In a society without the mass trade union membership of earlier generations, eyewitness news services and film or blockbusters become substitutes for real participation. Can the metaphors presented in movies like Eyes Wide Shut (1999) be applied to the illusions offered by mainstream politics? Do clever illusions of social reality as presented by movie stars with the caliber of Tom Cruise and Nicole Kidman emerge as lights on our life journey? Denis Bright reports.
The term Conservative Civic Codes (CCCs) is not prominent in the usual search engines. CCCs are derived from the concepts embedded in Napoleonic Civil Codes (1804-06) which gave consistency to French law after the Revolutionary Years. The Civil Codes extended to family law, titles and property law. CCCs operate at an informal family and community level. They have no legal standing in a democratic society
CCCs are indeed fluid community norms which provide a gel to social structures and personal relationships. They have both strengthened and weakened in their consistency across modernist societies. Perhaps similar guidelines are needed for the interpretation of modernist political culture. In the absence of these guidelines, these illusions can become social reality
Australia follows the inconsistencies between liberalism in popular lifestyles and the political conservatism at an elite level in society in politics and business. The trends are evident to varying degrees in all developed democracies.
Research papers from the Australian Research Centre for Sex, Health and Society at La Trobe University are available online to show the extent of liberalism in Australian lifestyles.
The inconsistencies between popular lifestyles and conservative neoliberal politics was extremely obvious during the Nixon years in the US. Nixon temporarily won the popular mandate in both 1968 and 1972 before the excesses of his administration became all too obvious.
Presenting Policy Issues to Constituents with Eyes Wide Shut
During the early 1990s, governments at all levels were unable to service the new investment requirements of cherished public-sector enterprises during a time of extraordinary interest rates. All states and territories supported Commonwealth national competition legislation. The life expectancy of public enterprises from airlines to ports, housing schemes, transportation services became suddenly limited.
In NSW, predominantly Labor governments at the time were offered federal financial incentives to open the electricity sector to corporatization and partial privatization. The retail electricity sector was broken up for sale in 2010. The distribution system followed and finally electricity generation.
During a tour of the Liddell Power Plant for journalists on 19 September 2017, two of the four turbines were not operating for technical reasons. The other two were operating at 84 per cent capacity (Newcastle Herald Online 20 September 2017).
Despite these technical problems, AGL is being encouraged by the federal LNP to sell Liddell to a responsible generator of coal fired electricity to keep the lights on in the future.
The financial costs of such ideological proposals are immense (ABC News Online 19 September 2017):
A 2013 report commissioned by the NSW Government, obtained by the ABC, shows it would cost at least $980 million to keep Liddell open for an extra 10 years. This is on top of the expense required for maintenance until 2022.
More than $140 million would have to be spent on the plants’ boilers alone, the report by WorleyParsons Consulting concluded, but this would not guarantee the plant’s reliability.
“By extending the operation of the power station a further 10 years, increased tube failures and more frequent breakdown of plant and equipment can be anticipated,” the report said.
“Higher unplanned availability losses should be projected for the final 10 years even with the additional expenditure provided.”
In the traditions of Eyes Wide Shut, the wake-up call arising from people behaving irresponsibly has finally arrived. Despite clever rhetoric from the federal LNP, current energy policies are delivering sustainable and more cost-effective electricity output for Australians.
Yet Barnaby Joyce continues the charade in the best traditions of the least excusable CCCs (September 2017):
“Many people in the New England Electorate have told me that high energy prices are their number one concern, that’s why this Government is working to ensure energy prices remain affordable by working with energy retailers to give consumers a better deal,” Mr Joyce said.
“One resident contacted my office saying in winter she can only afford to heat her home for part of the day and is forced to go to bed early to keep warm, which is very worrying in modern day Australia.
“As much as 50 per cent of Australian households have not moved retailers or contracts in the past five years, even though their savings could be up to $1,500 by doing so and we now have the agreement of the energy companies to provide clearer information on the electricity rates available to households and businesses.
Mr Joyce said energy prices could only remain affordable with sensible investment in baseload power such as clean coal-fired power stations as well as renewable energy initiatives like the more than $1 billion investment in wind and solar farms in the New England region.
“It makes sense to continue our investment in clean coal initiatives to keep power prices affordable as well as protecting the thousands of jobs in the coal sector, however it is good to see that renewable energy initiatives like the White Rock and Sapphire solar and wind farms between Glen Innes and Inverell are moving forward in the New England Electorate.
“All electrons are created equal and these initiatives are important in keeping the balance between traditional and renewable forms of energy production to ensure that residents and businesses continue to prosper in the New England and across the nation,” Mr Joyce said.
The press release from Barnaby Joyce is already old news as AGL weighs up its options to equip Liddell as a hydro and gas generation plant in opposition to the demands from the federal LNP (ABC News Online 19 September 2017). The new plans will be evaluated and released within 90 days. The federal LNP’s assumptions about ageing coal fired plants delivering for the future have come to naught.
As Tom Cruise and Nicole Kidman acknowledged in their roles as Dr. Bill Hartford and Alice, it was time for a very fresh start because more of the same is hazardous to all parties.
[textblock style=”6″]
[/textblock]
