Net Zero politicians: liars, scoundrels, and morons

The lies told by politicians usually have no consequences. Their intellectual dishonesty, as a species, is such that citizens go to the polls assuming election promises have an expiry date similar to nine-day-old milk.

If the lie is a promise to ‘lower taxes’, the inevitable raising of taxes several months later is met with a groan in the same way that the purchaser of a used car sees an oil stain develop on the garage floor. There’s a sense of resignation rather than rage. After all, you’re the one that shook hands with a shonky dealer.

Fast-forward three years, and that same politician is likely to be re-elected on a follow-up promise to subsidise mechanics working on repairs for all leaking and broken used cars – provided they become members of a union.

Do you see how this works?

Even though people were ripped off by failed election promises the first time, they are motivated to vote for the same bunch of scoundrels in the hope they’ll fix the problem their policies caused. Then we have a whole new group of mechanics tempted by government-contracted work which they can only secure if they make a permanent commitment to an institution aligned with that political party.

Is this kind of governance good for society? No. It encourages the sale of crap cars and a generation of mechanics who earn their living from failed government policy. The only clever thing it does is create a cycle of dependence where each broken election promise serves as a platform for the next campaign. Solving problems is a thankless task, but creating them … well, that’s genius.

Remember the Covid era? Governments in every state employed hundreds of thousands of ‘health’ workers to man vaccine booths, check vaccine certificates, work in quarantine centres, clean public spaces, and police the behaviour of citizens. It was a Goliath, publicly-funded industry that encouraged all of those people to vote for politicians who promised to protect Covid jobs. Is it good for society to remain in a permanent pandemic state? No. But it’s good for those workers, operating at the expense of an ever-diminishing pool of genuine private wealth creators. Eventually people turn around and wonder where this economic disaster came from. Never mind, surely the government will fix it…

The are no consequences for political parties that operate in this fashion. They remain in power, gaining bewildering majorities, until society falls to bits and the ruling party has no choice but to donate the mess to the opposition with little more than a box of band-aids in the Treasury.

This is the standard Labor model for government. Barter. Break. Bleed. Bail.

Unfortunately, the other half of this equation is an opposition that is prepared to forgo political glory and instead clean up the mess created by its rivals. For the first time in Australian history, the Liberal Party has decided to dismiss its historical duty and ‘get in on the game’, leaving the country with no one to stop the economy from crossing the red line.

If this nauseous feeling seems familiar, it’s because this is the cycle adopted by major parties across the world for Net Zero. We have to give them credit for a Bond-level deceit after bureaucracies, such as the United Nations, got bored with ‘world peace’ and decided to invent an existential problem which they used to con nations into spending trillions every year to ‘fix’ – even though you cannot fix something that isn’t real. It’s the same scam run by tribal wizards extorting favours in exchange for ‘weather dances’. While they might not be saving the planet, the United Nations did give themselves a new purpose. Maybe it’s for the best, given how terrible the whole ‘world peace’ initiative is looking.

In summary, the global leadership line goes: ‘There’s an apocalypse coming, but vote for us and we can save you!’

This comes with a range of feel-good slogans like, ‘clean, cheap, reliable energy’ and, ‘be a good global citizen’, but the underlying policy is the same: ‘your taxes can change the weather’. It’s the fashionably acceptable version of the white saviour syndrome where the same people that used to take gap years in Africa now stick a banner on their social media profile, shrug off rising prices, and delude themselves into thinking that makes them a good person.

Humans have been paying for their sins and silencing their existential fears this way for a long time. Politicians prey on this kind of thinking. What’s not to love about Net Zero? You get to be a good citizen, businesses compete on slogans instead of product quality, and the government ends up rich. Everybody wins! Well, not exactly. There are plenty of problems with Net Zero – power bills for one, and the blackouts for another. Pretty soon we’re going to hear from disgruntled landowners as the government reclaims their properties to build transmissions lines, and if Chris Bowen gets his way regarding offshore wind farms – the entire East Coast of Australia is going to march on Canberra. That’s before we get to the mounting pile of renewables corpses to contend with and society’s blind eye to real pollution which sits unattended in our waterways.

‘But don’t worry! Vote for us again and this time we’ll give you a discount on your power bills!’ Woe be to the idiots that fall for that one.

