Steve Price: Power hungry politicians dictating how we live our lives

The Allan government’s industry-destroying move to turn off gas for homes and businesses is the latest example of over-privileged and overpaid politicians damaging the Australian way of life.

Politicians from all sides love telling us all how to live our lives.

Normally we can ignore these over-privileged and overpaid mostly average achievers and get on with living the way we want.

Not anymore. Things changed during Covid when state leaders especially in Victoria realised they had more power than even they knew.

And didn’t they love that power even locking down their own citizens in peacetime, banning social gatherings, shutting borders and getting people sacked for not getting vaccinated.

Power and the use of it came at a cost with street protests and violent clashes between heavily armed police using armoured vehicles and horses to force Melburnians off the streets with pepper spray and rubber bullets.

It was ugly. It was un-Australian. It was a sad denial of ordinary people’s human rights.

Fast forward nearly four years and these same pumped – up suburban MPs now believe they can use that power, that hangover from Covid, to tell us what sort of cars to drive, how to heat our hot water and cook our food and they even throw money at us to buy solar panels and batteries to power our homes.

Lily D'Ambrosio, Jacinta Allan and Nathan Lambert announce changes to gas services. Picture: Andrew Henshaw

For a start let’s talk Victoria and let’s talk GAS.

Just this week the Jacinta Allan government, staring down the barrel of a late November election next year, did what Andrews/Allan governments have done for the past decade.

They dumped some of and moved the rest of their industry destroying mindless turning off gas for homes and businesses back to a start date of January 1 in 2027 or four weeks after the election.

Cynical and typical hoping people won’t notice when voting but who then get caught up in a crazy zero emissions ambition thinking Victoria can save the planet and influence global temperatures from warming.
A state flush with natural gas turning its back on a cheap reliable power source for no good reason.

People though are waking up and the hospitality industry is filthy.

The Australian Restaurant and Café Association boss Wes Lambert has told the Herald Sun they were considering a one day unprecedented shut down of hospitality in Melbourne to focus the government on the damage this policy – without consultation – will do to food businesses.

We have a state government making wild claims about saving the planet and even wilder claims that switching from gas connected to a new home will save a new homeowner $880 a year or $1820 if you have solar panels.

No mention of the increased cost of installing convection cooktops and electric heat pumps for hot water incurred by the builder and included in the finished price.

The hospitality industry is filthy with the changes. Photo: iStock

The renewable lobby group the Climate Council writing press releases for the government – it seems – making the absurd claim that not connecting to the gas network will mean your all- electric house will be powered by “clean energy.”

This I remind you happens in 17 months so where does the Climate Council think this so-called clean energy will be coming from – I’ll tell you from a coal fired power station.

A leading hospitality figure told me this policy will destroy the livelihoods of thousands of small businesses, with induction cooking unaffordable except for a select few with no viable alternatives outlined by the policy.

He points out 99 per cent of the Melbourne food industry including caterers, hotels and even hospitals run on natural gas.

They use gas for woks, large format gas cooktops and gas fired barbecues.

So, without any consultation an incompetent state government that likes to sell Melbourne as a major events destination that tourists flock to spend money eating and drinking, in what is often called the best food destination in Australia, is telling us gas is bad, electricity is good and we know better than you.

Most of the Melbourne food industry runs on gas.

The federal government is, if not as bad a whole lot worse, and are poised to cause even more damage to the Australian way of life.

Canberra is going to tell you, with legislation, what sort of car you should be driving and rewarding you with taxpayer subsidies if you buy expensive solar panels to power your house.

From next Tuesday the legislation enabling something called the New Vehicle Efficiency Standard kicks in.

Sold to the public as something entirely different to what it really is Canberra tried to pretend it was somehow about cleaner fuel.

What a joke that was, with wild claims Australia was second only to Russia when it came to

fuel standards.

From July 1 car dealers will be penalised for selling the cars Australians like to drive, mainly SUV’s and four-door Utes like Ford Rangers or a VW Amarok.

The NVES as it is known will penalise car manufacturers – all foreign as we don’t make cars here anymore – for importing what the government classifies as less fuel-efficient cars like anything with a V8 or V6 petrol or diesel engine in it.

Car dealers will be penalised for selling the cars Australians like to drive.

This also includes commercial vehicles like diesel powered delivery vans.

The law states that all vehicles sold that are under 4.5 tonne and don’t meet the fuel efficiency standards will incur a penalty of $100 per gram per kilometre of CO2.

Now who do we think will be paying that penalty not the dealers of course they will simply add the additional cost to the retail price of your new 4-door Ute.

You as usual pay the price of governments lecturing us about Australia’s role in protecting the planet.

You must wonder if any of these global warming zealots have ever been to China or India or Indonesia – how are their fuel efficiency laws working.

A leading dealer principal based in Melbourne told me this week that trying to regulate to drive up demand never works.

He believes this is all about getting people into EV’s and Hybrids even while the appetite for fully electric cars is going backward at an accelerated rate and retailers like him run a million miles away when a Tesla owner turns up wanting a trade in – why because he can’t sell second hand EV’s no-one wants one.

And who do we reckon the NVES will benefit well of course its China who are producing cheaper EV’s in increasing numbers.

Governments as I said want to tell you how to live your life whether it be stopping you smoking or drinking by taxing cigarettes and booze so heavily you can’t afford to, or making wild claims about gas so you must buy an expensive convection cooktop that doesn’t do the job your gas cooker does or demonising you for driving a V8 or towing a caravan.

Sadly, the genie is well and truly out of the bottle.

Likes

– Success of Operation Midnight Hammer as the US takes out Iran’s nuclear threat.

– President Trump dropping the F-bomb in an honest colourful reaction to a question.

– Darebin council street sweeper wins unfair dismissal claim over Welcome to Country.

– Melbourne’s NGV Impressionist exhibition a splash of colour in a grey winter – worth a look.

Dislikes

– New Victorian police Commissioner Mike Bush and his early priorities including a Kiwi version of welcome to country.

– Coles supermarket adding a twenty-five-cent debit card surcharge to the purchase of four lemons.

– Increasing habit of Melbourne motorists not using their indicators.

– Australia’s inability to get a meeting with the US President the latest snub to Richard Marles.

Originally published as Steve Price: Power hungry politicians dictating how we live our lives