It’s been a good week for Peter Dutton because – now that the Albanese government has announced something on energy prices – Dutton knows what it is that he’s against. For the past few weeks, he’s been reluctant to express a view on the subject in case it turns out that Labor have ruled it out and he’ll be left agreeing with them.
Energy prices have created something of a wicked problem. A wicked problem, as I’m sure some of you know, is a problem where each solution potentially creates a new problem that may or may not be harder to solve than the initial problem. As you can see, the Coalition found wicked problems all the time when they were in government which was their reason for doing as little as possible in the hope that by not making things worse, we would be grateful and give them another term of government where they could point out that we’d dodged a bullet because Labor and The Greens are the sort of people who try to fix problems and look where that can lead.
Anyway, I heard the head of the Australian Petroleum Production and Exploration Association, Samantha McCulloch, explain the wickedness of capping gas at $12 a gigajoule by telling us that it could create long-term problems because it would take away the incentive to find more supply which would lead to higher prices in the future… which sort of suggests to me that you have an incentive to find gas now because of the higher future prices but then I’m just someone who asks questions and not someone who has all the answers. The other point she went on to make was that most gas contracts were long-term and that the long-term price was around $12 a gigajoule anyway and that the cap would only affect the spot price… which also begs the question that if the long-term price is only $12 a gigajoule and if you cap it at this short term then there’s no incentive, doesn’t this mean that there’s already no incentive?
Whatever, it’s been a godsend for Peter Dutton because he can now agree with the fossil fuel industry and this should make him even more electable than the articles in the paper explaining that if you take the time and get to know Peter over a few drinks then you’d find that his public persona isn’t the same laugh a minute guy who can tell you jokes like: “How many AFP officers does it take to not investigate a Liberal minister?” Answer: “All of them!” Yes, Peter really is quite warm-hearted and you surely remember the ringing endorsement from his wife: “He’s not a monster. Not really.”
Or something like that.
I must say though, that I don’t really care that politicians are nice guys who love their children, dogs, wives, and mistresses, even if it is in that order. My point is that I want a politician who can actually get things done. And when I say, ‘get things done’, I mean things that should be done. There was really something strange about Scott Morrison’s suggestion that they promised an integrity commission but Labor didn’t like the one that they wanted so they didn’t show anyone because they knew that nobody would like it.
No, there was something much more appealing about Mark Dreyfus actually getting legislation for an integrity commission through both Houses even if it wasn’t everything that everyone wanted.
So what’s the big plan that the Liberals have on energy prices?
Well, from what I can work out it seems that their plan is not to cap prices and to encourage a gas-led recovery from Covid and that will mean that we’ve all got plenty of gas and…
Oh wait, that was Mr Morrison’s plan that he didn’t implement because he can’t do everything.
Let’s see… The plan now seems to be to take the restrictions off nuclear energy and in about ten years or so, we should have plenty of cheap nuclear power with a reactor in every home.
Mm, that doesn’t seem to fix the price of my next gas or electricity bill. No, I don’t think the Liberals are on a winner there, even if they’re on a winner with nice guy Pete.
The only thing that confuses me is that Dutton was so unpopular within his own party that they elected Morrison rather than let him become PM.
I guess they just didn’t know him well enough!
https://twitter.com/MikeCarlton01/status/1601116389888393216
[textblock style=”7″]
Like what we do at The AIMN?
You’ll like it even more knowing that your donation will help us to keep up the good fight.
Chuck in a few bucks and see just how far it goes!
Your contribution to help with the running costs of this site will be gratefully accepted.
You can donate through PayPal or credit card via the button below, or donate via bank transfer: BSB: 062500; A/c no: 10495969
[/textblock]
