Peta Credlin: We need electricity 24/7, not just when the sun shines

Australians have had enough of paying more and more for power — and then for that power to not be available when they need it, writes Peta Credlin.

If not being able to turn on the lights is what you get for being a “Renewable Energy Superpower” then you can stick that idea where the sun doesn’t shine, Chris Bowen. Australians have had enough of paying more and more for power, and then for that power to not be available when they need it.

We must be the laughing stock of the developed world. A country richer than almost any other in natural resources – coal, gas, uranium and more – and yet here we are, being told by our so-called leaders not to use the dishwasher after 3pm on a moderately warm day?

The grid was under such extreme stress that it was the remaining coal generation in NSW and plenty of coal-fired power pumped in from Victoria, along with big industry users being shut down, that kept us from catastrophe.

But, for how long?

This Ukrainian hairdresser works by torchlight because a Russian attack took out the power. Chris Bowen does not have that good an excuse for causing blackouts here. Picture: AFP

When South Australia suffered a 24-hour statewide blackout in 2016, because a gale meant the wind turbines had to be turned off and the interconnector with Victoria broke down; and when Broken Hill recently suffered a 10-day blackout because the wind turbines were out of action and the batteries couldn’t cope, few in the centres of power paid much attention.

But when our most populous state almost ground to a halt last week, our politicians could no longer dodge responsibility for the mess they’ve put us in by listening to activists instead of engineers.

By contrast, Victoria sailed through a day of temperatures in the high 30s because a fortuitous lack of scheduled coal-plant maintenance meant that 80 per cent of this state’s power was still able to be generated by reliable coal.

Bowen, naturally, blamed the NSW problems on the “unreliability” of coal (that still provides 60 per cent of NSW power on average but that was significantly under maintenance that day) and said that “reliable renewables” were the answer.

But “reliable renewables” is an oxymoron; it’s like cold heat.

Renewables only provide electricity when the wind blows and the sun shines. That, on average, is less than 40 per cent of the time. Yet society needs electricity 24/7 for everything such as keeping fridges and TVs running, charging our phones, allowing purchases to be made, keeping ventilators and dialysis machines operating, and – soon – keeping electric cars on the road and power-hungry data centres going.

Chris Bowen’s ‘reliable renewables” is an oxymoron. Picture: Martin Ollman

As my readers would know, for some years now, I’ve been pointing out that our nation’s energy policy is a slow-motion trainwreck.

That’s now starting to become obvious, but instead of accepting that we desperately need to keep reliable, 24/7 fossil fuels in the system – coal for at least the next decade and then gas, more-or-less indefinitely to power up the instant the wind drops or the sun disappears, the Albanese government has just mindlessly doubled down on its insistence that renewable power plus batteries is the answer.

As the parliament finished up for 2024 last week, Bowen boasted that the government was on track to get 82 per cent of our electricity from renewables within just six years; even though both the NSW and Victorian Labor governments are paying millions to the coal plants (they despise) to stay open. He even had the gall to keep insisting that renewables are the cheapest form of power; even though the clear evidence of our power bills is that the more renewables there are in the system, the more prices go up, and the more jobs in heavy industries migrate offshore.

Bowen, of course, was the immigration minister who presided over a record number of illegal boat arrivals during the Rudd-Gillard years, and was the shadow treasurer who cost Bill Shorten an election win by telling voters not to vote for the higher taxes they didn’t like.

Now he’s undermining the entire economy by destroying an essential service.

Not to mention disfiguring the landscape and jeopardising our food security by carpeting it with forests of wind turbines and expanses of solar panels.

Then there’s the self-harm inherent in closing down the coal and gas sectors that are two of our three biggest export earners and sources of tax revenue.

Why, when we’re 1 per cent of the climate change problem, are we wearing 100 per cent of the pain?

Weak Labor puts rights of a killer first

Only in Victoria could a convicted murderer in prison get approval to leave her cell and undergo IVF, with permission to raiseany child that might result behind bars.

When confronted with white hot community outrage, Premier Jacinta Allan (inset) washed her hands of the issue, pointing tothe fact that this inmate’s access to IVF came out of a court ruling in 2010. But given parliament can make any law to overridea court decision, how hard is it for Allan to say: “Not in this state, not on my watch?”

Too hard it would seem. Even when Opposition police shadow minister Brad Battin, put a bill into parliament on Thursday tooverturn this ruling, Labor struck it down.

Sometimes in politics there comes along an issue where right and wrong is blindingly clear. This is one such issue. Even theIVF providers are in no doubt where the moral line lies with Melbourne IVF, the largest provider of services in the state,declaring they will not treat this killer. Others too, have now joined them in rejecting her bid.

If only our leaders were willing to show similar leadership.

We have to clean up the senate

For 11 years in the Howard government, I worked as a ministerial staffer in the senate because I was proud of its role improvinglegislation as the “House of Review”. Back then, senators on opposite sides of the chamber worked constructively together;agreeing where they could, disagreeing where they must. But how times have changed, with the Australian Senate now a bywordfor dysfunction, disorder and shrews. It is beyond time it was reformed. We must end the system where people can be elected on one party’s ticket and then quitto sit as an independent (like Lidia Thorpe), or start a new party of their own (like Fatima Payman). This is why we’ve seenan increase in bedlam as these rats all desperately try to keep their name in the headlines because lifting their profileis their only chance for re-election. This is one referendum that would carry hands down.

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