Shorten must explain how his emissions target won’t damage economy

Bill Shorten should explain in plain language how, if elected, his plans to double our renewable energy capacity and carbon dioxide emission reductions by 2030 will decrease electricity prices, improve industrial productivity, improve competitiveness, increase economic growth and increase employment.

We know the scheme will have no effect on the climate so, given the billions of taxpayer-funded subsidies necessary for the expansion, it is only proper that Australians are given assurances of the economic benefits so often mentioned by Shorten. Chief of these benefits is electricity price reductions. With the roll-out of renewables, electricity prices have increased 114 per cent resulting in energy poverty, business closures and the threat of power supply disruptions.

Accordingly, it is not unreasonable for Australians to ask how a doubling of renewables by 2030 will decrease prices when prices have increased. Given the importance of this issue, it would only be proper if Shorten’s response is detailed, showing his forecast price reductions annually as his policy is rolled out. For Australian industry to regain its competitiveness with commensurate improvements in productivity, the forecast prices will clearly have to be showing a significant downward trend, back to the price levels of around 2010 when electricity used to track the CPI before it went off the charts.

Ron Hobba, Camberwell, Vic

Independent misnomers

Julia Banks, Kerryn Phelps, Zali Steggall and their like might like to declare themselves to be financial conservatives and social progressives but they fail to recognise that these concepts are contradictory.

Social progressiveness requires the expenditure of money to provide the ever-expanding needs of a community. The only means of providing this increasing demand at the moment is through increased taxation. But this is the antithesis of financial conservatism.

Banks, Phelps, Steggall et al should come clean and tell the voters exactly what they are — left-wing progressives. Hopefully voters will see through their deceit and deny them the opportunity of sending Australia in the Venezuela direction.

Dennis Jelavic, Castaways Beach, Qld

Green dreamers

I’m convinced the Greens have spent too much time in Alice’s wonderland, contemplating eco-warrior economics. There can be no reasonable explanation for their absurd decision to phase out coal by 2030. Apart from the loss of $66 billion in export revenue and 80,000 jobs, the resulting shifts in our economy and financial institutions would be catastrophic.

Our ability to import goods and services would be diminished. Perhaps Adam Bandt could forage for alternatives in his city electorate.

Could the green dreamers explain how we would function if our nation ends up like Venezuela? Seriously, the Greens couldn’t run a veggie raffle at the local farmers’ market and should not be trusted with policy decisions.

Glenn Marchant, Pascoe Vale, Vic

Rugby’s moral dilemma

There can be no greater transformative power than repentance, which is why Israel Folau has placed Rugby Australia in a most difficult moral dilemma. While the football codes have been brought into disrepute through drunkenness and assault, Folau presents an entirely different problem by taking the moral high ground. As a predominantly Christian nation, it brings into serious question the ethical conclusions we have traditionally drawn from the New Testament.

But this dilemma can point us to a higher moral ground that will better serve our democracy, such as the acceptance of those whom we would otherwise wrongly vilify.

Vincent Zankin, Rivett, ACT