By Viv Forbes
Australia has become a nation ruled by fools.
We have surrendered power over every aspect of our lives and industry to fifteen debating chambers in eight ruling cities. These assemblies are controlled by lawyers, unionists, centralists, green dreamers, power seekers and tax consumers.
Their direct cost alone is horrendous. There are 837 politicians (ignoring local government). Each has a salary (say $200Kpy), travel and office costs (say $150Kpy), and staff costs (say $200Kpy) – a billion here, plus a billion there and pretty soon you’re talking real money.
Now add all the state and federal governors, the cabinets with their limos and press corps, eight armies of tax collectors and the accountants and lawyers trying to protect tax payers from them. Then there are the building costs, each citadel probably getting its red-and-black flag (the NSW version flag cost $25M).
But salaries and perks are a minor part of their real cost. The killer costs are incurred when they use direct investments or fiddle the rules on taxes and subsidies to chase impossible green dreams.
Most of our 837 politicians and their servants are now obsessed with “Net Zero”, and learning from the Covid lockdowns, they now dream of Climate lockdowns.
Devoid of engineering talent or economic common sense they presume to design our electricity network (but they ban emissions-free nuclear power while planning the destruction of the old reliables, coal, gas and hydro). Although the green-infected electricity grid is struggling to meet current demands, they “plan” to add even greater loads to turn water into hydrogen, push water uphill, charge giant batteries and power subsidised fleets of electric vehicles.
Pretending to save the bush, their green mandates and subsidies are replacing useful grasslands and valuable resources of hardwood, softwood, mulga and saltbush with bird slicers, roads, poles, wires, plastic, metal, concrete and glass as the new green energy landscapes. And then they plan to use this intermittent low-density green energy to produce hydrogen which can never recover the energy used to produce it, and also consumes nine tonnes of fresh water for every tonne of hydrogen produced.
Ignorant of the realities of food production they turn grasslands into havens for weeds and pests, and lock-the-gates to explorers, farmers, foresters and fishermen. They think we can have drought and flood mitigation without dams, timber without foresters, minerals without mines, and food without farmers and fishermen.
They reward people who won’t work and tax those who do. Ignorant of the benefits of federalism, they strive to destroy federalism by inventing a “National Cabinet”, and run endless centralising summits, enquiries and talkfests. Soon the veto of “The Voice” could make anything and everything impossible!
A cold hungry winter is about to show Europe the deadly dangers of listening to green dreamers. It is surely time for Australia to withdraw from foreign entanglements like the Paris Treaty, and chop Canberra’s green tentacles, limiting its duties to defence, foreign affairs and maintenance of free trade (exactly as our founders intended).
Further Reading
Europe Keeps Paying And Paying For Net Zero Fantasies:
https://climatechangedispatch.com/europe-pays-and-pays-for-net-zero/
Greenpeace Cofounder Says Climate Change Based On False Narratives
https://climatechangedispatch.com/greenpeace-cofounder-says-climate-change-based-on-false-narratives/
Warmth and Carbon Dioxide have made India into an Agricultural Super-power:
https://climatechangedispatch.com/how-climate-change-transformed-india-into-an-agricultural-superpower/
But UN demands that people do not use energy fuels to combat the looming winter crises – hunger and cold:
https://climatechangedispatch.com/u-n-demands-eu-nations-not-use-fossil-fuels-to-battle-energy-crisis/
Viv Forbes and his wife have lived and worked in 3 ruling cities – Brisbane, Canberra and Sydney. Viv was employed by a State bureaucracy, a Federal bureaucracy and then by several private businesses. This experience convinced them to become self-employed, move to the country and raise meat sheep on natural grasslands.
I couldn’t agree more Viv! – IMHO, what we need is for those ‘Fools who Rule’ to come up with a sensible Energy Policy that would bring sanity to this madness overnight. Neither Australia, nor any other developed economy, can function without an affordable, reliable, available (24/7) easy to understand (sensible) market driven Energy Policy that works from the consumer back, not from the energy industries interests forward.
In the absence of empirical evidence proving the case against CO2 (there is none), the key elements of such a sensible Energy Policy would require that it;
1. Is technology agnostic; (i.e., embraces both fossil fuels, hydro, wind, solar, geo-thermal, biomass, wave, batteries & nuclear – ALL on the table).
2. Eliminates all subsidies & discriminatory legislation which favours one, or operates against any other technology over another i.e., a level playing field with the choice of power generating technology entirely at the discretion of respective power generators.
3. Requires contractual obligations via auction to deliver guaranteed power in response to offer from AEMO to supply in accord with clearly defined Quality of Service (QOS) standards 99.9% availability.
4. Imposes substantial financial penalties upon power generators who fail to meet contractual obligations & associated QOS standards (force majeure permitting in the event of natural disasters e.g., earthquakes, floods, bushfires and/or planned outages).
5. Requires a substantial bond to meet restoration of environment (ie; decommissioning & removal of all infrastructure, land rehabilitation and/or disposal/recycling costs for solar-PV panels, wind turbine blades, etc) as currently required of mining companies.
6. Repeals RET, LRET, SRES & Safeguard Mechanism Legislation & remove the current ban on nuclear power generation.
If the power generating industry finds these principles unpalatable, tough. Simply re-nationalize the industry & return it to whence it came – the responsibility of respective State Govt’s & be done with it. Easy.
Indeed well said Viv, and they have not even bothered to explain how some 6,000 items that are today made from oil and or coal cannot be made from electricity, will continue to be available … all domestic appliances, clothing, kitchen ware, the beloved iPhone TVs and laptops, LEDs, transport (air, sea and land), bicycles, hospital equipment, solar panels, wind turbines – and cement; the list of ignored problems goes on and on and on – all ignored by the green do gooders. But the planned personal carbon QR code will stop climate change, dead in its tracks, as it did WuFlu/Covid — as long as someone tells China, India, Russia, Indonesia, Brazil et al.
Hi Viv,
Love your work, here is an other article from 2013 on the green subject:
https://dropyourenergybill.com/green-prince-of-darkness/