Liberal Energy – The “too hard” party

By 1PETERMCC

How poor is the understanding of our energy market by the Coalition government?

Check these data.

When Tony Abbott became PM he slashed the Renewable Energy Target from 41,000 gigawatt hours to 33,000 claiming the target could not be met.

Not only was that revised target met, the original is going to be exceeded, too. Tony’s much-touted skills as an economic Rhodes Scholar failed big time as did his other ideas about redistributing wealth … to the wealthy.

Now keep in mind we need to do more on carbon emissions, because this original target was a lighter measure to ease into our new economy and this target needs to be moved to speed up the transition and ease the pressure on the environment. Forget dragging it out as long as possible. It needs to be done.

What is the current Liberal plan, you might ask?

Currently it is to leave the RET where it is, unless Frydenberg has a surprise in store for Friday’s CHOGM meeting.

Now he may move that target, indeed he will probably have to if he wants the Labor states to sign on, but in his normal chaotic way, he is not signalling a change, probably out of fear, but this is the exact reason we have high energy prices. Generators hate unpredictability.

Quite clearly, this government has forgotten what the original plan was, so allow me to restate it in case someone from the Party is interested.

To transition the Aussie Economy to one based on a sustainable energy model.

Sure, that’s easy to say, and indeed it comes with challenges, but some of the current challenges are unnecessary like the internal factional fights in the Party Room. Right from the start they have been the party of “it’s too hard” so they have dragged out the transition and attempted to make things harder than they need to be. To some degree that came from ignorance of the newer technologies, and another part was using the required change for political purposes with an amplified fear factor, but now that costs are fully understood, there remains a fair measure of damaged egos in play. To actually concede they got it wrong, or even, Tony got it wrong, is just too difficult to accept.

Have they learned from their mistakes? Are they going to be the party of “can do” and dazzle us with some progressive plans and a positive attitude?

It seems highly unlikely while they are wallowing in a pool of Minerals Council money and are haunted by a zombified Abbott, but imagine if they were to stumble over a Leader who decided to embrace the future and offer the Voters ideas rather than fear. Instead of trying to undermine Labor policy, they could start building their own. A Liberal party progressives could consider voting for.

If they captured the imagination of voters, they wouldn’t have to be running silly programs like the “Kill Bill” fiasco. Rather they would be more excited to be talking about the future and their management of it.

Sources:

Aust Financial Review: Wind and Solar boom makes Malcolm Turnbull’s NEG a dead letter.

Renew Economy: Coalition Renewables naysayers were wrong. So so wrong

SMH: Monash group under fire in coal powered power station debate

New Politics: Kill Bill and the failure of a smear campaign