Peta Credlin: Why it is hard to have a proper debate in this country about climate and energy

The announcement on Friday that former NSW energy minister Matt Kean has been appointed an adjunct professor tells you everything you need to know about the state of climate debate in Australia, writes Peta Credlin

The announcement on Friday that climate crusader Matt Kean has been appointed an adjunct professor shows how hard it is to have a proper debate in this country about climate and energy.

Kean, the former NSW Liberal energy minister, appointed by Labor’s Chris Bowen to head the Climate Change Authority, will join something called the Institute for Sustainable Futures at the University of Technology Sydney (UTS). Kean is a passionate opponent of nuclear energy even though it’s currently the only proven form of 24/7 emissions-free power.

Does anyone seriously think that a balanced discussion of, say, nuclear energy (let alone climate issues more broadly) would be possible within a university that makes such an appointment, unless it were matched by the (utterly improbable) appointment of an equally prominent alternative voice?

Where is the Dick Smith-type appointed alongside Kean to look carefully at the prospect of nuclear power for our energy future? Because nuclear is where the rest of world is headed to give nations the capacity to power the new technologies like AI, which are incredibly energy hungry; indeed, in the US, they’re recommissioning the old Three Mile Island nuclear plant at the behest of Silicon Valley.

The US is recommissioning the old Three Mile Island nuclear plant at the behest of Silicon Valley. Picture: Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images/AFP

(And this is aside from the growing list of potential conflicts that Kean has in his climate role with the federal government alongside his commercial interests that reap government climate subsidies).

But Kean is the least of Australia’s problem, with more evidence emerging last week that the Albanese government’s climate and energy agenda is in deep trouble.

Climate Change Authority chair Matt Kean. Picture: ABC

The Tomago aluminium smelter (that consumes about 10 per cent of NSW’ electricity) is reported to be seeking multibillion-dollar subsidies to stay open.

There’s opposition to the cost of building the Victorian gas import terminal that is now needed because, despite enormous gas supplies in the state, there is a shortage of supply because no new gas fields have been developed under Labor. Meaning one of Australia’s most gas-rich states will have to spend billions importing it from elsewhere to power industry and jobs, and keep the lights on, because it’s gas, alone, that can come quickly into the grid when the wind drops or the sun disappears.

Then you add in the cost of all the new transmission lines needed to get power from renewables projects in regional areas into our power-hungry cities. In Victoria, the Allan government was embarrassed last week when the cost of these lines was revealed to have blown out from $5 billion to over $20 billion.

Seventy-two per cent of Australia’s large scale solar farms are foreign-owned. Picture: NewsWire/ Aaron Francis

I wonder how many Australians know that 72 per cent of Australia’s large scale solar farms are foreign-owned and, similarly, for wind farms it’s 70 per cent – meaning the billions in subsidies head offshore.

And while the new energy minister gave the North-West Shelf project its long-sought extension, the Prime Minister then walked it back claiming that it was only an “interim decision” that Woodside still had to respond to in terms of protecting Indigenous rock art.

And while Australia is continuing its headlong rush towards Net Zero carbon emissions, with just sporadic opposition from sections of the Liberal and National parties, and with zero academic debate, the rest of the world is doing no such thing or it’s having second thoughts. The biggest emitters are all Net Zero sceptics: Trump’s America has totally abandoned Net Zero; China says it might get there by 2060; and, in the meantime, is opening two new coal-fired power stations a week. India says it might get there by 2070. Even in Britain, Labour’s Tony Blair says Net Zero is “doomed to fail.”

Most Australians are ignorant of what’s happening globally and unaware that the latest cost-estimates for deliver Net Zero in this country alone are between $7 trillion and $9 trillion.

Imagine if we put some of those billions into defence? Because if you want to talk about the immediate threat to our lives, looming wars are far more real and worrying than so-called climate emergencies.

THUMBS UP

Family Court Judge Andrew Strum – who has blown the whistle on Australia’s “gender affirming” guidelines that are now out of step with world’s best practice. Powerful drugs and hormones should not be the first response for confused children.

THUMBS DOWN

Liberal Party bail out – Talk that the Victorian Liberals could spend $2.3 million to bail out former leader John Pesutto is madness. He lost a case he could have settled for $99k. No one is above the law. Any wonder there’s a revolt with rank-and-file members.

Watch Peta on Credlin on Sky News, weeknights at 6pm

Originally published as Peta Credlin: Why it is hard to have a proper debate in this country about climate and energy