Buying Christmas presents is something I do not enjoy. I detest crowded shopping centres, am useless at selecting gifts and always leave it until the last moment to shop. But thanks to Energy Minister Chris Bowen, I have already finalised my list of purchases.
We had not even made it into summer last week when the Australian Energy Market Operator warned we had insufficient reserves of energy to meet demand. NSW residents narrowly avoided mass blackouts by heeding the pleas of Premier Chris Minns not to use dishwashers, washing machines, and airconditioners between 3pm to 8pm. But when asked about this in parliament, Bowen claimed it was “not an unusual circumstance”.
In a way he is correct. For example, is not unusual for power outages to happen in Liberia, Haiti, or South Sudan. It is not unusual for this to happen when political and environmental ideologues embark on a renewables binge while shunning reliable means of generating electricity. And it not unusual for this to happen in a country that has a bumbling fabulist as its energy minister.
So what has this to do with my Christmas list? Such is my confidence in Bowen I intend buying candles, generators, portable gas cookers, and torches in the way of gifts. As for Bowen and the public utility, all I can say is he would make an ideal bauble for the giant Christmas tree in Martin Place. Let’s be honest, its electric lights are an indulgence we can no longer permit.
But some people, particularly politicians, have no concept of honesty. “The least reliable part of our energy grid at the moment is coal-fired power,” Bowen told Sky News host Laura Jayes last week. This was news to many scientists, especially former Australian Nuclear Science and Technology Organisation CEO Dr Adi Paterson.
“Coal has not been unreliable for 150 years,” he told The Daily Telegraph. “Why would coal suddenly become unreliable now?”
Contrary to Bowen’s claim, coal-fired power stations are not the “biggest threat to reliability in our energy system”. The biggest threat to reliability in our energy system is Chris Bowen.
Three years ago Bowen, then in opposition, declared a Labor government would reduce the average annual household energy bill by $275 by 2025 (and $378 by 2030), based on 2021 prices. And he was contemptuous of the Coalition for questioning his predictions.
“These guys are liars, and they will continue to lie,” he said.
But it is less than a month until 2025, and annual electricity prices, far from falling, are horrendously high. On average, they have risen $609 above what Bowen promised Labor would deliver. In Queensland, that figure is $1000 higher than his pledge.
As this masthead reported this week, the Australian Energy Regulator has noted a record number of Australian households – more than 130,000 – are on hardship payment plans. Unsurprisingly, Bowen has absolved himself of responsibility.
“The former Coalition government’s decade of denial and delay left Australia exposed to a global fossil fuel crisis,” he insisted.
The Morrison government’s record in this field was mixed, but it is Bowen who has given us a fuel (and fool) crisis. Interviewed a month before the election of 2022 by then Nine News political editor Chris Uhlmann, he ardently maintained that the rollout of renewables meant a drop in power bills.
“The more renewable energy we can get into the system, the cheaper it is for everyone,” he breezily pronounced.
Let’s evaluate that claim. In 2021, when Bowen launched Labor’s energy policies, renewables generated 32.5 per cent of Australia’s electricity. That figure has since risen to 39.4 per cent, yet electricity prices have skyrocketed. The more renewables in the system, the cheaper it is for everyone, right Minister?
According to this babbling spiv, Labor’s predictions for lower power bills were based on “the most comprehensive economic modelling that any opposition has ever released about any policy ever in Australia’s history”.
Just days ago he was asked repeatedly by Jayes to detail when bills would come down. He would only say Labor would not “walk away from the policies that that modelling was based on”.
What other wondrous forecasts can we base on the Bowen modelling?
Well to begin with, the modelling shows that Bowen will secure the number one spot of the Reader’s Digest Australia Trusted People survey in 2025. The modelling also shows his performance as Energy Minister is so brilliant it will secure Labor a net gain of 26 seats at the next election. And the modelling specifies that upon his retirement from politics, Bowen’s next role will be heading up Mensa International.
The modelling also forecasts I will take a hat-trick in the first over of the Boxing Day Test. When it is my turn to wield the willow, I will hit six consecutive sixes in a single over. It also specifies that if it is overcast on the day, we can power up all of the Melbourne Cricket Ground’s light towers for a total of $1.25 per hour. Is this modelling great or what?
But for some unknown reason, Bowen’s modelling is not doing the trick. I cannot imagine why not, for he is doing all the right things to bring down prices. For example, he dons the hard-hat, the high-vis vest, and the tradie work gear for the publicity shots. If there is one thing that this and his leering grin conveys, it is sincerity.
He is fond of glib phrases. “The sun doesn’t send a bill,” he says. “The wind doesn’t send a bill.” Renewables are incredibly cheap, according to him. They are so cheap that Labor is raiding our $230bn Future Fund and massively expanding the Capacity Investment Scheme to subsidise them. And did I mention Bowen’s Future Made in Australia plan for renewables, a grandiose and bloated scheme otherwise known as picking winners? The sun doesn’t send you a bill, but you can be sure Bowen will.
In closing, let me quote an excerpt from the book ‘On Charlatans’, by one Chris Bowen. “Politics around the world is being turned on its head and the fakes, the fraudsters and the snake-oil merchants are winning,” he writes. “Why?”
The answer is obvious, Chris Bowen. They are winning because they have perfected the art of projection.
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