Australian Politics

Political ambition may endanger our energy costs for a long time

Robert Gottliebsen

The intense political pressure to win the renewables/climate debate is now creating great danger to Australia’s long term energy costs.

Both the ALP government and the Coalition are setting themselves on a path that, unless modified, could make us a high cost poorer nation unable to afford current social services.

To accuse both major political parties of getting it wrong is obviously a big call for a commentator, but when you’ve been around six decades, you get a sixth sense that tells you when politicians are aiming at elections.

My justification for these statements start with clear facts:

* Both the ALP and the Coalition attempted to reduce emissions with major projects, which have failed. The Coalition’s attempt via Snowy hydro is plagued with exploding costs and delays.

The ALP’s equivalent disaster is massive wind and solar farms in rural areas where the farmers are white-hot with anger, and that anger is multiplied many times when the projects attempt to bring power to market through some of Australia’s best rural and tourist areas with ugly transmission towers. When projects don’t have community support, they normally fail and end in courts to enrich lawyers.

* Given the above big project disasters, the target of reducing emissions by 43 per cent by 2030 is simply not achievable, and politicians who claim it can be done are either lying or ignoring the facts.

* We now have more major project plans where have not learned either from the above two disasters or from the projects that have worked.

One idea is to connect Tasmanian power to the mainland. This was originally a pre-election, a Coalition plan. The costs are becoming monumental and it simply not feasible on present technology.

Victoria is planning an uneconomic Bass Strait wind farm, and NSW has a similar project offshore from the Hunter Region. Victoria is the most advanced, and it is being erected in the middle of a global wind farm boom with costs will saddle the state with uneconomic power for a generation. While there is debate about nuclear costs, there was no proper debate about the enormous cost of uneconomic offshore wind projects. This reflects very poorly on the media and on the opposition.

Subsidies of around $4bn and $5bn a year to generate big profits for the project investors are on the table.

The most promising technology is nuclear, and the world is now spending vast sums to adapt it to current conditions. In the UK, Rolls-Royce has joined nuclear development. We don’t have to commit at this stage, but we can undertake preliminary cost estimates that show that nuclear is far cheaper than offshore wind. But both technologies are likely to improve dramatically in the next two or three years.

It is completely ludicrous to ban any technology, as the ALP has done with nuclear.

While the world has decided that nuclear looks the best option, we don’t have to race in and commit to nuclear at this stage. After two disasters, it’s time to go for cheaper options that will be popular in the community.

* Arguably, Daniel Andrews led one of the nation’s worst state governments since federation. But he won three elections because he was one of the best “one-liners” in the country, and he embarked on an infrastructure program – removing rail level crossings – that worked.

The politicians in both major parties can actually learn from Andrews. Embark on projects that have community support and work. If you don’t do that and saddle the country with uneconomic power generation, the whole process of emissions reductions will be put in jeopardy, which is happening in many parts of the world, including Europe.

Here are some simple ideas that will work and will have popular appeal among Australians.

We have large areas of factory/warehouse roof space in all our capital cities. We should embark on a program of incentives that puts solar panels on every available factory/warehouse roof. They can be linked to the established network which will require alterations that are a lot easier and, cheaper than those destroying our countryside

And the investment can be used to improve the economics of home rooftop generation. It will attract capital investment.

There are areas near transmission lines where wind farms can be erected if the farmers are happy to sell their land or rent the space. There are many such areas around our cities.

One of Australia’s biggest and lowest cost gas deposit sits on the national pipeline but is being blocked by one person – Victorian Energy Minister Lily D’Ambrosio.

The deposit does require six wells to determine permeability, but the deep water in which the gas is dissolved can be used to promote irrigation and carbon reducing plantings to make Victoria’s on shore non fracking gas the lowest net emitting gas in the world.

Gas was always seen as an interim stage and our unique gas cannot only help the nation but gas fired power stations can replace ageing brown coal station with enormous reductions in emissions especially when combined with the use of water for stored carbon plantings.

