Vikki Campion: Net Zero has us tied to hopping while the rest of the world is running
With Australia locked into Net Zero for the next election cycle as other countries opt out, we are left hopping as the rest of the world runs rings around us, writes Vikki Campion.
Opinion
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If you were told that your child should hop around the schoolyard instead of running so the garden would grow faster, even as it became evident that most other the kids were running, would you insist your child stay bouncing on one leg?
That’s what we are doing as we lock ourselves into Net Zero for the next election cycle as other countries opt out: Hopping as they run rings around us.
President Trump is the parent you wish you had, who says no, my kid won’t comply with hobbling himself to make the grass grow back since most everyone else in this race is using both legs.
China, Russia, and India have never hopped along to Net Zero. They will start hopping in 2030, they tell us.
President Trump said America isn’t going to hop anymore; the United States is going to run as fast as it can, no matter how slow people claim the garden will grow.
If Mr and Mrs Russia’s child is running on two legs, and Mr and Mrs China’s child is untied, and if Mr and Mrs India’s child gets to wear shoes on both feet, so should mine.
That’s why Mr and Mrs USA voted for Donald Trump.
Even Australian companies like Woodside have stopped hopping in Australia’s yard; they canned green hydrogen here, the latest company to turn its back on the fuel that our hopping senseis, Climate Change Minister Chris Bowen and Prime Minister Anthony Albanese, are so certain we can export, and went running into America’s yard to explore gas.
While President Trump signed executive orders into an investigation into unfair foreign government practices that harm US trade, Albo hopped over to Tomago to hand $2 billion to the aluminium smelter so they could “switch to cheap, reliable renewable energy” with Chinese-made windmills and solar panels.
If it’s so cheap, why do they need the government to pay them $2 billion to do it? If it’s so reliable, why do we have to turn off our appliances in the afternoon?
When the nonpartisan group of international economists, The Growth Commission, recommended a core group of trading allies, including Australia and Japan, remove China’s anti-competitive market distortions after President Trump’s orders, Australia simply kept hopping in the corner of the yard, unsurprisingly coming last in every race.
We have a lot of countries who turn up to help us hop: The foreign actors for intermittent power, who organised the Capacity Investment Scheme to get taxpayer’s money whether they can keep the lights on or not, the overseas-based influencers who are suddenly lobbying against Australia getting nuclear power.
Unlike most Australian politicians, President Trump doesn’t rely on his wages from the taxpayer to pay his bills.
As I have said previously, most politicians in Australia would not have a job if they were not politicians. They have no real skills. They will be anything and say anything to stay on.
That’s why instead of following President Trump and untying ourselves, the Liberal Party cowardly decided to keep our left leg shoeless and tied up to our belt, imitating Sensei Bowen’s hopping style.
When people drive past and say who is that silly little boy hopping in the yard, they’ll say, “Oh, that’s Australia, and they are doing it to make the garden grow”.
And we will stay little.
There will be no major growth if we continue to hop, locking up our agricultural land for green tape and wind and solar factories, closing down our power stations, sucking in record immigration there’s not enough homes for, where our only jobs growth have been government jobs, or government-adjacent subsidised jobs in NDIS and childcare.
This is not a diet to feed a growing nation with a strong appetite.
The only thing you could do in committing to Net Zero, as the rest of the world lines up for the next economic race, is hurt our chance of winning.
And it is a race. No other country will benevolently put us on their shoulders to get us past the finish line.
When will Mr and Mrs Australia understand that sending our children to school hopping won’t make a difference to the trees but will weaken our chances at growth?
That the United States just voted for a guy who untied the kid’s legs while we are sending our kids to school with one shoe and one sock and their left foot tied up behind their back?
It’s time for us to understand that if we want to win the sports carnival, we have to use both legs.
As for the garden, the hopping won’t change it a bit.
GREENS NEED TO GO BACK TO SCHOOL ON WHY COST OF LIVING IS SO HIGH
A favourite fantasy of the oft-privately-educated Greens is that every public school kid is a caricature of a pauperised Oliver Twist barefoot and begging for a bowl of gruel.
This view of ‘the poors”, forced into public education, is how the Greens come to this week’s policy announcement: to tax businesses to give $800 per kid as a “back-to-school allowance”.
What shows how little thought has gone into the Greens “back-to-school allowance” is the announcement links not to the Parliamentary Budget Office, which costed the policy, but to wild statistics from Finder, which Finder credits to several sources including a 2022 study for the Futurity Investment Group, which is, gasp, a big business which markets education bonds to worried grandparents.
According to these stats, the average primary school child costs parents $20 a year for shoes (apparently, they don’t grow). A lunch box and drink bottle will set you back $1 each per year. The remaining bill for parents included the cost of school camps, excursions, sports equipment, private tuition fees, and transport.
In his announcement, Greens leader Adam Bandt said “in a wealthy country like ours” everyone should be able to afford education.
Why are we wealthy, Mr Bandt?
It’s not because Australia is a self-consuming bureaucracy; but because of what we grow, dig up and sell.
If the Greens wanted to open land for dams, slash green tape impeding grazing, open mines, and build new coal-fired power plants for cheap energy, you would have the money for your back-to-school allowance and so much more.
Making school affordable starts by making life affordable, not forcing businesses to increase prices, pumping more government cash into the community, and keeping inflation up – even we publicly-educated types understand that.
LIFTER
Hundreds of homes flying the Australian flag in the lead up to Australia Day.
LEANER
Obedience clauses coming in secret to gag candidates to choke on the party line for the election.
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