There’s now an entire class of workers with no ideological investment in the spiritual cause of Net Zero. Their lack of faith is irrelevant, because Net Zero policies mean they’re struggling to keep their businesses going. Instead of punishing politicians for endangering their livelihoods, humans do a very strange thing: they vote for the same guys on the promise of it being ‘fixed’.

This is how Net Zero manages to wreck the economy and increase its popularity. It’ll happen again and again and again until those businesses shut down and the population ends up on welfare. Then they want more welfare. Then taxes are raised to pay for it. Then they want more… Those voters have to vote for the government, or their welfare cycle vanishes.

Australia will die long before the lights go out. These are not the politicians of Australia’s infancy. They are not going to have a common sense epiphany and do the right thing for the survival of the nation. Hard choices and self sacrifice are not phrases found in the language of career politicians and factional seat warmers. The rats that scurry around in Canberra have their eye on lucrative international positions and corporate jobs. They’ll move on to bigger salaries. No consequences, remember?

The next slogan is already being promoted: ‘Vote for us and we’ll give some of you a government handout for your power bills! (And raise taxes on the rest of you suckers.)’

What was that last bit?

Maybe we’ll get lucky next time if we vote for them again. That’s what people think as they are reminded by wall-to-wall state-funded media that the apocalypse is on its way.

I’m not sure how to make this any clearer: stop voting for liars, scoundrels, and morons.

https://www.spectator.com.au/2023/05/net-zero-politicians-liars-scoundrels-and-morons

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Police in Higgins case acted only in response to political threat

The police officer in charge of the investigation into Brittany Higgins’s rape allegations has revealed the immense pressure investigators were under to charge Bruce Lehrmann, culminating in a direct phone call from her boyfriend, David Sharaz, to a senior detective threatening to publicly condemn the time being taken.

Detective Superintendent Scott Moller gave evidence to the Sofronoff inquiry on Monday that within an hour of Mr Sharaz calling Detective Inspector Marcus Boorman, he was given ­instruct­ions to serve a summons on Mr Lehrmann for one count of sexual intercourse without consent.

Superintendent Moller agreed that at the time the decision was made by his boss, Commander Michael Chew, investigators were faced with “the potential threat of Ms Higgins going public about the delay”.

Detectives were under so much pressure to progress the case against their professional beliefs that many went on stress leave, Superintendent Moller said.

He confirmed that as The Australian reported last year, police did not believe there was enough evidence to charge Mr Lehrmann but agreed to do so after receiving advice from ACT Director of Public Prosecutions Shane Drumgold.

Superintendent Moller said his investigators did not believe they had met the evidentiary threshold to charge Mr Lehrmann so he signed the summons himself.

“I swore the summons because I did not want to put any of my staff in the position where they had to do something they didn’t want to do, didn’t believe in, so I did it,” he said.

“I didn’t think there was enough evidence and then I received the director’s advice and certainly from his advice, I decided to go ahead.”

Superintendent Moller also revealed Ms Higgins was allowed to watch CCTV footage of herself and Mr Lehrmann at Parliament House because she was “so keen to see it” - even though it could have corrupted her evidence - as police felt obliged under their ­“victim-centric” approach to show it to her.

Superintendent Moller said Ms Higgins “continually asked” to see the footage, which showed the pair exiting and entering Parliament House on the night Ms Higgins claims Mr Lehrmann raped her on a sofa in senator Linda Reynolds’s office.

“In a normal investigation, we would never show somebody evidence like that because it might influence their evidence later in court,” he said.

Superintendent Moller agreed to a suggestion by counsel assisting, Joshua Jones, that Ms Higgins had expressed to police that “her memory had been corrupted” by speaking with journalists.

“Wearing our investigators’ hats, we go: ‘No, we should not show that evidence because it might taint it later on down the track’. But under a victim-centric model, we go ‘Well, this is really important for her to see this, we’re trying to support her’.”

Mr Jones: “Ms Higgins had expressed on a number of occasions that she’d had a lot to drink and had blacked out and by showing her that video footage, you risked corrupting her evidence about that section of the night?”

Superintendent Moller: “Yes, and that was the dilemma that we had, to be honest. That was the issue that we had but it was so important for supporting the victim, she was so keen to see that and to help her healing process that it was important to show her.”

On June 28, 2021, the DPP provided advice to ACT Policing that there was sufficient evidence to charge Mr Lehrmann but before making their final decision, police sought to have their investigation reviewed by officers who were not involved in the matter.

