Andrew Bolt: Labor’s tax plan a recipe for an even worse energy crisis

Australia looks like running dangerously short of electricity, but if Labor now plays Robin Hood on coal and gas companies, who’d dare invest in the fossil fuel projects we need?

I must be mad. This line in the papers surely couldn’t make sense: the Albanese government is considering “a new tax on gas and coal to help ease energy prices”.

But I checked another report and there it was again: “The Albanese government is looking at a new tax on thermal coal and gas producers that could bring energy prices down.”

Excuse me? I’d never before heard this lunatic claim that you make something cheaper by taxing it higher.

In fact, the previous Morrison government proved the exact opposite when it halved the petrol excise. But then this Labor government reversed that excise cut, claiming this was no way to cut our cost of living. So maybe it really does believe this insanity.

Labor will argue an extra tax would raise money from these greedy fossil fuel companies and it could then scatter it like Santa over Australians battling to pay power bills.

But how does that help fix things – compensating us for the extra cost it will cause with an even higher tax?

Peter Broeren, 55, worked in the industry since 1983. VICTORIA'S Yallourn coal-fired power station will shut down four years earlier than expected in 2028. Picture: Jason Edwards

Sadly, Labor seems obsessed – like 1970s student radicals – with this belief that our energy crisis is caused by “greedy” gas giants.

Greedy? Yes, they’re finally making big profits in the wake of the Ukraine war, but only after years of struggling to earn back the $300bn they invested since 2010 on the giant LNG export facilities they’re using.

As consultancy EnergyQuest put it: “Over the last 10 years investing in east coast gas development and production has been a financial disaster. Santos is only now recouping its losses and Origin and Arrow still have cumulative losses.”

But now that the gas companies look like recouping their investments, in swoops greedy Labor, wanting an even bigger cut than the extra $9bn governments are tipped to earn from them this financial year.

Imagine: If you want to invest in coal, gas or oil in Australia, you get countless hurdles put in your way by green-maddened politicians.

If you then lose money, tough. But if you finally make real money, this government could steal it.

That is a recipe for an even worse energy crisis.

Australia looks like running dangerously short of electricity over the next 20 years, but if Labor now plays Robin Hood on coal and gas companies, who’d dare invest in the fossil fuel projects we desperately need?

I thought all that was basic economics. But apparently it’s not on planet Marx.