Steve Price: Bandt Green dream is more realistically a nightmare
The bike lane-using, vegan, Greens voters should practise what Adam Bandt preaches — like living purely off renewable energy — and see if they survive the inevitable trainwreck that ensues.
Opinion
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My Sky News and Herald Sun colleague Andrew Bolt once argued that the best way to wake up Greens voters would be to force any Federal or State electorate that voted Green to live life by what their Green MPs preached.
What a superb idea if for no other reason to see the look on the puffed-up Greens leader Adam Bandt’s face as the seat of Melbourne went dark.
His seat — after a recent redistribution — takes in some of the richest streets of suburbs like South Yarra, Prahran, Richmond and the Docklands.
The most expensive house I ever owned in Melbourne was in a pocket that included the Botanical Gardens precinct and elite private schools Melbourne Grammar and Melbourne Girls Grammar. This is now part of the Bandt’s fiefdom, although he has rarely if ever been spotted at the local drinking hole the Botanical or the Bot as we knew it. I can only hope and pray my old neighbours put a dent in Bandt’s primary vote.
Bolt’s idea was simple but clever, he argued that the Greens voting areas be forced to live off renewable energy only – a Green’s party dream.
Bandt as usual during a federal campaign released his normal unhinged national suicide list of demands. This includes of course no new coal and gas projects. His voters in Melbourne would under this idea be forced to power their mansions with only solar and wind produced electricity.
Under the live by what you preach laws no coal or gas generated electricity would be permitted to run into the transmission lines running down Toorak Rd heading east as far as Williams Rd. The MCG and Melbourne Park tennis centre would not be able to turn on their light towers if we had some cloudy, still autumn days like we do at this time of year.
Adam would presumably force them to cover their grandstand roofs with solar panels and maybe the MCG light towers could double as wind turbines and the surrounding car parks could house massive battery installations.
It’s a ridiculous notion of course, that the hundreds of CBD office towers could run on renewable energy only, but of course the owners of those massive office blocks don’t vote Green it’s the bike lane using, sandal wearing vegans from Collingwood, Abbotsford and Fitzroy who do.
Anyone living in this electorate under the Bolt idea would be forced to freeze rental increases on any properties they owned and cap future rent jumps. The Melbourne residents would have to drop the idea of negative gearing and lose their capital gains tax benefits.
Of course, if they were forced to live the Bandt Green dream most would sell up and get as far away from him as possible. I mean the streets they called home would be overrun by drug users as the Greens want to legalise all drugs.
Adam Bandt is the classic example of a do what I say not as I do politician. The Greens leader loves the trappings of life as a political leader with travel advantages, high profile invitations and the attention from the Green-Left media that soak up his mad policies.
There he was last week addressing a tiny but adoring audience at the National Press Club in Canberra holding a giant toothbrush and Medicare card spruiking the idea of making dental part of Australia’s health system – nice idea maybe, but guess who is paying for it, us the taxpayers.
Bandt doesn’t pretend to live in the real world, his utopia sees everyone getting stuff for free from the giant money tree out the back of Parliament House.
The tofu eating keffiyeh wearing, Pro Palestine mob lap it up under the misconception that Australia’s Green movement is still a party concerned with the environment, of protecting native forests and rivers and all the cuddly creatures that live there.
That Green cloak though has slipped badly during the months since Hamas terrorists stormed the Israeli border slaughtering innocent Jewish men, women and children and taking hostages, some still not returned.
Weekly Pro-Palestine rallies have been supported by Green’s MPs as the chants of “from the river to the sea” rang out. This is not the party of Bob Brown and the Franklin River it has been hijacked by hard left socialists led by Bandt himself. As we saw last week it is all about tearing down corporate Australia – or as Adam likes to call them the evil corporate “billionaires” – and taxing the life out of big businesses that employ hundreds of thousands of hardworking Australians.
What does he think all those workers on coal and gas projects will do for a job as he rides in with his giant toothbrush and shuts them down?
After his Press Club appearance Bandt turned up in Sydney at a smart energy conference on Thursday last week. This is where things for landlords and small property investors with real estate as part of their self- managed superannuation funds got, if possible, seriously worse.
Under Bandt’s so called housing plan your tenants will be able to force you the landlord to install solar panels on the roof without argument – I’m not joking.
The policy – and don’t forget this bloke could hold the balance of power in a hung parliament after May 3 – will force landlords of stand-alone properties and townhouses to stick solar panels on the roof at the cost of around $7,000 for an 8kW system including installation. Adam would be in your backyard supervising because as he pointed out in his speech you would not be able to “unreasonably refuse” unless there were strict body corporate rules or engineering concerns.
Who does this bloke think he is …. or does he think at all. What does Bandt think forcing landlords to freeze rents, install expensive solar and agree to long term leases on rental properties will do to the rental market? It will force small property investors to flee sell up and cause the collapse of the rental system.
Adam Bandt has held the seat of Melbourne for fifteen years and it’s considered a safe seat on a margin of 6.5 per cent.
The recent border changes, as I pointed out, don’t really favour him as he loses bits of Clifton Hill, Brunswick East, Carlton North and North Fitzroy- guess which way they vote- and picks up areas across the Yarra River in South Yarra and Prahran where a state by-election saw the Greens booted out recently.
Carlton great Anthony Koutoufides is standing as an independent in Melbourne and hopefully will put a dent in Bandt’s margin but probably not enough to un-seat him. That means if there is a minority Labor government elected, and the Greens hang on to the gains they made in 2022, then it’s a real possibility the PM will have to deal with Bandt and his mates.
Albanese says he won’t strike any deals with the Greens leader come May 3.
Let’s hope that’s one promise he keeps.
Likes
• Rory McIlroy finally winning the US Masters and claiming that elusive grand slam of golf.
• Gather round in my old hometown of Adelaide- impossible to ever hold it anywhere else.
• A second Albanese/Dutton debate the more we see them compared live in real time the better.
• Hot Cross buns but only to be eaten at Easter not all year around.
Dislikes
• Russian designs on an air base in Indonesia within striking distance of Australia.
• Attention seeking singer Katy Perry and her billionaire mates 10-minute flight of fancy mission to the edge of space.
• Rory McIlroy refusing to utter one word to Bryson DeChambeau over 18 holes to decide the US Masters.
• Federal Labor’s slippery claims you’ll only need your Medicare card to visit a GP if they win the election.
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