Peter Dutton has a vision for our energy future. Personally, I think that’s great. One should have a vision particularly if one is a political leader…
Like Jeff Kennett. Being a Victorian, I clearly remember how Jeff shared his vision of a privatised energy market where choice and the market would bring down prices and lead to the sort of efficiencies that would mean that we could be confident that power prices would be lower but unfortunately it didn’t work out like that. Still, one shouldn’t hold it against him that his vision didn’t work out quite as he described it; one should only get stuck into Labor leaders when they promise that electricity prices will come down by $275 by 2025 even if we’re still in 2024… Or in the case of Tony “Marty McFly” Abbott stuck in the 1950s!
Pete was very clear. The sun doesn’t shine at night, wind turbines at sea are likely to interfere with nature and he’s always been keen on nature, and batteries haven’t been invented yet. Yes, he actually said words to that effect. On the other hand, we can put a small, modular nuclear reactor in lots and lots of places just as soon as someone invents one and we find the several billion dollars to pay for it…
Don’t get me wrong, I think that it’s good that Dutton is thinking long term! Far too often leaders only worry about the short term and I sort of find it inspiring that Peter is so optimistic about the future when any reasonable analysis of the Dunkley by-election would have the party changing leaders before anybody had time to count the numbers.
“Let’s elect the new guy from Cook.”
“Simon Kennedy?”
“Yeah. He has to be better and the public don’t know him yet!”
I should point out that the Liberal candidate for Cook hasn’t actually been elected yet, but that didn’t stop News.com.au from declaring him the winner. I mean, I know there’s pressure on to be the first media outlet to declare an election win, but I’m old-fashioned enough to think that we should wait until after the electorate have voted. Still, he did win in spite of the fact that the moderate faction wanted a woman, as did John Howard, but that’s a whole other story. Anyway, he’s a winner because he managed to defeat the moderate faction which shows he should fit in quite nicely in the Canberra party room. And he also defeated John Howard which is pretty easy to do, given he’s the only living PM to lose his seat in a general election.
Of course, Peter Dutton’s new clear fission… sorry nuclear vision… has a few hurdles to get over.
The first is that someone is bound to ask for more detail. Naturally, he can say that we’re just outlining the general idea and we can work out the detail later. This should be enough because, after all, it’s not like the Voice to Parliament because it’s his idea so surely we shouldn’t ask for any more than the broad strokes.
The second is that once he starts to become specific about where to locate the plants, then we’ll undoubtedly see the NIMBYs coming out, and while Dutton supports farmers who don’t want powerlines in their back yard, this is different. It’s sort of like fracking where people should just suck it up… Not the gas. That wouldn’t be good. This problem might be solved by only putting reactor in Labor electorates, but then it makes it hard to win government because they have more electorates than he does.
The third is that, while it’s good to have the vision thing, it doesn’t actually solve the immediate problem. After all, if you’re sleeping in your car, you don’t appreciate being told that the solution to this is a new government initiative where you’ll be trained in building and given a low-cost loan, tools and a free block of land to build your own home, even if it would potentially solve your long term accomodation problem. Similarly, while my solar panels have made me ok with my electricity consumption, I find my gas bill annoyingly high and I’m not going to say, “Nuclear in ten years time. Wow, thanks Pete, I’ll just have cold showers till then, but I hear that’s likely to extend my life… at the very least, it’ll seem longer.”
So let’s have three cheers for Peter:
- One for having a longterm vision
- Two for his optimism in thinking that he’ll be leader by the time the next election comes around. (I’m presuming that News.com.au is right and we already have the winner of Cook. I’m also presuming he lasts that long, so one cheer for me here too!)
- And, finally, for actually being the first Opposition Liberal leader to announce a policy.
All right number 3 may be a little unfair because Tony did have two policies: The first was to undo everything that Labor had done and the second was a rolled, gold paid parental leave scheme.
Whatever. Here we go: Three cheers, hip, hip…
Oh, that’s not very nice. You should be ashamed of yourself.
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I’ve said this elsewhere, so my apologies if you’ve seen it before.
I think a new nuclear station and related disposal facility should go right in the middle of the Dickson electorate. In fact, right near Samsonvale would be ideal:
close to Brisbane where we need accessible power
close to water – Lake Samsonvale, for cooling
close to existing HT distribution infrastructure
an electorate that voted Dutton in
Makes as much sense as any other location, doesn’t it?
Rossleigh
It gets more and more like a chapter from Alice in Wonderland.
