“No liberal man would impute a charge of unsteadiness to another for having changed his opinion.” Who knew Cicero had been attending Coalition partyroom meetings? Welcome to the endless source of renewables that is the Readers’ Comments column. Let’s engage …
— Elaine and David share comment of the week for their contrastingly vivid portraits of latter-day Paris Deal doubter and political wrecking ball Tony Abbott. For Elaine, the Member for Warringah bestrides the landscape like a coal-powered colossus in budgie-smugglers, pointing the way to the promised land of cheap power, endless summer and easy living:
“There’s only a few politicians who honestly want Australians to claw back to their first world standards of living and Mr Abbott is one of them.
“I’m so sick of my family having to suffer through winter and summer because power bills are so outrageously expensive these days, whilst my taxes fund the outrageous wages of those politicians inflicting this pain on us.
“Once, we had cheap power and a great standard of living, now it’s a living hell! There’s nothing you can do about it because both major parties have succumbed to this climate change farce. But it doesn’t affect them, they still warm their homes in winter and cool them in summer. They are hypocrites.
“We need a leader who puts Australians first and renewables second, including scrapping huge taxpayer funded subsidies, a leader who will get on with it before it’s too late and build new, low emission coal fired power stations now.” From David, disdain:
“Tony: once admired, disillusioned by his obsessions, finally pitied and now a sad scary shadow in the alley of public life.” Thomas had no doubts:
“Whatever the politics, economically, socially and environmentally, Abbott is 100pc correct. The current energy policies of both major political parties are manifestations of insanity. As for the Greens, their energy policies are maniacal.” Ross raged:
“Carbon tax by stealth is Turnbull/Frydenberg’s aim. Abbott is correct, there are a few good men left in the LNP.”
Fury road: Tony Abbott prepares to unleash the coal juggernaut on an unsuspecting partyroom. Picture: Liam Kidston. Geoffrey suggested:
“No new dams for hydro, no nuclear, and phase out coal. That’s not a plan, it’s a very extended national suicide.” Follow the money, said Gertbysea.
“There are winners and losers here. Let’s have a real accounting. Who profits from RET and who profits from NEG which seems to be an RET in disguise. Let’s get out of the Paris Agreement stat … we are already a milch cow for the EU. Abbot speaks from a genuine concern for his fellow Australians.” Same old, same old said Peter:
“Malcolm, oh Malcolm. Don’t you get it? You were given the boot once for ridiculous Green energy policies. Now here we are almost a decade later and you are pursuing the same energy menace.”
Smokestack lightning: The first coal-powered MAMIL found brown stains on the Lycra were a drag. Elemental, said Michael:
“Being in my senior years, and due to severe health problems and not having enough super to ensure a comfortable retirement, I want and need reasonably priced power to keep my wife and myself reasonably warm in winter and cool in summer.
“I’ll vote for whichever party will promise me this, and at this point it looks like Tony Abbott is the only person who has a reasonable grasp of the subject. “ Barry boiled:
“Whether man made climate change is real or not, the irrefutable truth is that Australia with less than 2pc of total global CO2 emissions cannot make any meaningful difference to the outcome even if the whole country was shut down!
“How can even the most avid disciple of climate change support a policy of high cost, unreliable electricity punishing the battlers in our society, making what is left of our industry uncompetitive when it makes no measurable difference to the world? The emperor has no clothes but is very virtuous!” A graph from Gary R:
“Apart from a couple of blips, from 1955 electricity prices declined over 45 years right through to 2000/2001. Briefly, following the establishment of the National Energy Market (NEM), prices fell. Then they started to increase a little.
“Renewable energy, the wonderful self-replacing energy source that works when the wind blows and the sun shines, pushed prices up so much they basically doubled over about 17 years. (Would you buy a car that only worked some of the time and then at only 20pc of its stated power? No? Neither would I. That’s wind power for you).
“We have gone from having the cheapest electricity in the world to the most expensive. All to cut temperatures by 0.0039c or thirty-nine thousands of a degree by the end of the century.
“How clever are we?” Not wrecking, said Ron:
“Mr Abbott is not trying to undermine the PM. He is genuinely concerned about the future prosperity of Australia under the proposed NEG. Please, no cheap shots about Abbott’s so called sniping.”
King coal: Pure shirtfronting masculinity like this is not renewable. Vince envisioned:
“Energy is the number one issue in Australia, followed closely by clogged cities, low wage growth, expensive housing (last three are interrelated) so Abbott is giving the LNP a platform to differentiate themselves from the ALP/Greens in the next election.
“Finkel has admitted in a Senate hearing that even if Australia shut down tomorrow (ie 100pc emissions reduction) it would have no impact on the planet.” Stuart got snide:
“ ‘Mr Abbott risks being accused of a naked attempt to destabilise the Prime Minister’. urely not. But Tony gave his word that there’d be no sniping!” No snow-job for Stan:
“For Tony and his ‘ideological fixation’ — Snowy Hydro is a statutory corporation and currently owns and runs three large fossil fuel (gas) power Stations in Victoria (2) and NSW , besides their Snowy Scheme and proposed Snowy 2.0 pumped hydro. They are very obviously not ideologically driven and have never made a loss (typically up to about half a billion dollars annual profit).
Black gold: Tony Abbott attempts some reverse alchemy, turning gold nuggets into beautiful clean coal. Picture: Gary Ramage
“If they saw any merit or benefit (to themselves or the public) in investing in a new coal burner, they could certainly do so (and afford it as Snowy 2.0 has shown). Just like for their three fossil fuel gas plants this would not be denied (by any Liberal Government).”
Kenneth was clear:
“Abbott is absolutely right about this issue, it is lunacy for Australia to give up its greatest advantage of cheap, abundant energy on the altar of climate change when the major emitters like China and India continue to massively increase their emissions.
“The idiocy of our political elites who are more interested in being able to big note themselves at international forums than do their real job of looking after our futures is mind boggling.
“If we want to seriously reduce emissions, stop all migration and start building nuclear plants, please don’t condemn our children to a second class life as our industries desert us and our jobs vanish to countries that don’t follow the rules.”
