Australian Politics
Charity warns vulnerable households bearing brunt of green energy schemes
A leading charity has called for a major shake-up of green scheme costs and tariffs in the power market, saying they were currently disadvantaging poorer and vulnerable households.
St Vincent de Paul, in its latest report into the residential electricity market, found prices for both power and gas rocketed on average last year as part of the hangover from the energy crisis in 2022.
The report found costs across the board rose as turmoil in the wholesale markets collided with increased interest rates for poles-and-wires companies.
It also found that green scheme costs to encourage the uptake of clean energy were rising quickly as governments tried to fast-track the transition.
They now accounted for between nine and 12 per cent of a typical household energy bill, the charity found, and were highest in Victoria at $188 a year for a customer using 6,000-kilowatt hours.
Among the schemes were the federal government's large- and small-scale renewable energy targets, while Vinnies noted each state had its own policies that contributed to costs.
Central to the charity's concerns was the way the costs were recovered.
Costs not shared equitably
Vinnies manager of policy and research Gavin Dufty said these costs were typically moved on to the consumption charges of all customers.
Mr Dufty said variable consumption charges were still the main way power retailers recovered their costs, with fixed supply charges making up a much smaller portion of a household's bill.
He said households which were able to afford and install clean technology such as solar panels, batteries and heat pumps were able to avoid many of these charges by generating and storing much of their own electricity.
However, he said many other households, especially poorer and tenanted ones, did not have the same flexibility.
"I think it's the legacy of the old market," Mr Dufty said.
"We had an old vertically integrated market where households didn't have new technologies that they could bolt onto their homes like batteries and solar.
"So the costs were sort of shared evenly – if you consumed a little bit more, well you paid a little bit more.
"But now that households, through the types of appliances they have, can sort of make significant changes to their consumption, it does become quite regressive.
"The costs aren't shared."
According to Vinnies, the disparity in how green scheme costs were shared was a problem that "warrants a debate around how governments pass on the cost" of the policies.
The group said consolidated revenue and taxation would be more equitable but noted public balance sheets were already overstretched.
Another option, it said, would be "to only apply green scheme costs to usage above a set threshold".
Green gulf to get worse
Regardless, it said urgent changes were needed because the inequity would only get worse as more and more households that were able to added clean technology.
"We're not saying we shouldn't do that," Mr Dufty said of pursuing green energy schemes. "It's about how we allocate those costs."
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Your future home has been sacrificed in a political sweetheart deal
The infrastructure and construction sector has been one of the worst affected by persistent worker shortages, with a December report from Infrastructure Australia finding the sector faces a shortage of 229,000 workers.
This ought to be a wake-up call for the federal government, which just a week prior to the release of the report regulated a form of hiring commonly used by the construction and infrastructure sectors.
The federal government’s Fair Work Legislation Amendment (Closing Loopholes) Bill 2023 passed the Senate during the last sitting week of 2023 with crossbench support, but only after most of its more controversial elements, such as increased restrictions on casual work, were deferred until later this year.
One controversial aspect of the Bill however was included – the so-called ‘crackdown’ on labour hire arrangements.
The increased restrictions on labour hire arrangements, misleadingly titled the ‘same job, same pay’ reforms, brings workers who are currently hired through an agency under the control of the federal government’s trade union masters, particularly the CFMEU. The practical effect of this new law is to capture labour hire workers in the collective bargaining system, which adds to project costs and dramatically reduces flexibility.
Labour hire arrangements provide businesses with surge capacity, enabling them to meet unexpected increases in demand for their services and providing workers with a flexible form of employment. Not anymore. This new law will significantly curtail the ability of businesses to rapidly adjust their operations in response to changing market conditions.
It was not a ‘loophole’ that needed to be ‘closed’, despite the government’s claim. Given the country is currently experiencing a persistent worker shortage crisis, regulating a form of work that has traditionally been used to meet surge demand, and making the employment system more rigid, makes little sense – it will only exacerbate the problem. And the reforms deny Australians the right to choose the form of employment that best suits their personal circumstances.
The Institute of Public Affairs’ submission to the Senate Standing Committee on Economics’ inquiry into the Housing Australia Future Fund Bill, found the average quarterly number of new private houses on the market over the past two years of worker shortages is almost 20 per cent lower than the two years prior to the Covid pandemic.
The legislating of ‘same job, same pay’ only worsens the situation, adversely affecting construction businesses, which utilise labour hire arrangements at twice the rate of the economy-wide average.