Simon Kennedy the Liberal pre-selected for Cook is a certain winner. Well as long as you overlook his loss in Bennelong.
Mr Kennedy won the Liberal nomination for the northern Sydney seat of Bennelong in the 2022 federal election.
The seat once held by John Howard was being vacated by former tennis star John Alexander. However, the Liberals suffered a 7.9 per cent swing against them and Mr Kennedy lost the seat to Labor’s Jerome Laxale.
So clearly he’s a winner and he’s even prepared to move to Cook if he can find a flat which is easier said than done.
So you can understand that putting up a woman in Cook would have been risking an electoral backlash when you have available an unemployed bloke who has just lost a traditional Liberal seat and who really wants to get on the gravy train in Canberra.
You wouldn’t read about it unless you just did.
Given that he and his colleagues have consistently pointed to Government debt as a black mark against Labor, it will be interesting to see how this strategy ages as the cost of nuclear becomes more well known. Not to mention that it’s not a renewable energy and you have to dig up a huge amount of ground to get a small amount of uranium. And does Dutton think we can find a third world country to take nuclear waste for a huge payment?
Peter DuckwitFutton would have to study and be coached to pass any decent standard exam to graduate from Kindy, IF they had them. An absolute dunce, dill, drongo, dope and deviate, Dutton has not absorbed any sense, information, advice, education, info, on the clear uneconomic nature of nuclear power. No-one wants to finance it, insure it, guarantee it, house it. Recently there have been a few nationalisations, a bankruptcy, and abandoned project and lying propaganda. We have the world’s best conditions for future planning with a continent of sun and wind,let alone tidal, thermal, etc. Nuclear suppositories for Abbott sound useful as disposal…
Dutton’s nuclear confusion goes along with all his other ‘enola gay’ bombshells, cognitive incontinence, incoherence, acidic commentary, absence of reason, substance and policy, following in Morrison’s malignant incompetent footsteps. The haunting prospect of an Australia under his wing will see us sucked down the gurgler of modern history alongside fugue mates Trump, Netanyahu and doppelgänger Putin. We’d end up dead on land and water, unable to show our cast iron subterranean faces in the Pacific ever again, even if we wanted to. And he wouldn’t need any of them to achieve it.
Confusion not vision – Out of the darkness came the blinding vision, one after another…
As for Cook – both PMs John Howard and Tony Abbott lost their safe seats of Bennelong and Warringah, good members of Cook now it is your turn to break with tradition, Rupert wouldn’t have it any other way!
Who needs Dutton? Sure as a Nuclear power station, Dickson doesn’t, wouldn’t.
As for me I’d be more than happy with a humble domestic rooftop wind turbine with solar panel, battery, chocolates and a bottle of whisky to go with it, what a plan! – Compare the market – simple.
It is a bad day for Australians who observe, are aware, are caring, use foresight, think ahead. D Littleprong has uttered another round of stupidities about cars and energy, A skirtful of brown droppings has Murdoched into grey areas of law to smear and stain, in collaboration with a legal oaf named Sofronoff, and Dutton continues to show ignorance of basics, so as to reveal himself yet again as unfit and inferior. A professional liar, trained and stained, is a candidate for following (watch out for the stink) Mad Morrison. And, the nation is barely moving economically, as suits the Reserve Bank Slowskulls, the housing and rental crises grow, we face the unfaced problems, ever growing, of climate change and deterioration, and, two old and quite stupid hideousities rival away in the USA. Sunak the nematode has followed Truss the Trilobite trench of ridiculosity, so, with Ukraine in agony, Palestine suffering murderous righteous criminality, and, absolutely no relief or amelioration in sight, it is bye bye until tomorrow,
Copy that Phil with a thousand thumbs!
Potato Head’s nucelar vision / ambition, is like an atomic chain reaction brainfart, waiting to explode.
With nothing to show for, except total destruction laying waste.
Damn you, you finally did it, you maniac, you blew us all to hell !!!
The small modular reactors that Fact Free Spud keeps banging on about don’t exist yet. As we know reality isn’t a strong suit for Thought Free Zone Dunceolini.
Why has Dutton decided nuclear is the go?
Obvious isnt it?
Its a point of difference and its not labor policy. Here we go, back to Abbott crap ideology.
What about their other biggie? Snowy mt 2? Wasnt that supposed to be easy to do?
Nuclear is about as stupid as fraudband and it seems the libs havent learnt a thing.
Yes indeed, Benjamin.