Naturally, the Palestine/Green movement will oppose it, but I think Australians will understand the benefits. Selected coal eliminating gas power than works well with renewables helps us buy time so that we can actually undertake a major project whether it be nuclear, technology improved offshore wind or other global developments without the sort of disasters that have so far plagued our carbon reduction efforts.

https://www.theaustralian.com.au/business/political-madness-may-endanger-our-energy-costs-for-a-long-time/news-story/0a01fb8da8dbba9d08f7c22f011a4f36

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Mark Scott’s apology a step in the right direction, but he underestimated campus anti-Semitism

Peter Morgan

Mark Scott’s apology to Jewish students and staff of the University of Sydney at the Senate inquiry into anti-Semitism on Australian campuses is an important step in the resolution of the issue. Professor Scott’s primary responsibility is the welfare of students and staff at his institution. I believe without doubt he takes this responsibility very seriously indeed.

My feeling is that he underestimated the level and the nature of the anti-Semitism that was being expressed in the wake of the Hamas attack of October 7. While he acted in what he considered the best interests of staff and students in attempting to manage the situation, it was clearly too little, too late. He tried to take control without escalating matters among a group of young people whose feelings ran much higher than their understanding, let alone involvement, in the political situation of Israel, Hamas or the population of Gaza.

I don’t believe that Scott recognised the level of anti-Semitism that was being expressed, or comprehended how it was expressing itself in the guise of support for the Palestinians. With his background in the secondary education system, the print media and the public service, he came to Sydney University with relatively little experience of the tertiary environment.

The students involved belong to an age-group that is articulate, aggressive and often ethically self-righteous in seeking causes and testing their limits. Their schooling seems to have left them ignorant of historical detail of even major events such as the Holocaust, let alone the founding of the state of Israel or the activities of Hamas. Moreover they have been manipulated and encouraged by some insidious academics and other figures who can hardly be excused on the basis of age or ignorance.

As a staff member whose lecture on May 14 this year was disrupted by aggressive and menacing student protesters I repeat my thanks to the university for its attention to my wellbeing in the aftermath of the event. Scott met with me days after. He asked me about aspects of the situation as I saw it, and asked me in particular about my understanding of anti-Semitism from a professional viewpoint. Those who have no more than a fleeting knowledge of this history may not understand its prolonged consequences into following generations.

The issue at the University of Sydney was clear: the targeting of Jews on the basis of ethnicity as complicit in what was being described by this group as “genocide”. This was not about calm, objective, reasoned or informed debate. It was characterised by shouting, haranguing and accusing of those who did not join in the chorus of protest at Israeli actions with little or no mention of the role of Hamas and the Palestinians themselves. The self-presentation of the pro-Palestine protesters was threatening and should have been stopped much earlier. That much I myself saw and heard.

Many of the students and staff at the University of Sydney are the grandchildren, if no longer children, of Holocaust survivors. It was and is unconscionable that they should be subjected to anti-Semitism of any sort, let alone this accusatory and menacing behaviour. Those pro-Palestinian protesters identifying and verbally harassing and menacing Jewish students and staff needed to be brought to understand that the way in which they were supporting the Palestinian cause was ill-considered and damaging to Jewish fellow students and staff members.

Since that incident I have been approached by both staff and students of the university who, like myself, are not Jewish and are both appalled and disturbed by what our campus has become known for.

In this Scott acted too little and too late. He has accepted and apologised for this and his apology should be accepted. Those of us involved at the University of Sydney will continue to support Jewish staff and students and to speak out when and if we see casual or orchestrated anti-Semitism.

To make good on his apology, Scott will need to continue to be receptive to and act in the best interests of staff and students in this and other potential cases of the targeting of any particular group in the university community.

https://www.theaustralian.com.au/commentary/mark-scotts-apology-a-step-in-the-right-direction-but-he-underestimated-campus-antisemitism/news-story/19e59c2fb68343088fb4f0aa02fc16cd

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Why dumb politics has finally killed off smart policy

Former treasurer and prime minister Paul Keating had many good lines. But my favourite is this: good policy is good politics. It might not have the invective flair of some of his others but it is a very important proposition that guided most of his political life.

Sadly, we have come to a point in our history where it is difficult to sustain the accuracy of the statement. Now it’s all about politics, with good policy being regarded as a secondary consideration or not relevant at all. The decline in the quality and the fragmentation of media coverage have facilitated this shift.