This will drastically increase the cost of construction at a time when Australians are struggling to purchase a home or find a place to rent.
A significant reason for this is the government’s unprecedented and unplanned increase in immigration, forecast to be no fewer than 1.7 million people between now and 2028, which is driving up demand. This increase in migration will exacerbate the nation’s housing shortfall, leading to a shortage of more than 252,000 homes over the same period.
Removing flexibility in the labour market will not help the construction sector address that projected shortfall and build the homes that Australians desperately need. ‘Same job, same pay’ will, in fact, prolong two of Australia’s most pressing crises.
The present trajectory is a scenario in which housing supply is driven down due to increased costs and an artificial scarcity of labour, while demand for housing is driven up by record immigration. Such an equation defies logic; it can only be explained by the federal government’s decision to put the interests of its union mates ahead of those of ordinary Australians.
Australians deserve real solutions to the urgent economic problems we face in 2024. At a time when the nation is facing a housing shortage, and the cost of housing skyrockets, how can it be in the national interest to make it harder for businesses to hire the people they desperately need to build houses?
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DEIndividualising our universities
Treating people unequally on the basis of race is racism
The NBA is the least ‘inclusive’ employer in the world. Its employees look nothing like the wider American population. Some 90 percent of the league’s players are black whereas the black share of the overall US population is only about 13 per cent. In fact, the whole US Olympic basketball team, made up of NBA stars, is 100 per cent black. This is as it should be because they’re the best players. It’s simple. Professional sports is a meritocracy; it is not a top-down HR-engineered ‘equality of outcome’ world. (I refer to the competitors, not the team executives.) No team owner aims for ‘cosmetic diversity’ in sport. And revealingly, no one on the progressive left argues for more white basketball players, or even more Asians or Hispanics.
You see, sport reveals everything that is fundamentally wrong with DEI; its core undermining of equality and its undercutting of the ability to produce the best possible product. This is so obvious in top-level US sport, and there is so much at stake monetarily, that no one with skin in the game dabbles in the idiocies of DEI thinking in terms of the team they put on the court.
Of course, if you find a smart, hard-working Vietnamese (or any other) immigrant who outperforms white candidates you should hire him (or her). That, however, is not what DEI demands. No, DEI is premised on ‘equality of outcome’, on getting the same statistical percentages of a group into some highly desirable job X (it’s only ever good jobs or emoluments) as they represent in the wider population. Let me be blunt. ‘Equity’ is the polar opposite of equality of opportunity. Drill down and you see it seeks equality of outcome, full stop. That’s the game all variations of affirmative action are playing. It’s just that DEI is one of the most malign and pernicious variants.
In fact, ‘equity’ necessarily presupposes that all differences, everywhere, and all the time, are the result of discrimination and nothing else. That’s why it REQUIRES treating people unequally based on race and other immutable characteristics.
One of the most important battles all conservatives (and classical liberals for that matter) have to fight is to eliminate the HR DEI bureaucracies everywhere. We need them gone from the public service, from the big law firms, from the big corporations, and from the universities. Take the last of these, which I know only too well. A recent report in the US revealed that at just two major US state universities (Ohio State and the University of Michigan) there were over 100 DEI commissars (my term) employed. And they earned over US$10 million per year collectively – at just two of hundreds of US universities.
Now don’t kid yourself. Our Australian universities are also chock-full of these massively overpaid DEI bureaucrats whose core remit is to undermine merit and equality of opportunity. So don’t tell me we don’t have an ideological problem in our unis and that this isn’t a core cause! (The search for cosmetic diversity is also a core cause in the collapse of viewpoint diversity, as an aside.)
Well, at least in a few US states we are now seeing Republican legislators doing something about this. Some are completely defunding the DEI bureaucracies in state universities. There are moves to stop state governments from contracting with big companies that enforce DEI policies. My Lord, my kingdom for an Australian Liberal party that might actually do any of those things! I’ll be blunt. The first step to reforming our wholly broken universities (those rankings of world universities are a complete joke, by the way, as every insider knows) is to completely defund the entire DEI bureaucracies. Because as things stand now does any reader really believe that in today’s universities, a young white male gets equal treatment with non-whites and with women as regards available scholarships, consideration for job openings or for promotions, pick your favourite criterion?
It’s time for our right-of-centre politicians to grow a spine and do something about this. That’s a wish, not a serious expectation.
https://www.spectator.com.au/2024/01/deindividualising-our-universities/
*********************************************Australia on Track to Terminate Dual Citizenship for People Convicted of ‘Serious Crimes’
Legislation that would give courts the power to take away dual citizenship from Australians has passed the House of Representatives and entered the Senate on Nov. 30 for heated debate.
