GETUP ACTIVIST ADVISING ELECTRICITY PRODUCER Andrew Bolt, Herald Sun
September 7, 2017 8:42am
Bizarre, and a symbol of our willed decline: A senior manager in charge of promoting the energy policy of Australia’s largest electricity producer previously worked for activist group GetUp!, which is committed to shutting down the coal-fired power industry.
Self-described political strategist Skye Laris is an executive member of AGL Energy managing director Andy Vesey’s team as he sticks with the company’s plan to shut down the Liddell power station in the NSW Hunter Valley, despite protests the planned closure threatens energy supplies.
Ms Laris, who joined AGL in February as senior manager, digital engagement, is now a senior manager, public advocacy for the company. She is a former campaign director for GetUp!... Immediately before joining GetUp! in March 2011, she was chief of staff and policy adviser to Labor frontbencher Tony Burke, who is also her partner.
This week Ms Laris has re-tweeted messages from Mr Vesey’s Twitter feed that have declared “we’re getting out of coal”... She has also tweeted high praise for an AGL TV ad in which the narrator says: “Let’s be honest, things need to change. So at AGL we are getting out of coal. Starting 2022, ending 2050.”
The ad says the company has started a fund that will put $3 billion into creating more renewable energy.
A coal-fired generation business that loathes the very material on which it makes its money.
A generator that treats it as a moral imperative to give its customers another product that will cost them more.