Before the review could occur, an article was published on news.com.au on July 29, 2021, in which Mr Drumgold denied his office was delaying the case after AFP Police Commissioner Reece Kershaw wrongly indicated during a National Press Club address the matter was still with the DPP.

Mr Drumgold told the website he had provided his advice on whether charges should be laid a month earlier and any decision on whether to arrest and charge Mr Lehrmann lay with the police.

The day that the article was published, Mr Sharaz emailed Victims of Crime Commissioner Heidi Yates to ask “What’s going on? We’re reading this news about it. Is a decision going to be made as was forecast in the July 12 ­meeting?”

Police had previously told Ms Higgins that they expected a decision would be made by the end of July.

On July 30, Ms Yates forwarded the email from Mr Sharaz to Inspector Boorman who informed Superintendent Moller of the email. A short time later, Mr Sharaz called Inspector Boorman and indicated that Ms Higgins planned to release a media statement critical of how long police were taking to charge Mr Lehrmann.

“9.30am further briefing with Inspector Boorman re Higgins,” Superintendent Moller recorded in his police diary at the time.

“Discussion re Higgins contemplating media release due to recent media statements by Commissioner AFP and DPP.”

Superintendent Moller then informed Commander Chew about Ms Higgins’s possible media statement.

“Travel to Brisbane next week to talk with Higgins and serve summons on Lehrmann for one count of sexual intercourse without consent,” Superintendent Moller wrote in his diary of his instructions from Commander Chew. “Chew further said start preparing the summons now in preparation for your travel based on legal provided by DPP.” Mr Jones put it to Superintendent Moller that when police made the decision to serve the summons, they were dealing with negative press, the threat of Ms Higgins going public about the further delay and incorrect public comments by their commissioner.

“In the office, around the time of charging, there was immense pressure,” Mr Jones suggested.

“Yes, well throughout the whole part of the investigation, but yes, it culminated at this time,” Superintendent Moller replied.

Mr Jones: “And here, the commander on the 30th is directing to get the summons served?”

Superintendent Moller: “Well, he says preparations for the summons to be served, yes.”

Mr Jones: “But he’s saying to you, isn’t he? ‘Get the summons ready, go up to Brisbane’ … and he is making the decision to charge in light of the pressure that’s on him?”

Superintendant Moller: “No, I think that’s a little bit unfair – he’s making the decision to charge based on, you know, the brief evidence that has been provided.”

In other evidence, Superintendant Moller said he believed it was necessary for police to conduct a second interview with Ms Higgins in May 2021 to clarify inconsistencies they had discovered during their investigation.

“We had a lot of concern about the evidence being presented to us and we wanted to clarify some of the inconsistencies we’d developed through the evidence,” he said. “We’re torn by trying to get the best possible evidence we can, but also we’re trying to support the complainant through this process.

“We’ve got to support and protect the (alleged) victim but we’ve also got an obligation to collect the … most thorough evidence we can to put before the courts.”

Superintendent Moller also conceded that Ms Higgins’s con­fidential counselling notes were wrongly provided to Mr Lehrmann’s previous lawyer but said ordinary processes had been circumvented “because there was a need to get it all done”, following instructions from Commander Chew.

“I was aware, I was living the pressures at the time,” he said.

“I knew the exceptional amount of pressure on us to get this done and I knew the pressure that was on him as well so he didn’t have to explain it to me.

“If you were involved in that environment at that time, you would appreciate how difficult it was.”

Superintendant Moller also acknowledged that his Executive Brief on the case, which has become known as the Moller Report, referred only to problems found with Ms Higgins’s account of events and did not raise doubts about the plausibility of Mr Lehrmann’s version.

However, Superintendant Moller said that other documents available to Commander Chew did question aspects of Mr Lehrmann’s account, and that all the ­issues had been the subject of constant discussion.

“Every day for a year and a half we were talking about this matter, so we were talking constantly about this; I was briefing Commander Chew and I was being briefed … nearly every day,” he said.

https://www.theaustralian.com.au/nation/insufficient-evidence-to-charge-bruce-lehrmann-with-rape-of-brittany-higgins-scott-moller-tells-inquiry/news-story/41dc944913e79fbafe887186e50f6fb6

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Santos boss Kevin Gallagher says gas is the key to moving to net zero, not renewables

Gas, not renewable energy, is the “main game” in the transition to net zero, Santos managing director Kevin Gallagher says, while warning the industry’s opponents are focused on “killing oil and gas”.

