Albanese is Power Mad

The Albanese government’s plan to solve the energy crisis would be hysterical if it wasn’t so deadly serious.

With household and business energy bills going through the roof, the government is proposing to fix gas and coal prices for 12 month, after which they will force fossil fuel companies to sell to the market at a “reasonable” price.

What a “reasonable” price is, I do not know. But apparently Anthony Albanese knows.

While he’s at it, he might want to set a reasonable price for my kids’ private school fees, for AFL tickets, and for that creamy passionfruit yogurt I’m currently addicted to.

Price fixing is usually practiced by communist countries, and usually means nothing is available at any price.

We now have a situation in Australia where we have demonised fossil fuels. Coal is almost a swear word and Greens leader Adam Bandt was yesterday talking about “dirty gas” which, I must confess, was something I had previously only associated with dad’s first thing in the morning.

Not only are we demonising the fossil fuels that have enabled our high standard of living, we are demonising capitalism. It’s suddenly all the rage to let government’s set prices for industry. Anyone who knows history knows this never ends well.

It most certainly means business will not invest in Australia. Why would you invest in gas or coal on the east coast of Australia when the government decides the price you can charge, as opposed to investing somewhere else where you can set your own price?

Third, we are demonising science. Science tells us that renewables, as they currently exist, do not have the capacity to keep the lights on 24/7. Wind and solar are intermittent and we can’t store enough of the energy they create to provide base load power.

But rather than waiting until we have that capacity, we are ditching the current energy system anyway. In other words, we are shutting down what works today with nothing to replace it tomorrow. This is a recipe for energy price hikes and for black outs.

And here’s the hilarious part … none of this will make a jot of difference to global temperatures.

Our government is power mad.