capacity Investment Scheme for renewables, but the CIS is under a cloud, far removed from transparency and accountability.

Also, much like the world at large, 80% or more of our total energy consumption is still fossil fuels. Much of this pertains to vital industry and transport sectors that are way harder to “decarbonise” than the showcase electricity sector. Unlike in yesteryears, these fuels are now nearly all imported, further challenging our sovereign capabilities.

Albo’s still slagging voters as “misinformed” or racist

CCA positions itself as the “wholesaler” in a healthy “information ecosystem”, arguing misinformation “thrives” when people don’t have strong views.

Reading between the lines, their health-concept seems to be an ecosystem faithfully believing in all-sectors renewable transition on an “orderly” progression to net zero and trusting voters relying on government information.

In their own selfish interests, Labor would do better to dial down the condescending climate rhetoric (only kept viable by our massive coal, iron, and gas exports) and reduce our heavy dependence on an immigration economy. It worked for Canada; now it’s thrashing our economic growth, despite sending population growth negative.

Sure, the renewables rollout to date far exceeds Australia’s policies or expectations of 25 years ago. Today, most politicians outside of ON would support renewables front and centre in our future energy mixes.

Always early adapters, if not inventors, Australians of all classes have piled on to home solar, while home batteries and EVs become more affordable over time.

But are China and India strongly “decarbonising” industry for net-zero or having a lend of Australia? At this website alone, there’s vigorous debate, not Labor’s information certainty. For all the renewables vigour in the electricity sector, can Australia really “decarbonise” its heavily fuel-reliant industry and transport sectors?

Recall, industrial titan Germany freely admits now that the Green ideological push to rapidly shut down their “bad” nuclear and coal baseload energy fleet was a blunder.

Just in the couple years since Labor launched FMiA, AI has become hugely more important. Ironically, the government still casts AI as a bad actor in their information wars but another renewables miracle for our economic futures.

They cling to the fiction that AI centres will (or should) all be powered by their endless “additional” supplies of virtuous renewable energy. They’re not reading the world vibe that AI labour-substitution is undermining their world-beating immigration.

The more imperial Albo snows and scorns voters on immigration and climate, the greater his electoral vulnerability. Stubbornly, he’s still pinning the rise of ON onto hard-right “populism” and misinformation-disinformation – and never his own policies.