Business lobby dismay as energy crisis anger boils over

The Indians see Adani as a litmus test for future ties, while Australian businesses are dismayed over the gas crisis.

Adani Australia's CEO and Head of Country Jeyakumar Janakaraj. Photo: AAP

Energy anger is Australia is rising rapidly. The business community’s dismay over the disastrous energy situation boiled over at the Australian Leadership Retreat on the Gold Coast at the weekend.

But so did the deep anger from the Indian delegates who pulled no punches when explaining that India saw what was happening in the Adani coal development and in the attitude of the Westpac as a clear form of racism.

Because the Adani energy sessions at the conference were held under the Chatham House Rule there were no attributable quotations, but on the local power front business people are waking up to the fact that Australia has moved from a low-cost energy-secure nation to a high-cost nation with blackouts threatening NSW and Victoria following the South Australian blackouts.

And there was added horror when the experts at the leadership retreat indicated the situation might take five years to fix. That’s no surprise to my readers, but I must confess I was stunned by the depth of feeling from the Indians.

It was very clear at the conference that India under Prime Minister Narendra Modi is emerging as a regional success story which has a real chance of duplicating China’s success, albeit 10 to 20 years later. With China likely to slow, India is now set to give the region a second boost and Australia is in a prime position to be an important beneficiary.

But the Indians at the retreat said India saw Adani as the ­litmus test for the future relationship between the two nations. They accused Westpac not only of racism but of seeking to look after their coal loans in Newcastle. I certainly do not believe Westpac is racist or that any Newcastle loans have played any role in their decision not to loan to Adani.

I publish the false allegations because Australia needs to know how the Indians are feeling. Over coffee later I explained to the Indian delegates the role of social media and forwarded my commentary, which was published before Westpac made the Adani loan rejection decision.

Nevertheless the Indian community is now considering advocating that Indians in Australia blackball Westpac. Banks or other enterprises who stray into controversial and divisive social issues are playing a high-risk game.

I have been to many leadership retreats and not only have I never seen such anger from the normally polite Indians but, on a different energy front, the green views that traditionally dominate these retreats were overtaken by the energy crisis.

As part of the local anger, one of Australia’s most respected business leaders believes that all three of the Gladstone LNG consortiums must be called upon to sell gas at an attractive price to the local market — not just the Santos consortium.

While Santos was the most irresponsible of the three, they have all played a role.

Another senior business person said Australian job losses had already been severe as a result of high gas prices caused by the combination of Gladstone LNG and bad state government decisions. But if the gas problem was not tackled much larger job losses would take place.

On the electricity front, it was agreed that enormous work was required on the grid, which in some areas was old and overall was not designed to take solar and wind power from decentralised locations.

It would take about five years to fix. A major West Australian miner said it had looked at using solar or wind power with gas back up but could not make the economics work so went for diesel.

Victoria, NSW and South Australia have shut coal plants, installed wind and solar generators but did not take the next vital and expensive back up step.

NSW, which has the greatest likelihood of a blackout threat, is planning an emergency action plan to implement if a blackout looks likely.

Victoria is better placed but says that on hot days the wind normally blows so all will be well. It’s massive finger-crossing.

We are also set to see an explosion of mini power networks to reduce dependence on the grid.

Meanwhile, an extra danger was thrown into the electricity melting pot. Russia and the US plus other countries have a cyber weapon that can shut down power supplies. Russia appears to have used it in Ukraine.

It was another confirmation that cyber is the new military front.