The Australian Citizenship Amendment (Citizenship Repudiation) Bill 2023 enables the court to strip a dual Australian of their citizenship if they commit serious offences.
These include terrorism, treason, advocating mutiny, espionage, foreign interference, foreign incursions and recruitment and certain offences in relation to explosives and lethal devices.
Labor Minister Murray Watt, discussing the legislation in the Senate (pdf), said the bill provides an “appropriate mechanism” to deal with dual Australian citizens who have “committed crimes that are so serious and significant that they demonstrate the repudiation of their allegiance to Australia.”
“The bill promotes the value and integrity of Australian citizenship and the ongoing commitment to Australia and its shared values, while also contributing to the protection of the Australian community,” he said.
The power to cease the citizenship of an Australian under the legislation would be left to the courts, as a judicial ruling, rather than via executive power of government.
“Under the legislation, the court would only be able to make a citizenship cessation order if the Minister for Home Affairs makes an application for the order,” Mr. Watt explained.
Shadow Home Affairs Minister James Paterson said the coalition supports the bill because it “enables the citizenship of a convicted terrorist to be removed.”
However, he explained Opposition leader Peter Dutton wrote to Prime Minister Albanese with amendments (pdf) to “strengthen” the bill.
“If the government is able to agree to these amendments, which we have also circulated in the chamber and which should now be available to senators, that would make it very easy for us to support the swift passage of the bill,” he said.
Coalition Seeks Amendments
Mr. Paterson explained the amendments expand the list of offences to include advocating terrorism and genocide; advocating violence against Australia’s national interest; child sex offences; and other serious crimes.
“We are concerned that it doesn’t capture slavery; torture; use of a carriage service for child abuse material; use of a carriage service involving sexual activity or causing harm to a person under 16; urging violence; advocating terrorism; threats to security, including training with a foreign military; offences related to monitoring devices in the Criminal Code; harming Australians, including the murder of Australians overseas; and many other matters,” he said.
The Greens did not support the bill due to concerns that dual nationals would be treated differently than Australians holding citizenship only in Australia.
Australian Greens Whip Senator Nick McKim said, “the Greens will not be supporting this legislation.”
“If you’re a dual national, you'll be treated differently under the law to someone who is just an Australian citizen,” he said.
“If you’re a dual national and this bill does become enduring law in Australia, which I suspect it will, and depending on what the High Court has to say about it, and I expect the court will be asked to think about this in due course—pending those two matters—it will create two different classes of people that are treated differently under the law,” he said.
Opposition deputy leader Senator Cash said the bill was rushed through the House of Representatives and had a number of “very clear gaps.”
“There’s a reason we are talking about this bill today: because it is nothing more and nothing less than a cover for the government’s failings in relation to the NZYQ case,” she said.
“Now, as Senator Paterson has said, in the interests of improving this bill for all Australians, the coalition will be putting forward a number of what we say are small amendments but incredibly serious amendments which will actually strengthen the bill we have before us.
Senator Claire Chandler, on behalf of colleague Mr. Paterson, moved for the legislation to be referred to an intelligence and security parliamentary joint committee after it passes the Senate.
Ms. Paterson moved a motion on behalf of colleague Mr. Paterson that after the bill is passed, it be referred to the parliamentary joint committee on intelligence and security for inquiry and report by March 14, 2024.
However, the Senate journal (pdf) indicates debate on the bill continued before being interrupted for Senators statements on other matters.
Law Council Raises Concerns
Meanwhile, the Law Council of Australia has raised concerns that the bill is proceeding through parliament with “insufficient scrutiny.
In a media release on Nov. 30, the Law Council suggested the bill be referred to committee prior to passing the Senate, not after, as has been proposed.
“At the very least, this Bill should be referred to the Parliamentary Joint Committee on Intelligence and Security (PJCIS) to allow proper scrutiny—before, not after, the Bill passes,” Law Council of Australia president Luke Murphy said.
“Any measures pursued to remove the citizenship of an Australian engages the key legal principles on which our democracy was founded, and therefore demand careful consideration by the Commonwealth Parliament and Australian citizens themselves. Such measures should be reserved for the most extraordinary of cases.”
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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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Evelyn Rae, a conservative Australian political commentator
Margo Robbie -- a beautiful australian
My son Joe at ANU
One of the happiest pictures ever -- Cleo Smith, aged 4
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