The parasites take $1,300 per household each year in Australia
Australians could save $13 billion dollars a year if they weren’t forced to pay for pagan climate witchery.
If the bill collector knocked at the door and demanded $1,300 dollars each year to try to stop storms and floods a century from now, there would be riots in the streets. Instead the money is buried in complexity and taken in slices through unlabeled bills and receipts throughout the year. We list the GST. Imagine if we listed “the Climate Tax”?
Malcolm Roberts, a One Nation Senator has commissioned a study by Alan Moran to add up the cost. But why did he have to do that? Where was the Treasury, the Minister for Energy, the CSIRO, the ABC, the Labor Party, the State Premiers, and all our universities? All apparently, are out to lunch with the vested interests or running chicken, afraid of being called names.
Alan Moran adds up the state and federal subsidies, including the renewable schemes (like the SRET) that charge every electricity user for other people’s solar panels. He also includes the costs to businesses from higher electricity charges — which are invariably passed on to consumers in their purchases. Those frozen peas at Coles have a hidden carbon tax.
Labor likes to say “make the polluters pay”. But in the end, it’s always people who pay, no matter how the charge is hidden. But the Liberals are complicit too (with a few brave exceptions like Craig Kelly). What happened to the free market?
Why are solar and wind “the way of the future” but twenty years later and people still need to be forced to buy them or they’d go out of business? Enough’s enough.
Buried costs in the rise in electricity prices
Electricity Cost, Australia.
Alan Moran:
The average wholesale price for the years 2008/09 – 2014/15 was $45.4 per MWh and more than doubled to over $92.5 per MWh in 2018/19. This increase is purely because of the effect of climate policies and renewables. The cost of coal is not a factor: the limitless supply of Victorian brown coal is not transportable and is priced at its mining cost plus the state tax, which is incorrectly called a royalty and was trebled in 2016, imposing a cost of $2-3 per MWh; black coal of the quality required for domestic generators is also abundant and its price is not markedly influenced by international trends
That’s a lot of money that Australians could spend on other things.
Press Release:
$13 billion hidden cost on households revealed
A landmark economics report shows that climate policies and renewable subsidies cost Australian households around $13 billion per year, or $1300 per household. Senator Roberts commissioned economist Dr Alan Moran to use all existing government data to examine, for the first time, the true cost of climate policies.
Senator Roberts said, “Australians will be shocked to know the additional cost of climate policies on our power bills is a staggering 39%, not 6.5% as the government claims. Using the government’s own data means that the report cannot be sensibly refuted.”
Dr Moran’s report, The Hidden Cost of Renewables on Electricity Prices, takes an all-inclusive accounting approach, including hidden costs of higher energy prices passed on by business.
Senator Roberts stated, “Governments have blatantly distorted and excluded key facts to keep Australians literally in the dark about inflated costs and future unreliability of our electricity. What is abundantly clear is the true cost of electricity would be $13 billion per year less, if cheap reliable coal production was not lumbered with policies that distort the market towards expensive and unreliable wind and solar. Artificially high energy prices savage our living standards and undermine our economic resilience and competitiveness, particularly during our COVID recovery.”
Dr Moran found that the weather-dependent wind and solar currently cost the taxpayer $8 billion per year and continue to receive increasing subsidies after two decades.
Senator Roberts added, “In terms of a true market economy renewables still remain unviable after 20 years and have become a parasitic malinvestment on our energy systems. These renewable subsidies distort low cost coal-based power generation and increases the wholesale price of electricity from $45.5 per MWh to $92.5 per MWh, at our cost.”
Further scrutiny of the job creation in the renewables industry shows renewable subsidies causes a net loss of jobs in the economy, because every subsidised “green” job created, 2.2 jobs are lost elsewhere in the economy.
Full report: The Hidden Cost of Climate Policies and Renewables
Just some of the hidden costs:
…
…
Follow the money:
Those who own the renewables investments make the profits from forced payments from unwilling customers.
Where do the Australian subsidies end up?
Australian subsidies employ a lot of people in China, and some people in Australia. But for every Australian who gains a job, two lose theirs as companies move out of Australia to places that don’t pay hidden Climate Taxes.
And its likely to get worse before it gets better:
Aussie Business: “There is no systemic government response … to build resilience to climate risks”
https://wattsupwiththat.com/2020/08/27/aussie-business-there-is-no-systemic-government-response-to-build-resilience-to-climate-risks/
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So its bad we have no resilience against something that doesnt exist….
What do these people smoke? It must be good….
