There are no guarantees without sound advice, economic sanity and common sense
The Turnbull government accepts advice from the Energy Security Board in a press release from the Australian Energy Market Operator on October 17 last year:
The Energy Security Board has provided the COAG Energy Council with advice on changes … The ESB specifically provided recommendations to support the provision of reliable, secure, affordable electricity with a focus on ensuring the reliability of the system is maintained.
Malcolm Turnbull tweeted:
Today I announced a national energy guarantee that will ensure that we have affordable and reliable power.
The Weekend Australian, Saturday:
Malcolm Turnbull has dumped the government’s plans to legislate the 26 per cent Paris emissions-reduction target, in a dramatic capitulation to rebel MPs and ministers threatening to cross the floor and vote it down.
Clarity of forethought from Chris Kenny, The Australian, April 7:
Turnbull lost the Liberal leadership in 2009 because he would not break this bipartisan consensus on climate (I was his chief of staff at the time) and Tony Abbott won a thumping majority in 2013 directly challenging Labor’s carbon tax jihad on emissions. The Prime Minister has been given an opportunity to retreat in the name of common sense, economic sanity and political advantage. But he stands in a no man’s land of stranded coal assets and stored hydro schemes where he risks another insurrection on the same futile battleground.
More advice from Kenny, June 22:
The biggest risk for Turnbull is climate and energy policy. If he gets his way with the national energy guarantee — entrenching Paris as the arbiter of our energy prices — he will be relieved but it will be one of the greatest missed economic and political opportunities of all time. If the NEG is blocked or creates open divisions within the Coalition, we will be straight back into the poisonous and unproductive politics that have so characterised the past decade.
On theme, Kenny, June 23:
Malcolm Turnbull and Josh Frydenberg’s national energy guarantee is a retrofit mechanism to encourage some investment in dispatchable electricity. As they negotiate for a bipartisan position they could be left with a stark choice: satisfy Labor and its premiers or placate the Coalition party room. It may be impossible to do both.
The Prime Minister talking to Kenny, Sydney radio station 2GB, December 20 last year:
The national energy guarantee is a real breakthrough. It will enable us to ensure that we have reliable, affordable energy and at the same time we meet our emissions reduction targets.
Kenny, August 11:
Malcolm Turnbull will face open revolt over his national energy guarantee; the outstanding questions are how widespread it will be, whether it derails the policy and/or his prime ministership, and whether Australia regains its cheap energy advantage or continues to squander it.
Jennifer Hewett, The Australian Financial Review, August 14:
So an ebullient Prime Minister and Energy Minister Josh Frydenberg are delighted to have seen off the vehement attacks by Tony Abbott … on the national energy guarantee. The Coalition partyroom debate was hardly a polite affair but the small if noisy minority opposed proved to be no more than that. Even if much of the support was of the “yes, but” variety … it was more than enough to get through.