Keating was also a believer in consistent and unremitting communication, carefully explaining the policy issues to voters and the preferred solutions. Not all reforms are necessarily obvious to people, in part because the benefits of the existing arrangements are often concentrated in the hands of well-defined groups, while the costs are spread over very large numbers. The case for reducing tariffs and other forms of protection requires careful explanation, for instance.

To make the case for change, the complaints of the potential losers must be addressed, and the broader gains must be outlined. The fact that it generally takes some time for the net benefits to become obvious makes good policy an artform that needs skilful and diligent implementation by exceptional politicians aided by highly competent bureaucrats.

A standout example is the introduction of the GST under the stewardship of Coalition treasurer, Peter Costello. The amount of preparation and explanation that went into that exercise was truly staggering. It’s hard to imagine a similar exercise being undertaken today. And don’t forget there was a complete restructuring of the income tax system as well as the elimination of several highly inefficient federal and state taxes and imposts.

If we think of today and focus on recent federal governments, save some minor exceptions, the only thing driving decisions is politics and how voters will react. Currently, there is no pretence that good policy is being pursued, particularly by the Treasurer but also in other portfolio areas.

Of course, identifying good policy must be the starting point for the application of Keating’s maxim. On the face of it, Jim Chalmers looks as though he has undertaken a few weeks of a wildly outdated Macroeconomics 101 course and reached all the wrong conclusions. He speaks like an old-fashioned Keynesian pushing propositions that have long been discredited.

Upon the recent release of the National Accounts, which revealed extremely weak economic growth, Chalmers leapt to the bizarre conclusion that “without government spending, there would be no growth in the economy”. It clearly didn’t occur to him that government spending is impacting on other spending in the economy, in particular investment but also consumption.

Nor did he care to mention that we have had six quarters of declining per capita growth, an outcome associated with the inflation unleashed in part by government spending as well as excessive growth of the population.

For Chalmers, it’s all about politics, about avoiding the emergence of a technical recession – two successive quarters of negative growth. He is also curiously dismissive of the slump in productivity. The National Accounts revealed productivity is now back to the 2016 level, having fallen by a massive 0.8 per cent in the June quarter.

But when Chalmers was questioned about this outcome, he batted the topic away, declaring it was a long-term issue, and that the government is (apparently) working on it. He utterly fails to understand the central role productivity plays in promoting higher living standards. Without a pick-up in growth, the Reserve Bank will have little choice but to keep interest rates higher for longer.

Chalmers’ lack of policy acumen was also on display last week when commenting on the decision by the Federal Reserve in the US to cut its official interest rate by 50 basis points. He talked about global uncertainty and weak economic growth. The real reason for the Fed’s decision was the fact inflation in the US is now comfortably within its target band and productivity there is growing at a very reasonable clip.

Chalmers is coming very close to undermining the independence of the Reserve Bank by hinting that Australia should be following suit as official interest rates are cut in several advanced economies. To be sure, the US acted rapidly to put up its rates, and to higher levels, when inflation first appeared – a contrast with the decision-making of our central bank. But there is a real message there: we should not expect the same experience on the way down as our inflation rate persistently hugs the 4 per cent level.

In case you think I am picking on the Treasurer, I would be the first to admit that politics is overwhelming the principles of good policy in many areas – think energy, industrial relations, migration. But the real point is that the Treasury portfolio has always been the engine room of reform, with Keating and Costello being the outstanding leaders in the field.

It is inconceivable, for instance, that Keating would have simply sat back and allowed the radical and productivity-sapping changes to industrial relations laws to be enacted. In fact, it was Keating himself who drove the shift to enterprise bargaining away from centralised wage determination, beginning with a historic speech he gave to the Australian Institute of Company Directors. One under-appreciated achievement of Costello was his willingness to reject entreaties for more federal government spending and embrace new areas of involvement for the federal government, with disability and public school funding being important examples.

He was very aware of the confusion of federal-state financial relations that would ensue as well as the pressure it would place on the federal budget. Sadly, the downsides he foresaw have come to pass as subsequent treasurers failed to resist the pressures from persistent interest groups.

It is astonishing, although warranted, that former ACTU secretary Bill Kelty should now openly criticise the Albanese government for its failure to enact good policy. “We need a Labor Party in which the big issues are confronted,” he said, going so far as to describe the government as being “mired in mediocrity”.

