Leading article Australia
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18 February 2023
9:00 AM
‘We won’t get to net-zero emissions in this country, or indeed the world, without the resources sector, without gas, and even without coal. You cannot build a wind turbine without coal.’ Angus Taylor, perhaps? Ted O’Brien? Tony Abbott? Nope.
The words were uttered this week by Labor’s Minister for Resources Madeleine King, clearly one of the sharper tools in Labor’s climate shed. Speaking on Sky News, she went on to elaborate that gas will be needed ‘in the short-term, medium-term and long-term’ to ensure ‘energy security’.Former Labor MP Jennie George concurred, warning that ‘winter will be a testing time’ as she lambasted the poor planning of successive energy ministers, the virtue-signalling of governments and asked, where are the ‘safeguards’ for our energy future?
Er… there aren’t any. Not that such revelations or insights are news to readers of this magazine. For the best part of the last fifteen years, The Spectator Australia has been virtually alone among the mainstream media in refusing to be captivated by the climate change cult. More importantly, thanks to the great work of so many of our writers, including Ian Plimer, Mark Lawson, Alan Moran and many, many others, we have consistently pointed out the folly of the climate mantra and the extraordinary danger of jeopardising our God-given supplies of cheap and reliable energy sources.
Indeed, in this week’s issue Mark Lawson warns of the ‘dark ages’ that lie ahead as we rush towards Labor’s (and the Coalition’s) ludicrous net-zero goals. As Mark writes, ‘The events of the past few weeks have brought Australia’s energy future into sharp focus – we won’t have one.’
Sadly, the one resource Australia does seem to have an over-abundance of is stupidity, fuelled by Marxist propaganda and abetted by a political class that is either deeply cynical or unbelievably gullible. Take your pick. This stupidity has manifested itself in perfectly good coal-fired power stations literally being blown to smithereens to the applause of fools and shysters. The last decade has seen our energy infrastructure dismantled at breath-taking speed accompanied by a blizzard of false promises about new technologies and to the tune of ever-soaring household bills.
For a time, the Coalition held out against the madness, with the two most pertinent, honest and accurate words ever uttered about climate change doomsday alarmism having been uttered by former prime minister Tony Abbott: ‘It’s crap.’
Indeed, although she won’t thank us for pointing this out, Ms King’s position is now arguably closer to Mr Abbott’s than to Mr Albanese’s. Go to the bottom line – something our political class seem rarely capable of doing – and you have to answer the following question: will Australia abandoning its fossil-fuel energy sources prevent the planet from a climate apocalypse by the end of this century? Yes or no? Clearly, the fanatical climate zealots believe this to be the case, and many on the Left, including the Greens, either also believe this nonsense or more likely cynically pander to it. Hence the urgency of the alarmist position – close all coal and gas now! Swap to electric vehicles now! Stop eating meat! Eat bugs! Shut down all industry and farming!
These ideas are the logical end point of the Bowen/Wong/Albanese/Bandt/Thunberg/Ardern/Biden/UK/EU position, hence the hysterical reductions targets being touted on everything from carbon to nitrogen to methane to meat to household gas heaters; the pointless and ludicrously expensive advocacy of electric vehicles; the hyperventilating around hydrogen; and so on. But a more rational mindset recognises that there are two parts to that bottom-line question: firstly, is there actually a doomsday armageddon on the horizon? (Answer, no). And secondly, could anything Australia does in reducing carbon emissions in isolation ever have any measurable impact on the world’s climate? (Answer again, no.) Remove the urgency demanded of the doomsday scenario and/or recognise the limited role Australia can ever play and you must arrive at what we shall (cheekily) call the Abbott/King position, which can be summarised as, ‘Transition if you must, but there is no need to panic – and whatever you do, don’t dispense of the energy resources we are blessed with’.
This was of course, broadly, the Coalition’s position (approved overwhelming by the electorate in 2019) until it was disgracefully jettisoned by former prime minister Scott Morrison and his accomplice Barnaby Joyce, backed, laughably, by what was once the mainstream conservative press in Australia. The great pity is that the majority of the Australian electorate is, whether recognising it or not, of this same opinion.
Alas, because Australians are by nature fairly trusting (although this was sorely tested during Covid), it is likely that we will undergo a period of energy poverty and a dramatic downturn in our prosperity and all that that entails – both here and abroad – before the public wakes up to the disaster that the political class are deliberately inflicting upon us.
Could Resource Minister Madeleine King, ironically, be Labor’s canary in the climate change coal mine?
Or will she swiftly be brought into line and forced to start whistling to Labor’s alarmist, socialist and fanatical climate change tune?
Nelle's journey 