After yesterday's excess of reptiles, the pond was looking forward to a quiet meditative Sunday, and who better to dull the senses and induce a sense of a wondrous reptile lotos land?
And utterly consumed with sharp distress,
While all things else have rest from weariness?
All things have rest: why should we reptiles toil alone,
We only toil, who are the first of things,
And make perpetual moan,
Still from one sorrow to another thrown:
Nor ever fold our wings,
And cease from wanderings,
Nor steep our brows in slumber's holy balm;
Nor harken what the inner spirit sings,
"There is no joy but calm!"
Why should we only toil, the roof and crown of things? (The full thingie here)
But wait, there's more ...
Oh there were grand plans to nuke the country even if there's actually no need to save the planet, what with Malcolm Roberts having clearly shown that climate science is a mere religious cult ... 'Unelected swill': One Nation senator Malcolm Roberts calls for Australia to leave UN
Maybe investment bankers aren't into the right sort of green anymore ...
Since the end of World War II, the two most successful minor parties have been the avowedly anti-communist Democratic Labor Party and the avowedly far-left Greens. And now, entering from the right, is Pauline Hanson’s One Nation party.
As Hanson made clear in the News24 documentary The Fight for the Right, presented by Chris Kenny, she has two political aims. First, for One Nation to achieve government. Second, for the Anthony Albanese-led Labor Party to lose office. The question is whether a high One Nation vote is consistent with a Labor defeat. And the answer resides in preferences.
Importantly, The Fight for the Right was fair and balanced. Kenny gave time to, and asked challenging questions of, Hanson along with the leaders of the Coalition. Namely, Liberal Party leader Angus Taylor and Nationals leader Matt Canavan.
The One Nation leader received the most airtime since she is creating more news than any other political figure right now.
The latest Newspoll has Labor with a primary vote of 29 per cent, One Nation also on 29 per cent, with the Coalition on 18 per cent and the Greens on 14 per cent.
There is still considerable time to the next federal election and political circumstances can change before then. The initial task for the Coalition is to get ahead of One Nation on primary votes. Moreover, no one knows how the teals and other independents will go. Likewise with any micro parties that choose to run candidates.
The DLP, which broke away from/was expelled by the ALP in the mid-1950s, had well-informed members and supporters.
Most DLP voters had traditionally voted ALP, but after the Labor Split they directed their preferences to the Coalition ahead of Labor. DLP preferences kept Labor out of office until December 1972 and played a crucial role in the Coalition’s victories in 1955, 1961 and 1969.
Greens shift
The Greens emerged in the 90s as a separate party with an environmental agenda under the leadership of Bob Brown – it has since moved further to the left.
It’s fair to say that Labor is more hostile to the Greens than to the Coalition. But Greens voters are far more hostile to the Coalition than Labor. Like the DLP, the Greens have well-informed members and supporters.
It is estimated that around 90 per cent of DLP first preferences went to the Coalition before the party went out of existence in the mid-70s. Psephologist Antony Green has estimated, using Australian Electoral Commission figures, that 88 per cent of Greens preferences went to Labor in 2025. Whereas only 75 per cent of One Nation preferences went to the Coalition.
That’s a significant, and perhaps result-determining, figure.
In The Fight for the Right, Kenny put it to Hanson that she “must be worried that by splitting the right-of-centre vote” One Nation might help Labor stay in power in Victoria. The reference was to the Victorian state election to be held on November 28.
Hanson rejected the claim. She said “if you want to get rid of Labor, then you vote One Nation No. 1 and then you put Libs No. 2”. Well, that’s fine in theory. But not if, say, 25 per cent of One Nation voters in Victoria preference Labor over the Coalition. That might return the incompetent Labor government in Victoria. So far One Nation voters have not shown the preference discipline of the DLP or Greens voters.
In The Australian last Tuesday, Anthony Galloway reported that the left-wing GetUp organisation – which likes to be called “progressive” – will spend at least $600,000 on campaigning against One Nation in five Labor-held seats in Melbourne. It is likely to be as successful as its failed attempt to defeat One Nation in the Farrer by-election last May.
The polls indicate that the One Nation vote surged between early December last year and early February this year. This period takes in the Bondi Beach massacre of December 14. The evidence suggests that there has been a strong reaction to the terrorist attack aimed at the Australian Jewish community as part of Australian society in general.
Moreover many Australians, particularly in Melbourne and Sydney, are angry at the disruption caused by constant protest marches against Israel’s defensive war in Gaza. The marches have disrupted life for many without any consequence at home or abroad. One Nation, so far, is the principal political beneficiary of the radical Islam-radical left unity ticket. And then there is the cost of living.
Hanson did not come to politics with a high level of education but she is clever, with an ability to cut through in a way that is intellectually unfashionable but popular. Asked by Kenny if she was intolerant of any group, Hanson responded, without equivocation, that she was “really intolerant of radical Islam”. Hanson added that she did not like the suppression of women and more besides.
Hanson is stubborn and declined to reconsider or withdraw her 1996 ill-informed statement that “we are in danger of being swamped by Asians”. She has yet to articulate a coherent economic policy. And then there is the lack of party discipline.
Few Australians would have heard of David Farley before he was the successful One Nation candidate in the Farrer by-election. This week he declared he was making the party worthy of government and explicitly disagreed with his leader on immigration. It’s not a good sign with respect to party unity.
