Despite Labor having only been in government for less than three months, the Liberal Party have already come up with a new meme titled 5 Labor failures. It’s worth addressing each of their claims individually.
- BROKE THEIR PROMISE TO REDUCE POWER BILLS BY $275
The actual projection was to “cut power bills for families and businesses by $275 a year by 2025, compared to today”.
Aside from the timeline for price reductions, this modelling was done in 2021, before the war in Ukraine and before the fossil fuel market went crazy.
Adding to changed expectations is the revelation that Snowy Hydro 2.0, due to start production in 2025, is currently 19 months behind schedule.
- HIGHEST ELECTRICITY PRICES ON RECORD
According to the AEMO’s Quarterly Energy Dynamics Q2 2022,
Key factors underlying the extraordinary rise in wholesale prices in Q2 included:
– The impacts in local fuel markets of extremely high international prices for traded gas and thermal coal.
– Reduced availability of coal-fired generation, due to scheduled maintenance as well as long- and short duration forced outages, driving high levels of gas-fired generation, which both raised electricity prices and put pressure on local gas markets.
Australians were paying higher prices for gas than our overseas customers and, when the regulator interceded to cap prices, the gas companies withdrew supply.
The only thing more expensive than a “gas-led recovery” would be to follow the Coalition down the nuclear rabbit hole.
- BLOCKED A COAL MINE IN QUEENSLAND
Tanya Plibersek has invited public comment on her draft decision to refuse Clive Palmer’s Central Queensland coal mine.
The Queensland government last year deemed the proposal “not suitable” and said it posed “a number of unacceptable risks” due to its location, the prospect of polluted water discharge and a lack of effective mitigation measures.
Despite the state government’s rejection, the project remained viable and sat on the desk of then federal environment minister, Sussan Ley, awaiting a determination. Apparently, she was too gutless to make a decision either way.
- NEUTERED THE CONSTRUCTION WATCHDOG
The ABCC was re-established in late 2016 under the “Building and Construction Industry (Improving Productivity) Bill”.
The Productivity Commission’s 2017 Shifting The Dial report found labour productivity between 2007-08 and 2015-16 in construction had seen annual 2.1% average growth, topped by a 5.8% increase in 2011-12.
After the restoration of the ABCC, in 2017-18, construction sector labour productivity fell by 2.4%, followed by further falls of 2.6% in each of the following 2 years before the pandemic hit.
Putting aside some of the more ridiculous cases pursued and lost by the organisation, If the goal of the ABCC was to improve productivity, it has been a very expensive abject failure.
- REAL WAGES GOING BACKWARDS
That they had the gall to include this as a Labor failure shows severe cognitive dissonance.
At every turn, the Coalition has fought against wage rises for anyone except politicians. Even worse, they successfully advocated for a reduction in penalty rates for our lowest paid workers and removed government paid maternity leave from women who had a workplace entitlement, deriding it as “double dipping”.
They also abandoned or delayed the scheduled increases in the tax-free threshold and the superannuation guarantee.
Labor fulfilled their promise to make a submission in favour of an increase in the minimum wage which realised a positive outcome. They have also asked for a significant increase in aged care wages.
Unfortunately, these wage rises are being eaten up by inflation which I am pretty sure Labor didn’t cause.
It looks like the Liberals will be about as effective in Opposition as they were in government. They can’t even mount a vaguely credible critique. Don’t hold your breath for any viable alternative policies.
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