Speaking at the Australian Petroleum Production and Exploration Association conference in Adelaide on Thursday, Mr Gallagher also championed carbon capture and storage (CCS) as integral to the transition, saying Santos’s Moomba project would equate to the carbon impact of taking 200,000-300,000 cars off the road.

Mr Gallagher said Santos was not looking for a government handout for its CCS ambitions, which include three hubs starting with the $US165m Moomba CCS project which aims to start injecting CO2 next year. But the industry did need “a supportive regulatory framework’’ to be able to move forward with confidence, he said.

Mr Gallagher said “abated oil and gas” was crucial to the move to net zero, with CCS a vital part of the equation.

He also said gas was at the core of the long-term shift to net zero, while downplaying the role of renewables.

“Renewables are part of the solution, but they are not the holy grail,’’ he said.

“The main game is gas because it makes renewables possible, it provides feedstock for fertilisers and chemicals, and it fires the high temperature furnaces required for bricks and cement.

“However, while getting to net zero should be all about emissions reductions, our opponents are only about killing oil and gas. Which is why they now seek to discredit carbon capture and storage as well.’’

The conference being held in Adelaide this week – the industry’s major annual get-together – has focused heavily on the role of CCS in the national and global transition to net zero.

APPEA itself has called for the creation of “net zero industrial zones”, where heavy-emitting industries would cluster together and have their emissions collected and sequestered.

However the federal government appears split on the issue, with Resources Minister Madeleine King this week expressing strong support for CCS while Industry and Science Minister Ed Husic said he had not been shown evidence that it was viable at a large scale.

Mr Gallagher said Santos had been injecting gas into depleted reservoirs in the Cooper Basin for “decades”, which made him “very confident” that Moomba CCS would be a success.

On a global scale, Mr Gallagher said there were 30 projects in operation, storing 44 million tonnes of CO2 annually, and it was clear that “abated oil and gas” – gas with the CO2 stripped out and stored – had a role to play for decades to come.

“To achieve the government’s targets under the Safeguard Mechanism, industries like steel, cement, aluminium and ammonia need us to succeed in delivering large-scale, low-cost abatement and affordable abated gas,’’ Mr Gallagher said.

“Otherwise, Australia will lose those industries and those jobs as well.

“We want to work with ministers like the Minister for Industry and the Minister for Energy to build support and confidence with these customers so that we can keep a viable manufacturing sector in Australia.’’

Mr Gallagher said there was also an equity issue involved in ensuring the supply of affordable gas, with “energy poverty” a growing issue even in developed countries such as Australia, while globally, gas was needed to feed the world.

Mr Gallagher said the industry’s ideological opponents had given “no thought to the human cost of a world without oil and gas’’.

“The world could not feed itself today, or anytime soon, without fertilisers made from gas,’’ he said.

“Without ammonia-based fertilisers made from natural gas, we could feed about four billion people, roughly half of today’s global population.

“And we do not yet have replacements for the materials that are fundamental to our modern civilisation – steel, cement and plastics.’’

Mr Gallagher, when asked about the public perception of the oil and gas sector and the political fight over issues such as the gas market intervention and recent proposed changes to the petroleum resources rent tax, said the industry needed to make its case forcefully.

“As an industry, we’ve sought to keep our head down and try to stay out of the firing line, but we’re in the firing line and so we do have to fight back but I don’t think that’s going to war with everybody.

“But I do think standing up for ourselves means that we have to be there telling our story and making sure that people understand the benefits of gas and that the need for gas will be here for a long time.’’

On the political front, Mr Gallagher said regulatory stability was the key issue.

“When I speak to my Japanese and Korean, Malaysian, French partners, they are all very concerned with the rate of change and the rate of market interventions,’’ he said.

“So whatever happens now I think we need stability going forward and I’ll be working with both sides of politics to try and encourage them.’’

Opposition leader Peter Dutton, in a video address delivered before Mr Gallagher’s speech, cast the political situation in a much stronger light, juxtaposing the “renewable zealotry” of the Labor Government against the free market ideology of the federal opposition.

Mr Dutton vowed to wind back the government’s intervention measures if elected, and urged the industry to “fight for yourselves’’ against “financially crippling” measures which threatened to de-industrialise the nation.

Mr Gallagher also said Santos’s direct air capture (DAC) trials were also progressing well, and the ambition was to bring the cost down to $US75 per tonne of carbon captured by 2030.

