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Ministers in the Morrison Government
Prime Minister Scott MorrisonScoMo first came to prominence when he took a lump of coal into the Australian parliament and made a big point of telling people it was nothing to be afraid of.Perhaps PM Morrison's biggest lie is in claiming that fossil fuels, coal in particular, are the key to lowering power prices. The fact that renewables are now cheaper than new-build coal fired power stations has been given a huge amount of publicity recently from many sources. Just one is the very recent (at the time of my writing this) article by Steven Long on the ABC Web site, 2018/01/03, "The reality is new coal power is not the answer for cheaper electricity bills". Mr Long wrote: "The tipping point's been reached: renewable energy is now a cheaper source of power for Australia's future electricity needs than coal."Mr Long quoted the Australian Energy Market Operator: "The lowest cost replacement for this retiring capacity [Australia's fleet of ageing coal fired power stations] and energy will be a portfolio of resources, including solar (28 gigawatts), wind (10.5 GW) and storage (17 GW and 90 GWh), complemented by 500 megawatts of flexible gas plant and transmission investment."PM Morrison also continues the pretence that coal has a strong future. In fact it is a dying industry. Environment Minister Melissa PriceMelissa Price showed that she was effectively bought and paid for by the fossil fuel industry following a report by the Intergovernmental Panel for Climate Change released on 2018/10/08.Giles Parkinson wrote a piece for RenewEconomy the following day covering the Morrison Government's "breathtakingly stupid response to IPCC climate report" in which the 'Environment Minister' featured strongly.
It seems that Ms Price's credentials to call herself Environment Minister are as good, or bad, as those of Rupert Murdoch's man
Graham Lloyd to call himself an Environment Reporter.
Energy Minister Angus TaylorI will not write much about Mr Taylor on this page, I have another page dedicated to the man. I would think that he would have to be the most biased and dishonest Australian Energy Minister ever.Chief of staff John KunkelPrime minister Scott Morisson's chief of staff is John Kunkel, the former deputy CEO of the Minerals Council of Australia, one of the main coal lobbying groups. |
Their actions will not even have an economic advantage, there can be no doubt that renewable energy is cheaper than new-build coal. The only groups to win (and then only in the short term) if the Morrison Government slows renewables development and encourages coal will be the coal industry and their puppets in government. Australia and the world will suffer, economically and environmentally. |
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The Morrison Government is out of touch with the Australian people, out of touch with reality, shamelessly dishonest and doing its best to stop Australia from grasping huge economic opportunities.What do the Australian people want?A Lowy Institute poll carried out on 1,200 Australian adults on 2018/06/20 showed that 84% of Australians wanted the government to "focus on renewables, even if this means we may need to invest more in infrastructure to make the system more reliable".
A poll of the people in Energy Minister Taylor's electorate showed that almost twice as many wanted to see Australia decrease its emissions faster, rather than slower. Blind Freddy could see that there is no future in the coal industry and that Australia's energy future is in renewables but the Morrison Government is trying to deny this great opportunity to Australia.
Plainly the Australian people want renewable energy, not more coal power. By the time of writing it was clear that renewable energy in the forms of wind and solar PV was cheaper than new-built coal-fired power. As decarbonisation becomes more urgent any coal-fired power station is likely to have a short life, further eroding its financial justification. No company is interested in building a coal-fired power station, it would simply be incapable of competing economically with renewables. The only way a new coal-fired power station will be built in Australia is with heavy subsidisation from the Australian tax-payers, and they plainly do not want it. Has there ever been a federal government more out of touch with what the Australian people want, what is best for Australia and what the world needs? I've written about who wants renewable energy? elsewhere on this site. |
The potential for economic growth in the energy sector is with renewables, not fossil fuelsThe world outside of the Australian government recognises that renewable energy is the future, fossil fuels are the past.I've written below of just one renewable energy project that has huge economic potential that, if the Morrison Government had its way, would probably not go ahead. Fortunately, like so many other renewable energy developments, it seems likely to happen in spite of the best efforts of the federal government to halt progress. |
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In spite of the best efforts of the recent coalition governments, from the Abbott Government starting in September 2013 to the MorrisonGov.html, doing all they can to support the coal industry and slow the growth of sustainable energy, renewables have made great inroads into power generation in Australia. Quoting Simon Holmes à Court in the Guardian article that published the graph: "Highly polluting brown coal use is down 36.6% and black coal (still dirty!) has fallen 9.4%, mostly replaced by wind and solar."At the time of writing it was looking like the rate of renewable energy installation and coal power station retirement was only going to increase. These governments have been nothing short of criminal in their opposition to action on climate change, but fortunately they have been notably ineffectual in their efforts to stop the transition to renewable energy. |
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The Morrison Government sees the future as being black; all about coal, fossil fuels generally, uncontrolled climate change, ocean acidification, air pollution, the loss of thousands of species and the Great Barrier Reef and great damage to the world that our children and grandchildren will inherit from us.