Kelty was an important wingman for Keating. And while the conditions no longer apply for an Accord-type arrangement, his commitment to constructive policymaking that would form the basis of higher living standards is simply not matched by the current leadership of the trade union movement. These days, ACTU secretary Sally McManus and her team are fixated on locking in as many legislative and regulatory favours as they can from the Labor government and hang any broader adverse consequences.

Can good policy once again become good politics? It seems unlikely. But given that decisions based on short-term politics will often lead to harmful long-term consequences, there may come a time when the political leaders of the day embrace the Keating rule again.

https://www.theaustralian.com.au/commentary/why-dumb-politics-has-finally-killed-off-smart-policy/news-story/56e8b753ae154720eb9bac8b1cff63a5

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On trial for opinion articles

Dr Jereth Kok has been suspended from practising as a doctor because of speech and thought crimes, and among his crimes is sharing Spectator Australia posts.

Dr Kok is a medical doctor who lives in Victoria, Australia. He is an upstanding member of the Australian community, and he is also a dedicated man of faith with strong principles that are guided by his faith in the Lord Jesus Christ. Even though Dr Kok, is a well-respected and competent medical professional with 15 years of experience, he was suspended by the Victorian Medical Board in 2019 after being targeted by an anonymous complainant. What was he reported for doing? It was certainly not medical malpractice.

As we said, Dr Kok is an upstanding and principled member of his community, and he has never received a single complaint from any of his thousands of patients he had treated during his career. His indiscretion was to share his informed – both medically and scripturally mind you – opinion on some of the more radical medical situations in our society on his private social media page where he speaks as a citizen of Australia. These are not things which impinge on his ability to do his job, at all. Yet, the Medical Board pursued selective complaints about Jereth’s social media posts discussing his personal beliefs on religious and political matters like abortion, marriage, lockdowns and transgender ideology.

Among his indiscretions was his promotion and commentary on articles shared by the Spectator Australia in recent years that have been challenging the radical gender ideology that has been rapidly marching across our society. These articles have been used as evidence against him in a conduct inquiry that is ongoing. Among these articles is a 2020 article for the Spectator Australia written by Leah Gray in which she discusses how in Victoria the government, at least in 2020, was happy to help people into the LGBT community, but not help them out of if they so choose.

As Dr Jereth says in his commentary,

‘I can’t think of many things more cruel than denying help to people suffering from unwanted passions, sexual brokenness, or a confused sense of self. Making it impossible for them to enlist the support of a pastor or other trained professional as they seek after wholeness of being, and righteousness of conduct.

‘What a disastrous irony that so-called “progressive liberals” would trample on people’s right to self-determination.’

Precisely what crime has Dr Jereth committed by sharing a deeply held belief among the majority of Australian Christians, that a person struggling with gender identity issues should be free to seek the counsel of a trusted pastor, Christian friend, church elder, or someone else, and not fear that they are putting that person in any legal jeopardy?

The other article that has been used against him as evidence is a 2020 article on the transgender minefield that many young people face in this modern world. This article was written by the notable and also incredibly principled Moira Deeming, who herself in recent years, has also come under pressure for ‘wrong think’ in Victoria.

In sharing these articles, Dr Kok was exercising his democratic right as both a Victorian, and an Australian, (yes, those two things overlap, even if we northerners joke sometimes that they don’t) to speak his mind on issues of both social and political importance.

I need to again stress that Dr Kok shared his opinion as a principled evangelical Christian, and his views sit well within the mainstream of Christian thought in Australia. He did not step outside his bounds as a citizen, or as a Christian, and yet the medical board is seeking to punish him. One would think with the crisis we have in the shortage of doctors and hospital beds in Australia that the medical board would not be seeking to investigate a doctor for his political or religious views. But here we are in modern Au-STASI-a, with a well-respected doctor being barred from doing his job for five years because of thought crimes.

It is not just Spectator Australia articles that have been listed as evidence for Dr Kok’s thought crimes. He has also been questioned for sharing articles from The Babylon Bee, a noted satire website based in the United States. Commentary by people like Mark Latham, Matt Walsh, Allie Stuckey and other noted commentators. And an article from Caldron Pool, a right of centre commentary site based in Australia. In fact, one of the articles used against him is an article written by myself, and three other Baptist ministers, during the crazy times we now call the Covid Years, about why Christian leaders should be doing more to fight for the conscience of their people.