There is talent in One Nation’s ranks – including Barnaby Joyce MP and the party’s director James Ashby. But it does not present as fit for government. Unlike the Coalition with experienced and talented politicians such as Taylor and Canavan in leadership roles. However, One Nation could possibly attain minority government status. Or it could ensure Labor’s continuation in office if its preferences leak substantially to Labor.
The DLP and the Greens managed to keep their preferred parties in office by disciplined preference flows while winning seats in the Senate. One Nation will win Senate seats and probably attain some victories in the House of Representatives at the next federal election. But it’s also capable of returning a Labor government for a third term.
Gerard Henderson is executive director of The Sydney Institute.
But the pond had to stay firm, or otherwise the pond might have begun to brood about domestic violence statistics ..
The header: Green scheme has a billion-dollar secret; The true cost of Australia’s energy transition from parliamentary oversight is being shrouded.
The pond would have liked to feature all of it, what with Zoe making a fair fist of becoming the reptile replacement for the Bjørn-again one...
The wall of secrecy surrounding the cost of the federal government’s flagship renewables subsidy scheme may finally be about to crack.
The Australian National Audit Office has officially listed the Capacity Investment Scheme as part of its work program for 2026-27. As one of the least transparent federal subsidy schemes devised, the CIS is long overdue for an audit.
The government has faced sustained scrutiny over its decision not to reveal the cost of the scheme, which will commit taxpayers to paying unknown billions to wind, solar and battery developers under 20-year revenue underwriting agreements.
Until now, the Energy Minister has used the “commercial-in-confidence” claim as a get-out-of-jail-free card to continue evading every inconvenient question about how much taxpayers will have to pay.
Energy ministers running similar programs in other countries have shown far more transparency. Britain, for instance, regularly publishes the strike price of its agreements with developers, as well as the estimated annual budget impact of its Contracts for Difference scheme. In Australia, the public is told neither.
The length of CIS contracts makes the secrecy much worse. Once signed, these deals will be very difficult for a future government to unwind if they fail to deliver value for money. Of course, that’s all part of the plan.
Last year, Chris Bowen made very clear what his task was for this term of government: “I want this transition to be so locked in that a change of government can’t stop it.” If this transition is such a good idea, then why must its price tag be kept secret?
The lengths the government has gone to in avoiding transparency should be ringing alarm bells for taxpayers everywhere. Instead of being run through a government department – as is standard practice for subsidy programs of this magnitude – the CIS is being run through a private company: AusEnergy Services Limited.
ASL does not front Senate estimates. In other words, the body responsible for assessing and recommending billion-dollar CIS projects for ministerial approval is not directly accountable to parliament. Nor is ASL subject to Freedom of Information requests in the way government departments are.
And any attempt to request documents the department receives from ASL can be effortlessly knocked back with claims of confidentiality.
Appointing a private company to administer a tender process worth billions of dollars is so unusual that perhaps the only other example of this occurring is the NSW Government’s Long-Term Energy Service Agreements scheme, which is also run by ASL.
But at least in NSW the outsourcing of the LTESA scheme came with a statutory framework and regulatory oversight. The federal government opted for neither in its design of the CIS.
This highly unusual arrangement not only forces taxpayers to sign contracts blindfolded, it also erodes public trust in the ministers who lead our country. Suppose a minister were accused of approving underwriting for an uneconomic project that benefited his friends. How could he prove his innocence? Under the current design, there is no accountability mechanism that would let him.
If ministers want to maintain the trust of the public and ensure they cannot be accused of favouritism or corruption, they must embrace transparency and robust oversight – not use private companies and commercial-in-confidence claims to shield their decisions from scrutiny.
But beyond the matter of governance, an important question remains. Even the CSIRO, which insisted for years that wind and solar were the cheapest forms of new energy, has conceded the transition to renewables will increase the cost of our energy system. Is the Australian public willing to bear that cost? The answer appears to be no.
Polling commissioned by Affordable Energy Australia found more than half of Australians would not pay a single extra dollar to achieve net zero, and almost three-quarters wouldn’t pay more than $50 a year. Among communities bearing the brunt of the energy transition, willingness to pay is even lower. Another poll commissioned by Affordable Energy Australia found two-thirds of Gippsland would not pay a single extra dollar to make the transition move faster and four in five wouldn’t pay more than $50 a year.
These results suggest that once the true scale of the CIS is revealed, very few taxpayers will be in favour of such costly contracts being signed on their behalf.
Australians may support the idea of the energy transition in theory but they do not support the reality: ever-growing bills, secretive subsidies and the destruction of prime agricultural land and pristine rainforests. Consumers want cheap and reliable power first and foremost, not ideological targets.
Our government would do well to heed the words of German Energy Minister Katherina Reiche, who wrote earlier this year: “One fact has been suppressed for too long: an energy transition that ignores system costs will ruin the country it claims to save.”
Zoe Hilton is a spokeswoman for the Affordable Energy Australia campaign.
You see Zoe? You needed to slip in a kind word about coal, and wonder why we ever abandoned the dinkum, clean, virginal, mainstay Oz variety.
Does that mean we can ban foreign citizens like the Murdochs, plundering the hive mind with their US owned companies? Or are they so skilled at plundering that they should always be welcome?
No comments:
Post a Comment
Comments older than two days are moderated and there will be a delay in publishing them.