Terry McCrann: Premier declaring war on Victoria

THE Premier Daniel Andrews has declared war on the people and on the businesses of Victoria. And let’s not of course forget the birds, writes Terry McCrann.

• State Government permanently bans fracking in Victoria

THE Premier Daniel Andrews has declared war on the people and on the businesses of Victoria. And let’s not of course forget the birds.

In very simple terms he wants every single individual and every single business in the state to pay ever-rising prices for their electricity and for their gas.

That’s of course, if they’ll even be able to get them. Because he has committed the government to a course, which as it plays out, will mean electricity blackouts and gas shortages.

It’s as if he has ‘seen the future’ — in the disastrous mess that South Australia has got itself into, by trying to move to an ‘all-wind future’ — and concluded that he wants exactly the same future for Victoria.

Not content with setting out to deprive both present and future Victorians of the cheap, plentiful and reliable electricity we get from the coal-fired power stations in the Latrobe Valley, Andrews has now moved to also rule out the only realistic alternative and which would make those closures at least half — no, quarter; no, perhaps an eighth — rational.

Because if you do decide to move away from coal, the only viable alternative as a replacement, as an at least ‘transitional,’ base-load power source, is lower-emissions gas.

‘Apart from being a complete idiot, Andrews is also completely gutless.’

But also crucially, gas is the only viable and indeed even just functional necessary long-term ‘backstop’ to the intermittent so-called ‘renewable’ wind and solar fantasies of the (increasingly, literally, dark) Andrews et al future.

In the dark recesses of what increasingly looks like a wind-powered brain — which of course means, it’s only working spasmodically, when as they say, ‘the wind does blow;’ or at hyperactivity when it’s blowing a gale — does the Premier really find it impossible to understand two basic realities, which like the laws of arithmetic, cannot be repealed by political whim?

The first is that gas is a critical component of our state and national future energy sources, whether in its current role primarily for household heating and cooking and as an industry feedstock, or as mainstream electricity generation.

And that second, as both coal-seam gas in Queensland and shale gas in the US have demonstrated, so-called unconventional gas — extracted by fracking — offers the best chance of future supply.

In short, if you want gas in Victoria’s future — and whether you are a climate change sceptic or a global warming true believer, you should want that — you have to find it. And you are only going to find it, if you allow companies to look for it, and then develop it.

Yet Andrews, in the most egregious exercise of political posturing, seeks to rule it out in Victoria forever. And just to make sure that there’s absolutely no gas in our future, he’s ruled out conventional drilling as well.

Sure, the latter’s only banned until 2020, but that’s effectively the same ‘forever ban’ being applied to unconventional gas.

It’s so insane it should be literally unbelievable. For close to 100 years Victorians have had cheap, plentiful and above all reliable electricity out of the Latrobe Valley.

We’ve also has cheap, plentiful and reliable gas out of Bass Strait. But that gas is now running out; we either literally find replacement gas or tomorrow’s future will quite literally be gasless.

The coal isn’t running out; ‘we’ are making a discrete decision not to have it. Although just like his fellow Victorian traveller, former prime minister Julia Gillard, Andrews is very ‘Augustinian’ over coal.

LORD make me — and, gratuitously, every Victorian — (coal-free) pure, but not just yet.

Apart from being a complete idiot, Andrews is also completely gutless.

Why isn’t he touring the Valley, spruiking the virtues of a coal-free future? Indeed, why isn’t he salivating: I have a dream, where I press the button closing the first of those stations?

As the Business Council’s Jennifer Westacott so succinctly put it:

The Victorian Government’s decision to ban exploration and development of all onshore conventional gas in Victoria will be a dead weight on economic growth and energy security, while making the clean energy transition riskier and more expensive.

“To completely restrict access to viable and safe energy sources, especially in a state that is so dependent on manufacturing, will inevitably lead to higher prices for householders, and for Victorian businesses,” she added.

And the Minerals Councils Brendan Pearson added that it wasn’t just bad for Victoria and Victorians, it would be bad for the whole of Australia.

With mining and minerals processing a large user of electricity, Australia’s ability to compete on the international stage depends on access to inexpensive, reliable energy supplies.”

And let’s not forget the birds. The more wind turbines you erect, the more solar panels you spread out, the more birds you chop and fry.

So to the basic chant:

Hey, hey, D (Daniel)-M (Michael)-A (Andrews)

How many birds did you kill today?

We now have a string of additional stanzas.

Hey, hey, DMA

How many pensioners did you freeze today?

Hey, hey, DMA

How many businesses did you drive away?

There’ll be many more.