Abandon coal and the lights go out

PARANOIA about the motives of the Monash Forum shows how jumpy the Turnbull camp has become. But supplying electricity is the ultimate essential service and renewables won’t meet demand, writes Peta Credlin.

IT’S A sign of how fragile Malcolm Turnbull’s leadership has become that it’s now impossible to debate policy without accusations of conspiracy.

This week, the news seeped out that about 20 Coalition MPs had signed a letter setting up the Monash Forum to promote continued coal-fired power generation in this country.

Because the group included Tony Abbott, Barnaby Joyce, Kevin Andrews and Eric Abetz — the Prime Minister’s media barrackers instantly detected a leadership plot. According to one scribe, it was especially sinister that the story was “broken” on my Sky News program. It was also suspicious that Abbott’s annual Pollie Pedal charity bike ride was timed to pass by the old Hazelwood power station on the very morning that Turnbull would likely fail his own 30 losing Newspoll leadership test. Naturally, none of the so-called journalists allowed the facts to get in the way of their predictable prejudices.

For what it’s worth, I’d asked Monash Forum convenor Craig Kelly onto my program to discuss energy policy several days earlier. I’ve often had him on because he’s a rare voice of commonsense inside the Turnbull Government and does his best to use facts, not spin, to make his point.

Craig Kelly is part of the Monash Forum, pushing for the government to back coal-fired power. (Pic: News Corp)

I had only the vaguest rumour about the forum that I put to him and to his credit, he didn’t deny it; newspapers the following day had far more detail. From my days in Abbott’s office, I can also attest to the fact that the route and timing of the Pollie Pedal (now in its 21st year) is determined six months in advance of the ride. How was anyone to know then that Turnbull would clock up 30 losing Newspolls, and when that date would be?

All this paranoia shows how jumpy the Turnbull camp has become, and even where circumstances are benign, he can’t take a trick.

If the Prime Minister thought more about what’s best for Australia and less about how to do in his rivals, he wouldn’t be in such trouble. Supplying electricity is the ultimate essential service.

That’s why it’s government’s responsibility — when all else fails — to step in and make it work.

The electricity supply used to be a state government responsibility. Over time, the assets have been sold to the private sector and federal government green schemes, like the Renewable Energy Target, have distorted the market by subsiding renewables ($60 billion by 2030). If the power supply wasn’t already a federal government responsibility, Malcolm Turnbull has well and truly made it one with his Snowy 2.0 pumped hydro scheme.

Ever since, he’s been struggling with the trilemma: how do you keep the lights on and the price down, with emissions still falling in line with our Paris targets?

Tony Abbott doing a spin cycle class as a warm up to the annual Pollie Pedal Bike Ride. The ride’s route is determined many months in advance. (Pic: Adam Yip)

The awkward truth is that it simply can’t be done. One of these three objectives has to give and the government has chosen the wrong one. Its priorities are to keep the lights on and emissions down and it’s only pretending that prices can remain low. In other words, it’s our emissions-obsession that’s sending our power prices through the roof and frustrating the hell out of voters who expect their leaders to be straight with them.

Bill Shorten is committed to closing coal fired power stations because it’s the only way to reach his 50 per cent Renewable Energy Target, his 45 per cent emissions reduction target and to keep Labor’s green-left from rolling him for Anthony Albanese. Turnbull is dead against coal because climate change is about the only credential he has left from his days as Q & A’s leather jacket leftie, and people like AGL’s Andy Vesey are committed to closing coal-fired power stations because it’s a gesture to shareholder-activism while harvesting subsidies and raking in the profits as the price of power soars.

All these chickens are coming home to roost over the Liddell coal-fired power station which AGL is determined to close and which Turnbull now wants someone else to keep open. The Energy Market Operator says that if it’s closed in just over four years’ time, there’s a serious risk of blackouts because of a 1000 megawatt gap between supply and demand.

We can also expect a further spike in power prices, like the 85 per cent rise that followed Hazelwood’s closure in Victoria last year.

Don’t believe people who say that renewable energy is cheaper than coal or gas. If it were, the subsidies could be scrapped. And even if it were free, something else still has to provide power when the wind doesn’t blow and the sun doesn’t shine. Don’t believe people who say that coal is uneconomic. If it were, why are China, India, Japan, Germany and, yes, even the UAE, building fleets of new coal-fired power stations and why is there still a booming export market for Australian coal?

Don’t believe ministers who say that the government is driven by engineering and economic considerations on energy. A government that will invest up to $14billion in pumped hydro but won’t touch coal has abandoned its free market credentials … and its commonsense.