ALP energy relief based on ‘magic pudding economics’

Labor’s announcement of a further round of taxpayer-funded energy relief is an admission that its energy transition is failing. It’s held together by subsidies, secret contracts and relief packages, otherwise it would collapse. It’s magic pudding economics. Profit is privatised with losses socialised at the expense of taxpayers and consumers. There’s been a lot of pain with no gain and still more to come. Power prices will continue going through the roof, while reliability falls and energy poverty grows. Not one “urgently” needed transmission project is at the construction stage. Like Snowy 2.0, all major projects are billions over budget and years late. Labor’s transition is on its last legs, with talk about importing gas and extending the life of coal-fired power stations. It’s a belated recognition that affordable and reliable baseload power is needed all day, every day. Yet Labor ships our coal, gas and uranium to the world, while living the fantasy that weather-dependent renewables can power our economy.

Jennie George, Mollymook, NSW

So Anthony Albanese, courtesy of his Treasurer, Jim Chalmers, is going to gift every Australian household and business with a measly $150 towards their electricity bill. When one considers the annual average power bill is possibly thousands of dollars in excess per household and thousands more for business, this is a drop in the ocean. Purely and simply, this is a bribe. Past energy supplements have not really cut the mustard. What voters should be concentrating on is not bribes but constructive policies that will significantly reduce power bills.

Peter Surkitt, Sandringham, Vic

Energy Minister Chris Bowen is crippling our economy with ideological policies for unrealisable renewables targets. While the pathway to achieving these targets has now been proven to be unachievable, Jim Chalmers is papering over the cracks with billions of dollars more of taxpayer subsidy next year to electricity consumers to help to pay the costs of keeping the lights on.

This is on top of $4.5bn of similar subsidies over the last three years. This is in addition to $29bn (10 years to 2023) and another $22bn in 2024-25 of taxpayer subsidies for trying to build the incompetent renewables infrastructure dream. We should remember Albert Einstein’s quote: “Insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.”

Bruce Williams, Merewether, NSW

Chris Kenny explains why we need government competence in delivering essential outcomes, rather than more policy debate. Is it too much to expect both (“What our political debate really needs is some reality”, 22-23/3)? He’s spot-on about ideas that are affordable to improved national outcomes. But Kenny seems to miss the point that these ideas are exactly what party policies are based on. New ideas are largely missing from the current election campaign.

They are easy to criticise, so politicians often prefer to be “a small target”. The best example of “positive policy” that Kenny can point to is Dutton’s nuclear plan. Yes, nuclear energy works with low emissions, but it’s just too expensive for Australia. Anthony Albanese and Chris Bowen have a mixed scorecard on energy transition, but their 30-40 per cent electricity with renewables and batteries is a growing success right now. It is a great example of “competence in delivering essential outcomes”. We should certainly discuss government competence, but need policy details as well.

John Hughes, Mentone, Vic

Bjorn Lomborg shows how the UN holds on to its dogmatic line on climate change without countenancing any debate whatsoever on contentious issues. Pacific atolls like Kiribati are not being submerged by rising sea levels but in fact are stable or even increasing; electricity from renewables is not cheaper than fossil fuels; the cost of net-zero strategies vastly exceeds any benefits, and; land-intensive renewables are not creating millions of regional jobs. (“United Nations ‘propaganda’ on climate costing the world trillions”, 22/3).

Under the Albanese government, Australia has become the epitome of the failed renewables state with unaffordable energy, deindustrialisation, a downgrading of regional communities and an overall decline in living standards caused by an atrocious waste of public funds allocated to so-called green energy.

Ron Hobba, Camberwell, Vic