Credlin: Why so-called green transition is a slow-motion trainwreck

Labor’s problem is that voters are finally waking up to politicians running the power system to reduce emissions rather than to produce reliable and affordable electricity, writes Peta Credlin.

For a government that promised rising real wages and falling power bills, more bad economic news would be kryptonite, especially given that much of it is the government’s own doing. Other than last year’s failed Voice, it’s the so-called green transition that’s been the main policy focus of the Albanese government. Yet not only is this on the verge of coming seriously unstuck, it’s also a key driver of the cost-of-living crisis which is fanning the sense that the PM is weak and out of his depth.

With serious talk of a rate rise when the Reserve Bank meets in just over a week, there’s no doubt the PM would be carefully weighing up whether he goes to an early election sooner rather than later, in case things get worse. He will not have made a decision yet, but his campaign team would be doing everything necessary to give him the option.

That’s why today’s announcement of the ministerial reshuffle needs to be seen as part of clearing the decks for a possible pre-Christmas election. Ever since he announced the two retirements of Linda Burney and Brendan O’Connor on Thursday, the factional warlords have been meeting to replace them. Unlike Peter Dutton, who gets to choose his own frontbench, Labor leaders have the choice imposed on them; all they get to do is allocate their portfolios.

Right now, business failures are at a record level, especially in the construction sector.

Prime Minister Anthony Albanese announcing the retirements of Brendan O’Connor and Linda Burney. Picture: AAP Image/Mick Tsikas

Yet despite the evidence of a slowing economy, inflation is still sticky at close to 4 per cent, hence the RBA worry. For many householders, even a quarter per cent rise would wipe out the gains of the recent tax cuts.

Plus, rising wholesale power prices revealed last week are likely to swallow up the government’s energy rebate and that’s on top of household electricity bills that have already risen by up to $1000 since the election. Then there’s the ongoing doubts about Labor’s steadiness on border protection and undoubted complicity in the CFMEU thuggery.

Andrew “Twiggy” Forrest has abandoned hydrogen as a green pipe dream. Picture Newswire/Sharon Smith

With Twiggy Forrest last week abandoning hydrogen (and 700 jobs) as a green pipe dream, with the energy market operator warning of looming blackouts and brownouts, and with new wind and solar projects subject to intensifying local community opposition, voters’ faith in renewable energy as the key to more jobs and lower prices is starting to shift.

The basic problem for those claiming that energy from the sun and wind is free is that the more of it we have in the system, the higher our power bills get. So while wind and solar might be cheap to generate, it’s not cheap to deliver and it’s certainly not cheap to deliver 24/7 given the vagaries of the weather.

And as for all those “green jobs” that wind and solar was supposed to deliver, most of them are in China, which is the source of about 80 per cent of the world’s wind turbines and solar panels.

The green transition is creating thousands of jobs but unfortunately they are in China, like this worker at a factory in Haian. Picture: AFP

For some time, it’s been obvious to anyone without a vested interest to protect that the so-called green transition is a slow-motion trainwreck. First, there are subsidies to drive the take-up of renewables. Then, there are subsidies to mask the pain in the pocket as intermittent renewables destroy the viability of reliable fossil-fuelled power.

Then the government is forced to subsidise coal, as we see in Victoria and NSW, to keep the lights on.

The whole shemozzle is close to coming unstuck as people start to work out that this gigantic money-go-round is only needed because, for too long, politicians have been running the power system to reduce emissions rather than to produce reliable and affordable electricity.

Labor’s problem, as the polls show, is that voters are finally waking up.

LIBERAL FIGHTING CAN ONLY DISTRACT FROM LABOR’S CFMEU DEBACLE

In a democracy, good government doesn’t happen without a strong opposition. And what makes a strong opposition is its willingness to create a political contest.

In Queensland, the LNP’s David Crisafuli is in the box seat come October because he’s not been afraid to take on a bad government and has policies that demonstrate to voters that, if elected, he will be different.

By contrast, one of the reasons why Victoria is saddled with dreadful Labor governments is that, for years, the state Liberals have been pretty much unelectable.

First, it was because they didn’t stand for anything and thought they could win by being a paler version of Labor. Now it’s because most party members (and donors) are in a state of mutiny over expelled Liberal MP Moira Deeming.

Expelled Liberal MP Moira Deeming. Picture: NewsWire/Simon Bullard

Former teacher and mother of four Deeming – in case you don’t remember – attended a Let Women Speak rally outside state parliament in March last year, that was gatecrashed by a bunch of neo-Nazis.

For reasons that still defy explanation, Liberal leader John Pesutto then held a party room ballot to expel Deeming on the grounds that she had brought the party into disrepute via association with extremists, even though there was never any evidence that Deeming was more than an innocent bystander to a political stunt.

Earlier this year, Pesutto settled a defamation action brought by two of the rally organisers; apologising and accepting that they weren’t extremists themselves or extremist associates. Out of obstinacy, though, he still seems reluctant to settle with Deeming – presumably because if he admits she was never herself an extremist, he has no basis for keeping her out of a party room where he can’t take his numbers for granted.

But not only does his party room have a rump of passionate Deeming supporters, the party-at-large thinks that without room in the team for someone who’s not against trans rights, just in favour of women’s rights, the Liberal Party is Liberal in name only. Donors and party members are likely to stay on strike until this matter is resolved in a way that’s fair to Deeming.

Victorian Liberal leader John Pesutto. Picture: Peter Haskin/Zionism Victoria

Without a swift settlement, this matter will shortly go to court where the Liberal Party will make a spectacle of itself and distract from Labor’s CFMEU debacle, which should be their focus. Even as polls show a drop in support for the Allan government, that support is not shifting to Pesutto’s Liberals.

Former Queensland Labor premier Peter Beattie made an art form of admitting that he’d stuffed up and promising to make good. Politicians can readily be forgiven their mistakes, but evidence of bad character is much harder to recover from. Magnanimity or pigheadedness? That’s Pesutto’s choice and we all know which characteristic is more likely to bring him unstuck.

Victorians are desperate for a strong Liberal opposition and, if he can’t do the job, put someone else in who can.

Watch Peta on Credlin on Sky News, weeknights at 6pm

Originally published as Credlin: Why so-called green transition is a slow-motion trainwreck