Others, such as British Billionaire Sanjeev Gupta (who is investing $1 billion in renewable energy in Australia), famous investor Warren Buffet (who has invested $1 billion in renewables) and Macquarie Bank (which has invested more than $20 billion in green energy globally) and who are backing the proposed $22 billion Asian Renewable Energy Hub can see that the future is green, sustainable and clean. Peter Williams wrote a piece for the West Australian on 2018/10/08 about the Asian Renewable Energy Hub (AREH). Its scale is truely breathtaking:
Incredibly, Energy Minister Angus Taylor is on record as saying that wind turbines are "gobsmackingly inefficient". This is the depth to which the quality of our government has sunk! |
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Prime Minister Scot Morrison was talking to shock jock
Alan Jones and said that he wanted 'dispatchable power'.
Jones told the PM not to use that term because "people don't know what it means".
In response to Jones, the PM said "real power, fair dinkum power".
And from then on PM Morrison and his Energy Minister
Angus Taylor have been using the 'fair dinkum power' catch phrase ad-nauseam.
(See
Media Watch, 2018/10/29.)
Has this clarified anything? I doubt it. In any case, PM Morrison seems to be under the misunderstanding that coal power is dispatchable, of course it is not. Coal power is base load, that is, coal power is suited for providing electricity at a steady rate; dispatchable power is, as the name suggests, capable of being dispatched as required. PM Morrison likes to make statements implying that coal-fired power stations are available all the time; ignoring the fact that they are typically unavailable about 15% of the time due to maintenance or breakdown. |
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The Labor Daniel Andrews Victorian Government faced an election on 2018/11/24.
Most predictions were that the result would be close but would probably go to Labor.
What actually resulted was a Labor landslide; very unusually there was a huge 4.8% swing toward the Government; if there are big swings they are more often than not against a sitting government. The morning after the election it was looking like Labor would get 55 seats in the 88-seat Lower House. No one was in any doubt that federal politics had a big influence on the Victorian result; the policies of the Morrison Government had a lot to do with this devastation of the Victorian Liberal/National coalition. What do the Australian people want?
A poll of the people in the Morrison Government's Energy Minister Angus Taylor's electorate showed that almost twice as many wanted to see Australia decrease its emissions faster, rather than slower. A poll carried out by a local newspaper concerning a proposed energy park (wind, solar, storage) near my house indicated 83% support for the project. Blind Freddy could see that there is no future in the coal industry and that Australia's energy future is in renewables but PM Morrison and Minister Taylor is trying to deny this great opportunity to Australia.
Plainly the Australian people want renewable energy, not more coal power. Has there ever been a federal government more out of touch with what the Australian people want, what is best for Australia and what the world needs?
I've written about how I see
Australia's energy future and
who wants renewable energy elsewhere on this site.
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On this site...Angus Taylor; a gobsmackingly dishonest Environment MinisterEnd of coal: why the coal industry has a very limited future. Ethics: a subject that many in the Morrison government would do well to learn about. Greenhouse/climate change: the greatest threat currently facing mankind. Killer coal: how the burning of coal kills millions of people world-wide each year. Selfishness or altruism?: self or all? South Australia's success in changing toward renewable energy Stop These Things; a very dishonest anti-wind power Web site admired by, and contributed to by, Mr Taylor Wind power lies; Mr Taylor features strongly
Wind power opposition: almost universally dishonest.
External links...Several links are scattered through the text above and many are provided in the other pages on my site.RenewEconomy, Lip service and lies: Coalition’s response to the IPCC report; written by Joshua S Hill, 2018/10/12. RenewEconomy, the Morrison Government's "breathtakingly stupid response to IPCC climate report", by Giles Parkinson, 2018/10/09. Xihhua is one of many news organisations that have reported on British billionaire Sanjeev Gupta's statement that he can show that renewable are cheaper than coal for electricity generation. The Conversation factcheck, 2017/08/14, concluded that while power from existing coal-fired power stations is cheaper than new-built wind power, "as things stand today – wind power would be cheaper than coal as a new-build source of electricity." Prices for wind and particularly solar PV power continue to fall. The Conversation reported that "Big firms voice lack of faith in ‘cumbersome’ and ‘impractical’ Emissions Reduction Fund", while Environment Minister Melissa Price wanted to continue with it. |
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