What we’re seeing is the de-electrification and deindustrialisation of Australia

The only “game changer” in Chris Bowen’s latest plan is how much of your taxes he will spend to con you into thinking his green energy revolution is going well.

Chris Bowen proved last week our future is in massive strife when he claimed he’d come up with a “game-changer” in how this country will move its freight.

Here’s evidence of the insanity that’s gripped the Albanese government.

Bowen, the dangerous Climate Change and Energy Minister, dragged along Prime Minister Anthony Albanese last Thursday to launch the first of 60 electric trucks bought by Team Global Express to move parcels around Sydney.

Dressed in mad yellow fluoro, Bowen claimed this was a game-changer because these electric trucks weren’t just great for the “broader climate” – fewer emissions! – but “the cheapest to run”.

Chris Bowen and Anthony Albanese dressed in mad yellow fluoro. Picture: Damian Shaw

Er, cheapest compared to what?

The only reason Team Global Express could afford these trucks, most of them the Volvo FL, was that Bowen’s Australian Renewable Energy Agency had given it $20m to help buy them.

That’s a grant of more than $330,000 per truck, on top of whatever Team Global Express paid, when you could find a diesel equivalent for well under $200,000.

And what do you get for that crazy price? A truck that takes 11 hours to recharge on mains power, and can go just 250km, as long as it’s not too cold and you don’t take it on a highway.

The only “game changer” here is that Bowen will now spend any amount of your taxes to con you into thinking his green energy revolution is going well.

It’s in fact a disaster. His plan to “save” us from the non-existent “climate crisis” is to get rid of our coal-fired generators and replace them with wind and solar, but … oops.

Albanese and Bowen taking pictures with the Team Global Express staff. Picture: Damian Shaw

Sure, coal-fired power is going out of business, but guess how many new wind farms were created last year?

Answer: zero.

Yes, private investment in Bowen’s clean energy revolution has cratered from $6.5bn in 2022 to just $1.5bn last year.

What we’re seeing is the de-electrification and deindustrialisation of Australia by a government making electricity such a scarce luxury that whole industries could be wiped out.

But it’s not just the government’s global warming delusion that’s turning Australia into a no-go place for investors. Add its divisive race agenda and wider green religion.

We’ll see that play out in full Technicolor this year when Environment Minister Tanya Plibersek finally reveals her “Nature Positive” legislation.

Let me sum it up: this is a plan for even more green restrictions and Aboriginal “cultural protection” rules that will make it even harder to open any new factory and especially any new mine.

As Plibersek has burbled, her planned laws are about “protecting more of what’s precious”. She adds this will actually be good for business by “speeding up decisions”, but everything she’s actually hinted at during her highly secretive consultation process sounds a threat.

For instance, she claims we have “an extinction crisis” and need to get tougher with planning rules.

Environment Minister Tanya Plibersek has revealed ‘Nature Positive’ legislation. Picture: Martin Ollman

She also sees a climate crisis, and wants investors to first work out all the emissions they will create and cause, and “disclose how their project aligns with Australia’s national and international obligations to reduce emissions”. Can you imagine the paperwork?

Plibersek also wants “improved protections“ over fracking for the gas we badly need, even though an inquiry by the NSW Chief Scientist failed to identify a single incident of contamination of water supplies by fracking in 2.5 million wells drilled around the world.

Naturally, she’s also pushing the government’s antinuclear hysteria, which includes an irrational ban on nuclear power. She wants her “Nature Positive” laws to have an extra “focus on protecting the community and environment from the harmful effects of radiation and radioactive material”.

Finally, and ominously, Plibersek wants more race politics – new “laws to strengthen First Nations’ cultural heritage protections nationally”.

Is Plibersek blind? Hasn’t she seen how activists have grossly misused our existing laws, citing mythical rainbow serpents and “whale songlines” to block even massive gas projects way out at sea?

Yet she’s doubling down, suggesting “species that are of cultural significance to First Nations people” be “considered in environmental and heritage protection processes”, and demanding the unelected members of her hand-picked Indigenous Advisory Committee be given “a stronger voice in our system of environmental protection”, even though many also have substantial European ancestry.

Add it all up: the government’s global warming crusade, its green religion, its race politics, plus the wildly pro-union laws on businesses already rammed through by Workplace Relations Minister Tony Burke. This damage being done to our economy could last a generation.

Originally published as What we’re seeing is the de-electrification and deindustrialisation of Australia