“Let them alone;
they are blind guides of the blind.
And if a blind man guides a blind man,
both will fall into a pit.”
( Matt 15:14 )
100
Hmmm …
Do you have a solar hindcast going back to the time of Christ?
02
Hmm, looks like the darned thing has been reliably in the sky about 50% of the time since way before Christ.
20
Ah yes, but apparently variability is the key issue with Ra.
The sun worshippers think the solar impact is the ‘be all and end all’, but there is no evidence to support the hypothesis that the sun has any influence on climate over decadal time spans.
00
Solar Variability and Terrestrial Climate
A Key Challenge for Researchers.
https://science.nasa.gov/science-news/science-at-nasa/2013/08jan_sunclimate/
20
Has NASA changed its spots?
Maybe not; Note the date of this item (2013).
This disclaimer was at the head of the article;
“Disclaimer: This page is kept for historical purposes, but the content is no longer actively updated. For more on NASA Science, visit https://science.nasa.gov.
Published:
Jan 8, 2013″
10
I don’t mind a systemic response to climate risks, where they are. E.g drought mitigation through dams, seawalls to keep back the sea, fuel reduction in forests etc. What is foolish in the extreme is telling consumers they can change the weather.
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David:
I agree, mitigation makes sense but I believe they are talking about prevention which is a fool’s errand.
50
And all those siphoned millions haven’t mitigated earthquakes neither: was woken at 3:47 am by the gentle rocking & swaying of a shallow 5.2 just off the coast this morning. Righto, time for another cuppa covfefe.
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It’s going to get a lot worse when they start adding the waste disposal costs. Apologies for the UK oriented content in this link to Richard North’s blog, but it seems to me that exactly the same issues will be hitting the antipodes pretty soon.
All of those solar panels will cost as much to get rid of as they did to make. Whole of life (Energy Out-Energy In) probably negative but we won’t know ubtil it happens. https://tinyurl.com/y6k65f7l
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Let us believe that to avert a ‘Climate Emergency’ we need to follow XR’s demands for a net zero emissions Aussie economy by 2030, enabling us to set out the following pathway;
Any human derived Co2 reductions in 2020 as Covid wrecked the world economy, industrial activity collapsed and millions of jobs were lost, will need to be permanently ‘banked’ and in 2021 we need to maintain those reductions AND find further reductions of a similar magnitude.
In 2022 we need to bank the reductions made in 2020, add the similar reductions made to meet our 2021 targets AND find another source of equal size; then in 2023 the Co2 already banked in preceding years will need another equivalent reduction…. and so on for the rest of the decade, with eye watering year on year sacrifices needed to reach a theoretical net zero.
However, as our human carbon budgets are much smaller than those from Nature, the Oceans, the Soil, whether anyone will actually notice a fall in Co2 levels is doubtful. Any corresponding noticeable temperature drop will take up to 1000 years to fully occur.
The idea that renewables can power a modern 24/7 society and replace Fossil fuels is nonsense. The former Chief Scientific Advisor to the UK Department of Energy and Climate Change stated in 2016 that wind, solar, and biomass energy requires too much land, unrealistic battery capacity and is too expensive to be a viable option for the UK.
“There is this appalling delusion that people have that we can take this thing that is currently producing 1% of our electricity and we can just scale it up and if there is a slight issue of it not adding up, then we can just do energy efficiency,” he said. “Humanity really does needs to pay attention to arithmetic and the laws of physics – we need a plan that adds up.”
Now of course Oz is very slightly sunnier than the UK, so solar would work better, but we have better wind resources and of course have a spare power station in Drax merrily burning wood chippings which counts as ‘renewable.’
Quite where the materials/rare earths would come from for all the renewables needed to get emissions to zero is baffling. Mind you the whole idea that we can replace Fossil fuels by renewables without the most enormous impact on our society is also baffling
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At current state of technological development, there is only ONE renewable energy source known to man – it is managed forests. No forest needs rare earth metals to thrive. The question becomes – where do humans find the vacant land and water resources to grow the forests that are needed to power the global economy.
20
Jo
Do you realise the ‘comments’ link is in active so to get into this article you have to go in via the article headline?
[Must be ok now it’s working for me.]AD
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It did not work for me two minutes ago.
10
Still not working over here in Europe.
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The last one, i.e. the top one doesn’t go to its location.
The next ones seem to work.
