‘It’s a schemozzle’: Australia, second largest gas exporter, on track for 2020 natural gas shortage

It's a schemozzle, all right. NSW and Victoria have large reserves of natural gas in the ground but refuse to mine it on flimsy environmental grounds.  Queensland and Western Australia, by contrast, are pumping their reserves for all they are worth. But they have long term export contracts for just about all of it so there is not much left to supply the Green states. So the Green states have to buy it on the international market.  And the growing demand for gas means that they will soon run into the fact that they don't have the port capacity to bring in any more than they do at the moment

The country’s first floating LNG import ship has just been secured by Australian Industrial Energy, in an attempt to remedy the nation’s forecast 2020 gas shortage.

Due to start pumping imported gas into the NSW and Victorian marketplaces by 2020, the NSW Government has gone about fast-tracking the process to safeguard our energy security, declaring the ship a critical piece of infrastructure whose development should be prioritised.

But Michael McLaren can’t get his head around why the plan, which will involve teaming up with a Norwegian company to bring the floating import terminal to Port Kembla, is even necessary.

For Michael, the pertinent question is this: if we have so much gas to export, why are we destined for an imminent gas shortage?

“This is a chapter in a very, very macabre narrative that this country has developed on energy,” says Michael.

“Take coal for example. We really should have the cheapest, most abundant energy grid in the world. But we don’t. Go back two years, South Australia had some of the highest prices and some of the least reliable energy distribution in the world. It’s just ridiculous.”

“And here we have gas. We’re flooded with the stuff, we’ve got so much that we’re exporting it all over the place to the point of being the second biggest exporter in the world.”

“And yet, we have these forecasts saying that if we carry on the way we’re going, we’re going to have a gas shortage at home. That’ll drive up local prices, industry won’t be able to access Australian gas, so they’ll shut down.”

“It’s a schemozzle.”

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"Proud Boys" founder Gavin McInnes heading to Australia in November

McInnes is a lot of fun

GAVIN McInnes is heading down under to “recruit soldiers”.

The British-born Canadian comedian and founder of the pro-Trump men’s rights group The Proud Boys — whose members are notorious for engaging in street brawls with left-wing Antifa protesters — is the latest right-wing commentator to set his sights on Australia.

McInnes and The Proud Boys were banned from Twitter earlier this month for being “violent extremists” ahead of the second anniversary of the deadly Unite the Right neo-Nazi rally in Charlottesville, Virginia.

The 48-year-old shot to fame in the ’90s as the co-founder of Vice magazine but left in 2008 over “creative differences”. He did stints at Fox News, The Blaze and Rebel Media before joining Conservative Review’s online TV network CRTV.

“The left has declared war on free speech and we’ve declared war on them,” he said in a statement. “Why Australia? It’s the last vestige of masculinity in the free world, I’m coming to recruit soldiers for the war on censorship.”

McInnes, who describes himself as a libertarian and prefers the term “New Right” to “alt-right”, has been labelled by critics as sexist, racist, white supremacist, Islamophobic and transphobic among other things.

The tour of Perth, Adelaide, Sydney, Melbourne and Gold Coast from November 2-11 is being organised by Penthouse magazine, which was behind right-wing provocateur Milo Yiannopoulos’ controversial visit to Australia last year.

Organisers say McInnes’ is “known for his raucous and irreverent take on the world and controversial, no holds barred opinions”, with his “brash, comedic style of commentary” earning him “millions of fans”.

Penthouse publisher Damien Costas said allegations that McInnes was a white supremacist were “nonsense”.

“These people are not white supremacists, they’re western supremacists, they believe in the great values that built the western world,” he said. “Free speech is the cornerstone of western civilisation.

“Anyone to the right of Chairman Mao is a fascist by the standards of the New Left. The problem is words like Nazi and fascist have been misappropriated and reappropriated by the modern left to suit their purposes, to shut down debate.