In commenting on this article, Dr Kok says in part,

‘No believer in Jesus Christ must ever be coerced or compelled to act without faith, and therefore sin… Every Christian, and especially those who are called to be pastors and elders, must commit themselves to fight for liberty of conscience. A church which has little regard for conscience is a dead church.’

But his application of his faith and the principle of liberty of conscience goes far beyond just that situation and extends to every aspect of his life and belief. This also happens to be a right and privilege of being an Australian. Dr Kok lives in Victoria, so this legalisation below does not apply precisely to him in the same way, but the Queensland Human Rights Act of 2019 states,

‘(1) Every person has the right to freedom of thought, conscience, religion and belief, including – (a) the freedom to have or to adopt a religion or belief of the person’s choice; and (b) the freedom to demonstrate the person’s religion or belief in worship, observance, practice and teaching, either individually or as part of a community, in public or in private. (2) A person must not be coerced or restrained in a way that limits the person’s freedom to have or adopt a religion or belief.’

This is the law in Queensland, showing that the ideas that Dr Kok is expressing are not just mainstream Christian ideas, they are mainstream Australian ideas as well. The Spectator Australia has done a lot of great work seeking to defend these rights over the years, along with many other great Australian institutions, and it is beyond a travesty that sharing articles from this institution, or other similar commentary sites, should be used as evidence of misconduct in an inquiry against a principled Australian doctor. Being a vocal outspoken Christian and a doctor should not be a contradiction in terms, yet this very thing might become the case if the Medical Board of Australia succeeds in its prosecution of Dr Kok.

Remember also that Dr Kok is not just fighting for himself in this case. He is fighting for the right for other health professionals to express their deeply held religious beliefs publicly, and also their political views, something all Australians should have protections to do. I asked Dr Kok what it was like to face this trial and he said it ‘is very surreal, and unsettling, to be hauled over the coals for stating things that derive directly from my Christian beliefs’. He has had to cope with ‘unemployment, surviving on Centrelink payments and great uncertainty about the future’ and he has had to retrain in a completely different field to seek to provide for his family. Remember also that he has been torn away from patients with whom he has built a professional relationship with over the years, which is deeply painful for him. And consider the anxiety that this has caused for his patients who had their doctor taken from them. Don’t we need such a man in his role looking after his patients?

Defending yourself in this country from such things is very expensive, and Dr Kok has a great team of lawyers around him who are avidly fighting for his right to be reinstated. But he is in need of more funds to really fight this case to the end. As you now know Dr Kok has not been able to work as a doctor since 2019, and his family’s income has taken a serious hit because of this, and even still such a case is long, drawn out and very expensive.

Already with generous donations over $231,190 has been raised, but his legal team has determined that they need up to $330,000 to run a strong defence. This is not a voluntary lawsuit for Dr Kok, he is being forced to defend himself and he needs financial help to have this done as best as it possibly can. As anyone who has ever been to such a trial, or ever watched The Castle and any number of other good legal shows, knows, good legal representation is very expensive. If you are able, could you please consider donating to Dr Kok’s GiveSendGo campaign to help him fight this injustice.

https://www.spectator.com.au/2024/09/on-trial-for-spectator-australia-posts/

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Can Common Values Hold in Australia?

Are we multicultural? Are we multiethnic? Are we multifaith? Should we ask for integration or assimilation from our immigrants? Is it still possible to be monocultural? In short, who are we as Australians?

These kinds of questions are simmering beneath much of the current banal commentary about immigration, hate speech, social cohesion, anti-Semitism, and yes, even the environment. I have regularly seen appeals for us to ‘tone down the rhetoric’, or to ‘help keep our liberal democracy’, or to ‘hold onto our common values.’

But certain social relationships need to be in place for such desires to be more than platitudes. “Toning down the rhetoric” is a nonsense if we wish to learn from deep debate with each other. Has there ever been a strong improvement towards what we now call ‘civil society’ without some kind of significant social disquiet and disruption caused by rigorous discourse? Every time I hear our leaders request calm in the face of difficult debate, what I hear is, “Please go away with your ideas – they make us uncomfortable, and we cannot think about them, or do not want to.” An actual response to the issue at hand would be refreshing. The response might even include taking action where legitimate to do so, or in simply engaging in the debate at the causal level.