“Just last week, I visited Welshpool in Perth to witness commissioning of a DAC technology that we will soon be trailing in the Cooper Basin,’’ he said.

“It’s been running intermittently for several days now and it is working as planned, with lower energy inputs than other direct air capture technologies that we know of.

“The trial unit is able to capture a quarter of a tonne of CO2 per day and will soon be transported to Moomba where we will optimise its performance.

“Later this year, we will scale the technology up to build a one tonne per day unit for delivery to Moomba and further trials next year.’’

Mr Gallagher said he believed the company could hit the $US75 target, “an order of magnitude lower than average global costs of DAC technology today’’.

“This puts us in reach of the possibility of eliminating Scope 1, 2 and 3 emissions from natural gas production and use,’’ he said.

The pilot plant’s costs are currently about $US200 per tonne of carbon, however that was inflated by the small size of the project, Mr Gallagher said.

https://www.theaustralian.com.au/business/renewable-energy-economy/santos-boss-kevin-gallagher-says-gas-is-the-key-to-moving-to-net-zero-not-renewables/news-story/b269c743a00aa0a8d0ad7a29c67732fb

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Aged care homes buckle under Labor’s tough rules

At least 23 aged-care homes have shut their doors since September last year as the sector grapples with Labor’s stringent reforms, ­including 24/7 mandatory registered nurses and minimum care requirements.

According to figures from the Department of Health and Aged Care provided in a question on notice to opposition aged care spokeswoman Anne Ruston, 17 residential services closed down between September 1 last year and February 28.

The new figures have been ­released publicly after aged care provider Wesley Mission in April announced plans to shut all three Sydney homes, citing difficulty in attracting and retaining staff to meet the government’s targets that will take effect on July 1.

West Australian operator Brightwater Care Group last month confirmed the closure of three Perth homes after the company was unable to find enough staff to meet the new mandate.

Of the 17 homes closed from September to February, the vast majority were in metropolitan areas, despite Aged Care Minister Anika Wells’s claims that only ­regional and rural homes were struggling to meet the new rules.

The department named several providers that had closed their doors, including Wynwood Nursing Home, Marlowe Homes, Trinity Care Burwood, the Congregation of the Dominican Sisters of Malta in NSW and ­Allambi Elderly Peoples Home.

Two new providers opened aged care homes ­during in the same time, ­including Park Beach Residence in NSW and Sunnycare Residential in Queensland.

Ms Wells said there were “more beds opening than closing in aged care” and, since July 1 2019, the “number of operational residential care places nationally has increased by more than 6500 places”.

“Since July 1 2021, 47 services have opened, with 11 opening in regional areas. The Albanese government is investing $20.4bn in residential aged care in 2023-24, up from $16.4bn in 2022-23,” she said.

However, the sector is scrambling to ­implement a suite of reforms including mandated minutes of care per resident, quality and safety standards, and full-time nursing requirements as it adjusts to a new funding model brought in last Oct­ober as recommended by the aged care royal commission.

The overhaul comes as financial troubles plague the sector, with the latest figures from the Quarterly Financial Snapshot of the Aged Care Sector revealing 66 per cent of private providers are operating at losses, with homes losing an average of $28 per resident each day.

“The Albanese government is confident there will be a positive increase in the finances of providers when the next quarterly results come through,” Ms Wells told The Australian.

As the sector grapples with a major shortfall of workers and ­a deteriorating financial outlook, Aged & Community Care Providers Association chief executive Tom Symondson warned the pace of reforms must be “manageable” for providers and “not exacerbate an already challenging situation”.

Mr Symondson said the shutdowns were concerning but “understandable in the current ­reform climate”.

“We understand and support the need for well-designed reform, but we need to work with the government to ensure the pace of change is manageable for aged-care providers and does not exacerbate an already challenging situation,” he said.

https://www.theaustralian.com.au/nation/aged-care-homes-buckle-under-labors-tough-rules/news-story/36568431c541e242d1464752cb5f41c6

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Also see my other blogs. Main ones below:

http://dissectleft.blogspot.com (DISSECTING LEFTISM -- daily)

http://antigreen.blogspot.com (GREENIE WATCH)

http://pcwatch.blogspot.com (POLITICAL CORRECTNESS WATCH)

http://edwatch.blogspot.com (EDUCATION WATCH)

http://snorphty.blogspot.com/ (TONGUE-TIED)

http://jonjayray.com/blogall.html More blogs

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