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After: Follow the money there is Chart 8 (blue and orange)
I’ve not paid attention to the names of the companies doing wind and solar developments – however,
As old retired folks, we have retirement money in broad stock market mutual funds. It just might be that some of that investment is in the many companies listed in Chart 8. I could investigate, but it isn’t worth the effort. I’ll nonetheless apologize to the Australian payers and thank them for the transfer of Aussies to US Bucks.
Just to rub salt in the wound, we live in Washington State (the left coast place) where large dams on the Mighty Columbia River provide reliable and inexpensive electricity.
Cheers.
60
After watching the Modus Operandi of the Climate profiteers for over twenty years we can see where this is heading, when the Climate fear mongering was in early days consumers would be asked if they wanted to pay for Carbon Offsetting or Green Energy and when the public response wasn’t as hoped the plan to collect through legislation essentially made it compulsory but carefully hidden in plain sight.
With a generation of Climate brainwashing through MSM, Education, Politics and Culture this nefarious scheme has succeeded virtually unchallenged and unknown by the people its impacted, even if the well researched facts above were presented and explained to people most would either disagree, justify or ignore it such is the long term effects of being told by oppressors how terrible a human being you are.
The only way the public will accept being wronged is for the entire process to be reversed and we all know what the chances of that happening is, so where to now?
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The rough road to bankruptcies imposed by our corrupt politicians and their secret trade deals.
But they always seem to be doing well with nice government pensions and well placed investments.
30
Yes…much like the massive covid trojan horse used to conceal the real activity – the apparent theft of freedoms and liberties.
The systemic brainwashing is wearing off.. by the sounds of things ( even including from inside the police force ) the Victorians are rounding on El Prez already…hence the new conciliartory tone
40
Given the brainwashing over the past twenty years that has convinced the population that ‘carbon emissions’ are evil and caused by mankind, and that renewable energy is free and cheaper than evil coal, I’d reckon it will take a complete collapse of the system for people to realise they have been sold a pup.
Of course, the system won’t be allowed to collapse completely. Well, I hope it won’t.
Does Australia have enough diesel generators to cope? (joke)
40
You can run diesels on bio fuel extracted rom coffee grounds…..maybe the latte set can contribute to the national well being after all…by donating thier used latte-making coffee grounds, via prius, to the nearest biofuel facility….
30
Several of the local bakeries/coffee shops in the Adelaide Hills recycle their used coffee grounds for use as fertiliser, esp. for fruit trees.
Also used by home vegetable gardeners as a slow release mulch which discourages slugs (the remaining caffeine puts them to permanent sleep).
40
Odd….id have thought the slugs would be out on thr road in a caffeiene fueled craze, chasihg cars ip the road……yap yap yap… 🙂
10
The suburban latte set will also contribute through the oil extracted from the skins and pits left from their smashed avocado brunches.
00
Oz CO2 emissions are 21t per capita, there are on average 2.5 people per household, a low range for the Social Cost of Carbon is $50USD/t = $3570AUD
If the back of my envelope calc. is right… You are massively subsidizing evil fossil fuels. You are actually $2270AUD better off per household.
You need to adjust the way you think.
I’m not serious BTW, but that’s how it’s justified.
00
We’ve essentially known about this for a long time on this blog; thank you Jo.
Now we have to thank Malcolm Roberts for having the guts and tenacity to “come back” after that humiliating “interview” by the national media.
When politicians say: “we’re all in this together”, they are telling the truth;
All Politicians are in this together enjoying the trickle down effect.
No longer are politicians divided; both libls and laba stand United in support of that trickle down, and for the truly Elite Elites it’s like a river.
As a concurrent issue, the No Dams policy has also given our masters a boost: the money set aside for dams has been “reallocated” to “special projects”.
Wow. Are we stupid or what.
What’s the difference between MalEx444, Dan and Scotty;
NOTHING.
Australia, consider yourself Enslaved.
KK
90
Australia is a goldmine for investors in useless, parasitic industries. In fact, such useless industries are about the only growth industry (if you could call it that) we have.
It’s odd how it’s almost impossible to build something useful like a dam, genuine power station or a badly needed freeway (e.g. East West Link in Melbournistan) but governments encourage unlimited development of fundamentally useless and environmentally destructive wind and solar subsidy harvesting installations.
These installations would not exist if a free market were allowed to operate or would only exist if “green” consumers were prepared to pay three times more for power, even more if they wanted uninterrupted power.
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Australia has little hope and no worthy leader such as Trump.
We will become a second or third rate Western-style country along the lines of Venezuela.
