Dan Andrews shows breathtaking hypocrisy by demanding Qld gas be diverted to Victoria
Dan Andrews shows breathtaking hypocrisy by refusing to allow gas to be developed in Victoria but demanding that it be diverted from Queensland exports, writes Terry McCrann.
Terry McCrann
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It really is this simple: if as premier of a state you refuse to allow gas (and oil) to be developed or even discovered, you can hardly demand that other states must give you some of their gas.
But that’s exactly what the slipperiest premier in the land – someone with an unequalled talent for combining stupidity and breathtaking hypocrisy - is doing, without the slightest shred of self-awareness.
Victorian premier Dan Andrews is demanding that Queensland gas be diverted from exports to fill the looming shortfall in Victoria.
When Victoria, and specifically the Andrews-led Labor Government, only has itself to blame for not having plentiful, cheap, Victorian-sourced gas.
This is because this very same Andrews Government totally banned all onshore exploration for gas from its election in 2014. And so far as developing any gas that might already have been discovered: in your dreams.
This was not just about banning the wicked fracking, but even conventional gas discovery and development.
But now that it’s getting ‘awkward’ - as in, Victorians are not only paying sky-high prices but they might even find their gas turned off this coming winter – Andrews is demanding ‘everyone else’ fill the gap. Gee, incidentally, what a surprise: you don’t allow gas development and supplies end up running out? Who could have guessed?
Well, certainly not a political thug, who is entirely focused on political thuggery, as he demonstrated yet again, in once again sliming protesters he didn’t agree with, and shrugging off integrity questions.
The sheer, hypocritical chutzpah of Andrews is captured in his utter rejection of fracking – that’s to say, fracking in Victoria.
“So, if you want us to frack the place, ah, no, that’s not happening … that is not happening – and we couldn’t have been clearer,” he thumped the virtual table this week. But he wants Queensland gas to be diverted from export to Victoria. “So that our (actually, their) gas is for our businesses and our households and the rest of it, the bit we don’t need – well, sell that to the world,” Andrews added. “We shouldn’t have to compete against the rest of the world for something that comes out of our ground and our seabed.”
Well, all those vast exports out of Queensland – that gas coming out of “our ground” – is doing so via fracking.
So the nation’s premier hypocrite is quite happy for fracking to take place in Queensland to supply Victorians. Indeed, that the fracked Queensland gas actually be ordered south by the federal government.
But in Victoria? No way; that’s evil. The Andrews hypocrisy-stupidity cocktail operates on steroids.
For as The Australian’s Robert Gottliebsen has revealed, Victoria has plenty of gas available that could be developed without fracking.
But the Andrews government doesn’t want to know about it. And it doesn’t want to know about while embarked on the insanity of destroying Victoria’s cheap, reliable and what used to be plentiful coal-fired power generation. Coal is wicked because it’s a fossil fuel; but to the blinkered premier, the fossil fuel gas is still great, provided somebody else finds and develops it.
And if they have to frack it to get it for US; we’ll look the other way, while demanding they sell it to us, cheap. Just quietly even a fellow Labor Government in Queensland is going to be less than impressed by the Andrews chutzpah. Given what Queensland premier Annastacia Palaszczuk said about “Queensland hospitals being for Queenslanders” during Covid; I’m guessing she would say that if we are going to divert Queensland gas from export; we’ll be diverting it to Queenslanders not to free-loading Victorians.
As famed wit HL Mencken said: voters deserve to get it good and hard; Victorian voters who re-elected Andrews really ‘deserve it’.
Originally published as Dan Andrews shows breathtaking hypocrisy by demanding Qld gas be diverted to Victoria
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