The pleas to maintain our liberal democracy are also often vacuous. It assumes that everyone understands what that is. Not so – not even close. Did you notice the recent celebrations that teaching 11- and 12-year-olds about our system of government was coming back? Where has it been all these years, and what of those who missed out? What of those who will receive the message that our system of civic governance is an expression of white oppression anyway? (More on that another time).

I remember when schools had to publicly display the common values of Australian society. They took a while to establish, and of course, they disappeared as soon as we had a socialist Labor Prime Minister. Therein lies the hub of it all. Values cannot be held in common if beliefs are too far apart. For example, a Christian may wholeheartedly agree and work with a feminist (first wave) to protect women and children better. They can have this as a common goal, even though their reasons, based on their basic assumptions about life, may be very different.

But what if the latter-day feminist agrees that a woman can be a man who says he ‘feels like a woman’ (whatever that means – it is another of those postmodern constructions that implodes upon itself)? What if the feminist and Christian beliefs have become so different that they cannot find enough common ground for what good looks like?

Or what if one person’s belief system creates categories of people who are, by definition, less worthy than others? Extreme Islamists who demand Sharia law have such categories. So do those who believe primitive Indigenous custom is the most valid way of looking at life. The ‘Dreaming’, for example, can be used to completely change the science-based understanding of what ‘conservation’ means, because it mixes mythical narrative with scientific reason. Similarly, for critical identity believers, ‘white’ becomes a category worthy of less respect than any other, because regardless of individual merit, ‘white’ means belonging to the oppressor class – and ‘male white’ even more so.

What if Mother Earth worship is the new centre of beliefs? It is a strange mix of animism and environmentalism, with self-contradictory notions of cause and effect. Those promoting such belief are often ‘hard’ evolutionists. At times they brutally use the survival of the fittest belief to make dehumanising decisions (think sex-selection abortion, or euthanasia for mental distress), but at other times they casually dismiss the principle to promote their pet priorities – like saving a beached whale.

Into the future, what will Australia use to define what our values will be based on? The preamble to our current Constitution gives recognition of our historical base for certain belief assumptions as a Federated Nation – that what we put in place is done before the Creator God. Some might call this the Natural Law basis for our social contract. In American language, this is the basis for inalienable rights for each and every citizen, regardless of sex, age, social status, economic context, physical capacity, religious commitment or ethnic heritage.

As writers such as Tom Holland have reminded us, this kind of understanding is a minority understanding in the history of the world. Prior to Holland’s exploration into the Western mind, writers such as Rodney Stark, Vishal Mangawaldi, and Larry Siedentop clarified that universal respect was impossible outside of the Christian narrative, because this is the only consistent belief source where universal respect for the individual could be situated. They have each demonstrated, in different ways, that if you cannot attribute equal worth for all people amidst functional differences, then what we call Western civilization is impossible. Part of that story becomes the necessity for a legal system (representative parliament, separated from courts and police) to enforce such universal respect. Lawbreakers in this context uphold the respect for all people regardless of differences of beliefs and personal commitments.

But as we noted above, if personal beliefs vary to the extent that universal respect is challenged, then even the value of law becomes tenuous because its role becomes confused – how do they operationalise what is good for everyone if they must distinguish between categories of worth based on identity attributes?

Our current Prime Minister makes a good mini-case study to exemplify our current conundrum. His role is abstracted from the Constitution which situates its authority in an assumption of a belief in a created order for life. But he refused to take his oath on the historical source of that corporate belief – the Bible. Yet he willingly takes part in smoking ceremonies that celebrate the animistic Dreaming beliefs of some of our Indigenous people. He is also slow to fully condemn literalistic and violent versions of Islam.

I suspect he doesn’t know his role because he does not understand from where his authority is derived. It certainly does not come from Indigenous tribal custom, nor from Sharia law, nor from Mother Earth protectionism. In standing for everything, he seems to stand for nothing. And so, like him, we become confused about what he values because we do not know what he actually believes. Perhaps that is why I have read that he is quietly attending a Christian church a bit more frequently. And perhaps, just perhaps, that might be a good thing for all of us.

https://caldronpool.com/can-common-values-hold-in-australia/