Ego must not rule the energy debate

WHEN it comes to driving electricity prices down, politicians should put aside selfishness and do what works to help people who are feeling the pain, writes Miranda Devine.

EVERY Coalition MP, especially Tony Abbott, needs to put aside their selfishness and read Barnaby Joyce’s book Weatherboard & Iron.

It is a literary gem, Australia’s “Hillbilly Elegy”, a memoir of Australia’s white working class, who live in forgettable streets in “little shithole towns at the arse-end of the earth” in houses made cheaply of weatherboard with corrugated iron roofs.

Barnaby had his Jerry Springer moment this year, when he left his wife and four daughters for his pregnant staffer and went from deputy Prime Minister to disgraced backbencher. Nobody’s perfect.

But he counts himself as part of a “white tribe from a country village”, albeit from a relatively well-off farming family in Dangelmah, NSW.

He has given voice to the real forgotten people who feel left out of Australia’s prosperity. Left unprotected from the ravages of globalism and the free market, they reject the major parties and turn to Pauline Hanson and other false messiahs.

“I get an incredible sense of honour that they claim me,” writes Barnaby.

“The poor white person of the inland and on the periphery has the numbers and the political reality firmly pitted against them in the fight in Canberra …

“The discussion we need to have is how we can take these people forward … for the poor white town, the single mother in the weatherboard and iron, they need a special person to be their advocate”.

That’s what being a politician is meant to be. Not endless leadership dramas, fabricated for revenge. How does that help Australia?

When energy policy — including the misrepresented National Energy Guarantee — is used as a proxy for Abbott’s leadership longings, that is a betrayal of every Australian.

The Prime Minister is bending over backwards to address concerns about electricity prices which have inflicted real pain over a decade. (Pic: AAP/Mick Tsikas)

The Prime Minister is bending over backwards to address concerns about electricity prices which have inflicted real pain over a decade.

That is Barnaby’s lodestar. He doesn’t care about Abbott v Turnbull. He just wants the G in NEG to stand for a guarantee that electricity prices will fall, because he knows pensioners who go to bed at 4pm unable to afford to turn on the heater.

“That’s bigger than the aspirations of one person for leadership”, he says.

Vacuous slogans like “pull out of Paris” are a cruel hoax to fool people into thinking there’s a quick fix to a complex problem.

Turnbull’s enemies successfully have equated the NEG with the Paris climate treaty. But, ironically, the messy wrangling of the past few weeks may help craft a sharper election message that the NEG equals lower prices.

The government is confident there will be immediate impact on electricity bills.

Barnaby will get his price guarantee, for starters.

Andrew Hastie set forward a principled objection to legislating the unloved Paris emission reduction target of 26 per cent — the one Abbott committed us to and which we’ll meet soon without even trying.

Hastie was concerned that cementing a UN commitment in law would “undermine our economic sovereignty”.

The PM listened and is believed to have removed the need to legislate Paris, while requiring the ACCC to calculate the impact on electricity prices if any future Labor government wants to increase the target.

History will be kind to Peter Dutton. (Pic: AAP/Mick Tsikas)

Other improvements to the policy include implementing ACCC recommendations to increase competition and lower prices, for the government to underwrite new dispatchable power, and a “big stick” approach to force companies to bring their power prices down.

Thus, the election becomes a clear contest on power prices. Labor wants double emissions reduction and double the renewable energy, at double the prices.

But the Abbott agitators don’t actually care about electricity prices.

They want Turnbull to lose the next election and to hell with the consequences for Australia, which will be dire.

The only way they can live with themselves is by pretending the government has no chance of winning. But that’s not true.

Top pollster David Briggs from Newspoll says the Coalition is not in a bad position, at 49 to 51 per cent behind Labor.

“It’s not unusual … to be behind at this stage of the election cycle as voters play devil’s advocate … The Coalition should be capable of coming back into this”. But they need “six months of clear air”.

No one knows that better than the agitators. They fulfil their own prophecy with a daily barrage of complaint. History will not be kind to them.

But history will be kind to Peter Dutton, who yesterday showed decency and prudence when he resisted manic pressure to thrust himself forward prematurely as leader and destabilise the government.

That’s real leadership, subsuming your ego for the good of your team, and ultimately, your country.