After Turdball’s brain farts – (copper) NBN and Snowy II, the LNP followed through with a skid-mark – Morriscum
Now that we have the effluvium of the Duttonate’s brain fart, I cannot help wondering just what new LNP follow-through skid-mark will be next.
Meanwhile the party and Atlas or Koch Network think tanks’ grifters of the ‘free market’ ignore the ‘free market’ when it does not suit their suitors avoiding transition to renewable sources?
FT Opinion Data Points Burn-Murdoch:
‘Economics may take us to net zero all on its own. The plummeting cost of low-carbon energy has already allowed many countries to decouple economic growth from emissions’
https://www.ft.com/content/967e1d77-8d3c-4256-9339-6ea7025cd5d3
Of course the laggards are found in the Anglosphere….
I remember jeffery kannott. He was our premier for a while . The one who organised all that shite that Rossleigh details above. Our Eduction minister for a little while, destroying teaching as a profession before becoming Premier. Who, as “the Man” donated $1B dollars to ford back in the 80’s so that they would continue production at Broadmeadows. That was a LOT of dollars back then, and jeffery when forgot to add the “no retrenchments” clause to the donations things went a bit sideways, but as Con the Fruiterer used to say. “Couppla Daays…..”
Now young jeff is a journo. Who’da thought, huh.
We had a by-election here in Dunkley last weekend. Buggere me, what a shite fight that all was. Truth and Honesty were left safely in their boxes, and advance took the reins. What a ride. Part of the bunfight involved the (wrongful) arrest of an ex-asylum seeker. Apparently, spud, his manic madam ms ley, and various others of that ilk, us We the Voters of Dunkley were not upset by the wrongful incarceration, but we were ALL deeply concerned about the number af rapists and pillagers roaming our streets. Hmmm.
The fallout was that spud’s entrant in the contest, a smirking, blarney talking paddy who is also our mayor and supporter of the construction of some high-rise luxury townhouses along the beachfront had his arse handed to him by a local Mum.
So let’s just check the score.
The friedeggburger lost to a Teal lady in 22.
Aston went to a Labor woman in 23.
And now despite a slight overall swing against her Jodie Belyea won with a higher primary vote than her rival.
As a result, and in order to rebalance the ledger, and even above the advice of the Lying Rodent himself, der spud has chosen a bloke to fill the fartmarks in Cook. The fella who lost his blue ribbon seat to another Woman in 22. A very cunning stunt on Spud’s behalf, one that should refill the jockstraps of the bigswingingdicks with enthusiasm. Our Spudley even has a nucular platform to back it all up. Unplanned, un-costed, and un-detailed, but it’s a platform. Like the platform at Baxter. Old, tired, and rarely visited. Except by the goods trains pasing through. And the twice daily Stoney Point Flyer.
Seeing Jeff in the front row smirking on Saturday night, reminded me of when he ripped up all those train tracks in Gippsland. How smart was that?
Strange, there’s no mention of Der Spud oiling his head up and flying to WA to stick his head up Gina’s arse. Strange that.
https://www.smh.com.au/politics/federal/dutton-and-ley-have-created-a-foolproof-what-not-to-do-election-guide-20240306-p5fa8s.html
The only one who should be ashamed of themselves is the sad ridiculous Australian embarrassment this article is all about. Still, on a positive note, with him as their ‘leader’ we can feel safe that the conservatives will never be reelected.
Whilst it is true that anti-nuclear sentiment is not so overwhelming as all that – most Australians don’t care that much – what is true is genuine commitment to it is weak as piss, with the ones who talk loudest being the most dedicated defenders of fossil fuels, people who would never let fossil fuels be replaced by nuclear power stations. They are climate science deniers who most of all want to protect fossil fuels from renewable energy and global warming;demanding nuclear in place of renewables (NOT in place of fossil fuels, note) kicks the oil can another decade or two down the road.
Not that Labor’s absolute support of fossil fuel mining, for export, including support and subsidies for CCS and Carbon Offset scammery just to cover the emissions from gas production, with emissions from use “not our problem” – to kick the gas can another decade or two down the road – counts as treating the science on climate seriously.
Even the nuclear for the last 20% of decarbonizing doesn’t work; what is missing in 100% renewables is not a nuclear shaped gap. Sure, if it is 20% of capacity it will be working when the others don’t but the rest of the time it will be selling electricity at a loss – and costs are already the single biggest impediment to nuclear.
@Clakka … What a shitty world we live in no thanks to Merdecock & Co.
Is it any wonder, WHY we can’t have anything nice these days ?