Vikki Campion: Anthony Albanese’s energy plan a throw back to Joh Bjelke-Petersen

The thought that a socialist prime minister such as Anthony Albanese would be channelling Sir Joh is, in itself, a remarkable thing, but this is where we are with modern politics in Australia, writes Vikki Campion.

Long before I was born, the premier of my state, Sir Johannes Bjelke-Petersen, appeared in the Queensland capital, Brisbane, to propose the merits of hydrogen – a brand new fuel heralding a sunny meadow of opportunity.

As I look down the barrel of my 40s, Prime Minister Anthony Albanese, in Brisbane this week, also proposed a brand new fuel heralding a sunny meadow of opportunity.

Both eminent souls looked earnestly at the cameras and told us this emerging energy source, hydrogen power, would save the environment and create jobs for Queenslanders.

Albanese seemed to take his Future Made in Australia fund speech straight from the Country Party leader’s playbook, with spookily similar assertions, in a speech recorded for prosperity in the state’s Hansard.

While Sir Joh claimed, in 1979, that the hydrogen concept “would mean that every country could now have a fuel source in unlimited quantities”, Albo claimed hydrogen could make “Australia a renewable energy superpower”.

Anthony Albanese or Joh Bjelke-Petersen in disguise. Picture: Evan Morgan

While Sir Joh claimed the technology would “alleviate the payment of funds of perhaps many thousands of millions of dollars for overseas sources of energy”, Albo said it was “building the infrastructure and clean energy to power new growth” and “catalysing new investment”.

Sir Joh said the technology could “overcome the urgency of prospective drilling in waters adjacent to the Barrier Reef”, while Albo said the investment was “safeguarding the extraordinary natural treasures of the Great Barrier Reef”.

Sir Joh admitted that he spent hours talking to company heads “in an endeavour to have the new industry centred in Queensland” – as did Albo.

The thought that a socialist prime minister would be channelling Sir Joh is, in itself, a remarkable thing.

Queensland Premier Sir Joh Bjelke-Petersen had ambitions to make it all the way to Canberra. .

We all believed Albo was mentored by Tom Uren when, apparently, the whole time, he has secretly been a student of the Country Party great. They could have shared a speech writer.

Hydrogen is continually regurgitated as a grand elixir of energy that will solve all our nation’s environmental and economic needs, but what remains stubbornly the same is the monumental cost to produce it.

While Sir Joh was guilty of spruiking a fairyland fuel source that worked so well on paper, the decades that followed heralded, instead of sunny meadows, the brutal truth.

At least Sir Joh didn’t kill off Australia’s existing industry to make it work. Albo will be bringing in a Bill to spend taxpayers’ millions on “emerging” powers such as hydrogen while trashing what is already made in Australia: bricks and steel, gas and coal, meat and wool, steak and seafood, fruit and veg, timber, and rich resources in the dirt.

Even Albo appears to know the risk, couching his language with predictive phrases, with companies “looking at” employing people, and even nodding to potential failure before he has signed a cheque.

In other words, while the hydro grifters got in Sir Joh’s head in 1979, they are in our wallet and in Albo’s pocket today. It has never been taken up because it has never been affordable. They got rhetoric from Joh but will get revenue from Albo.

You have to hand it to them, they can pick a mug from a mile away. The Albanese government has a bad habit of coming up with unaffordable plans.

■ Exhibit one: Intermittent power with unknown secret agreements in taxpayer subsidies, solar and swindle factories, and transmission lines.

■ Exhibit two: New electric vehicles that few can afford to buy subsidised new and few wish to buy second-hand.

■ Exhibit three: Green hydrogen.

The difference is that when Sir Joh advocated hydrogen, he did not propose eliminating coal or killing petrol. Yet the Albanese government is forcing us down a net-zero road to a dead end.

This proposal will come to the same end as Sir Joh’s. The question is how many excuses will be given and how many taxpayer dollars will be squandered on the way.

NOTHING TO SEE HERE

When the government tells you not to worry, your ears should prick immediately.

When they tell us not to fear a treaty, we should be on the tip of our toes. A treaty, by nature, comes with concessions and entitlements.

Like the Voice, these will be based on a race you believe you are culturally linked to, delivering two classes of citizens in Australia.

In the wake of Victorian proposals to exempt Aboriginal people from paying interest rates, land tax or stamp duty, NSW Premier Chris Minns has stuck in to join the muddy path to treaty. But social media reveals his lead portfolio minister has been busy assuring his Central Coast constituents that this treaty is “nothing controversial”.

Treaty Minister David Harris is telling worried constituents it’s nothing to worry about.

Promoting his treaty policy on Facebook in January 2023, Mr Harris said in reply to people’s comments: “I’ve been working on this for 8 years. Well before Albo.” And: “This is simply a framework for agreeing on service delivery with the stakeholders at the table. Nothing controversial.”

Mr Harris assured them research shows programs delivered to Aboriginal people by Aboriginal-controlled organisations were more successful and provided better value for taxpayers’ money. If that is the case, and you have eight years of research to back it up, why do you require $5m only to hear from Indigenous voices, and why do you need to hire three commissioners on a combined salary of about $1m a year, for two years, to decide on outcomes?

We are back for another round of the Voice, only this time we don’t get a vote.

The job description for the new Aboriginal Affairs Treaty Commissioners signals it will be anything but chill, with the treaty commissioner’s role description revealing goals such as “the role of truth-telling in relation to the pursuit of a Treaty framework”.

Nothing to see here.

According to the job description, key challenges will include “managing and resolving conflict” and “applying trauma-informed approaches to consultation” as they navigate “a crowded policy, reform, and consultation space”.

After the half-billion-dollar exercise in which metropolitan advertising agencies were the only beneficiaries of a collective colonial shaming of people who ended up here as convicts and refugees, we are back for another wave of taxpayer-funded guilt – where sovereignty was never ceded, you don’t own your land, and the Minns ministry is telling us not to worry, it’s “nothing controversial”.

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