"Tell him he's dreamin"... [see photo].
Australians seem to have a recurring dream about the benefits of renewable technologies, citizen equity, gender morphing, and utopian life styles. They have had this dream since Petra Kelly came to Australia with her halt nuclear power message which was lightened up with a warm and fuzzy picture of environmental bliss. Talk to Petra for five minutes and you were likely to become rusted-on to both her and her message. However... Petra and those who followed her come armed with narratives not solutions. They opposed nuclear power but affirm solar, wind, sea, and many other forms of electricity generation. For the past five decades Australia has been dreaming about "an environmentally friendly world" and hoping that emergent technologies can meet the needs of those reliant upon fossil fuels. In essence Australians are still chasing a five-decade-old mirage.
After the election of the new Federal Government the echo of Petra Kelly rings loud and clear through Parliament House and across the urban landscape of the nation. In the regions and rural hamlets this echo is familiar; however, they despise this message today as much as it did when Petra first utter her green utopian mantras. The folks who grow our food know that this green dream is an illusion; no worse than that it is a delusion. It is a delusion that will reduce the living standards of all Australians. However... the burden of this lowering of living standards will not fall equally on everyone. Indeed there is no sign of an equitable outcome for most Australians unless, or until ,each one of them is as poor as a church mouse.
In 2010... Australia begot a hung Parliament as neither major party could raise a majority without the assistance of minor parties. Before that election the creed from both sides who expected to form the new government was simple. "No carbon taxes!" After the election a price was put on carbon and a punitive regime was put in place to rid Australia of all its bounty derived from coal and other fossil fuels. Ten years later it is a case of rinse-and-repeat as the new government seeks to obtain ambitious carbon reduction levels by 2030. A key feature of the last attempt at this gig was a sustained period of corruption, division, and bloody mindedness. In 2013 a new government was elected with a "no carbon taxes" agenda. Overtime this stricture was abandoned and once again Australia drifted towards a public policy platform dominated by items that restricted the use of fossil fuels at home. Meanwhile... coal exports to China [and the like] rose and rose and rose. So this new green dream will be pushed by ideological zealots and paid for by ordinary folk.
Australians are about to make themselves irrelevant in a world that wants access to their stores of fossil fuels. Australians chase a dream but end up living with a nightmare.
Richard.
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