“It’s far easier to shut debate down than argue it out. They don’t have an argument. Every minority group in history has seen free speech as their greatest ally because it is the means through which they argue against their oppression.

“Handing over free speech to the state to determine what’s offensive and what’s not, or to the left in general, is the biggest slippery slope we could ever hope to go down.”

Victoria Police slapped Penthouse with a $50,000 bill after violent left-wing protesters attacked Yiannopoulos fans outside the Melbourne Pavilion in Kensington in December. Up to 300 police were required to break up the fights.

Last month, Canadian right-wing commentators Lauren Southern and Stefan Molyneux were similarly hit with a $68,000 bill by Victoria Police “for the use of police resources” due to the presence of left-wing protesters.

Despite the outstanding bill, Yiannopoulos earlier this week announced a second Australian tour scheduled for late November. He will appear alongside conservative US commentator Ann Coulter.

Mr Costas said he believed the bill was “completely illegal” and he had already told the police “if you want to pursue this, I’m happy to let a judge decide”.

“Our security negotiated with all the police in every state, they knew exactly where we were going to be,” he said. “We negotiated a user-pays model upfront, we paid for what we were asked to pay for. After the event, the Police Minister saw an opportunity to do some grandstanding.”

He predicted similar protests for McInnes’ tour. “I do expect it,” Mr Costas said. “But to be fair, the left didn’t actually get as violent as everyone thought they did (in Kensington). The residents of the housing trust, a Sudanese group, came down and caused the problems.

“They’re a protected species, no one was allowed to talk about that. The police weren’t allowed to touch them. They were throwing rocks the size of footballs across the street.

“I said to one of the police, ‘Why don’t you arrest these people?’ They said, ‘We can’t touch them, they’ll have our badges if we do.’ It’s a massive political issue in Melbourne.

“As far as Gavin McInnes is concerned, the man is a comedian who makes fairly politically incorrect points, but he’s a comedian nonetheless. If we’re going to be charging for police presence for a comedian, God help us.”

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Threatening violence based on gender, race, religion or sexual orientation will see offenders JAILED for up to three years under new laws

Threats of violence are not usually regarded as protected free speech so I support this.  Threats can be very worrying

People who threaten or incite violence against religious minorities, transsexuals, those who are gay or have AIDS face up to three years in jail.

Individual perpetrators of this crime also face $11,000 fines under new laws coming into effect in New South Wales this week. 

Corporations face a maximum penalty of $55,000.

The state government has issued a warning on Facebook to anyone who is contemplating harassing or threatening violence against someone based on a specific religious belief or affiliation, sexual orientation, intersex status or HIV/AIDS diagnosis.

The Crimes Amendment (Publicly Threatening and Inciting Violence) Act of 2018 defines 'gender identity' as exhibiting mannerisms or an appearance that is at odds with someone's biology.

It regards 'intersex status' as 'having physical, hormonal or genetic features' which are neither male nor female or a combination of both. 

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NSW Drought In Perspective

Just a couple more comments on the NSW drought. I have worked out the YTD rainfall in NSW, although this is a pretty artificial measure. This year is the fourth lowest on record, behind 1902, 1965 and 1940 (in that order).



If we look at the 12 month figures, this year ranks as 8th driest, behind 1901, 1902, 1919, 1927, 1929, 1940 and 1965.

It is easy to see why how farmers say this is the worst drought in memory, because it is exactly that. Whereas these sort of severe droughts used to come along every decade on average, there has been nothing like it since 1965.

This year the drought has been largely confined to parts of NSW and South Australia:

This certainly was not the case in some of those earlier droughts, which were far more extensive:

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Posted by John J. Ray (M.A.; Ph.D.).    For a daily critique of Leftist activities,  see DISSECTING LEFTISM.  To keep up with attacks on free speech see Tongue Tied. Also, don't forget your daily roundup  of pro-environment but anti-Greenie  news and commentary at GREENIE WATCH .  Email me  here