It’s what the Sheeple, who are most of the people outside of this blog, want, or will at least get because of their deliberate ignorance.
121
Canada will take in all refugees…even Australian…
30
Canada under Trudeau is almost as bad as Australia.
81
You have me there.
We need Jack hammers to pry his nose out of the US Democrats butt.
40
And it’s too cold for me. Also, I doubt even the full quota of IPCC warming would suffice.
Think I’ll stay here thanks.
Cheers
Dave B
20
We have the West Minster system, which doesn’t allow for the rise of charismatic individuals.
Third rate outpost of western civilisation? Nothing new under the sun.
10
13 billion for renewables as a subsidy – lets ditch that
26 billion for coal as a subsidy (According to the IMF) – lets ditch that as well.
I know this site has trouble with analogy, but lets try this one
In 2000 your interest on your credit card was (averaged RBA stats) 16% dropping to 12% in 2019. RBA cash rate 6% down to 0.25%
That’s how the market works. It would be fairer to blame the cartel of power companies, AGL would be the leader here, or the cartel of credit card providers(MasterCard and Visa)
That is a feature (look it up) of all markets (further reading Google, Amazon…)
114
Opps – too generous. Credit card rates went from 16% to !4% RBA Cash from 6 – 0.25, sorry about that
20
Youve got it arse about…again….
Relaughables offer zero teturn in investment for the general community. The only people who benefit are the rent seekers who put them in.
110
Hello Peter – the best I could do is this quote
That is for all fossil fuel use – not just coal. The link that you provided above seems to be for research into lower emissions from fossil fuels.
41
Your link goes to a steaming pile assembled by yet another collection of witlings who don’t understand the difference between a break on taxes and actually forking over cash to some one. The former is not a subsidy, only the later is.
140
‘ … forking over cash …’
Its funny money, they have a printing press and its working overtime.
10
Not so funny – I did leave a trail, but consider this
AGL ROI 14% 2009. AGL ROI 14% 2020, however net profit is up in 2020 – this in a slump
enough dots for you?
13
An excellent analogy!
With a credit card you get instant gratification of your wishes and can buy something you may not need, and ONLY get charged the cost PLUS EXTRA 16%.
By the time the item has no further use you might have paid for it.
50
Some great political cartoons….
Now we know where Kim Jung Un has been hiding in plain sight…
https://www.skynews.com.au/details/_6185396105001
30
Dan with his pants down was particularly clever.
10
I like the one of Joel F standing on his coal platfrom and Albo on his wind platform taking big swings at each other.
20
I note that Roberts has used the accurate description of weather-dependent wind and solar. However he makes the common error of using the term renewable without qualification in reference to weather dependent generators.
Please take care to provide accurate terminology; avoid perpetuating this abuse of language. Wind and solar ARE weather dependent generators. There ARE NOT renewable.
Using the term renewable to describe any electricity generator that is not based on managed forests is misuse of the English language. It is misleading terminology.
80
Reminder to self.
Weather dependent wind and solar power generation, and not renewable.
Thanks RickWill.
Tony.
70
Agreed RickWill. Solar and wind are just “there”. They are no more renewable than gravity is.
70
Sort of similar to the use of the term wind ….. farm.
They’re not farms, they are Industrial complexes, wind plants.
Tony.
80
Meh. Roberts is trying to communicate to the masses who associate “renewables” with solar and wind generators. Your nuance doesn’t matter in that context.
20
The Green Cult uses words to mean what they want them to mean; much like Humpty Dumpty.
Some folks say large dams (hydro power) are not included in “renewable”, but very small newly installed dams are. Or, install a battery in a bus or van and the “green” label is given to the driver’s job.
Regardless, wind and solar facilities are unreliable. Thus, they need a second system for when the sun doesn’t shine and the wind doesn’t blow. This requires paying for two systems for the work of one. That’s the “accurate description.”
Note the word “facilities”, not farms or parks.
20
Why doesn’t a single Leftist or Green understand why windmills were rapidly dumped (when possible) the first time around, about 300 years ago?
70
Smart meters can do this:
You can elect to be supplied with expensive unreliables.
OR
You can choose cheap reliables.
Greens / Leftists can choose the expensive unreliables option, including its characteristic intermittent supply, and the smart people can choose cheap reliables.
All in a free market of course.
Operation in a free market won’t be a problem for the unreliables because their proponents keep telling us how cheap they are.
How say you Peter Fitzroy and others?
70
Actually weather dependent electricity generators are low cost. Having a raft of customers electing to only use the weather-dependent electricity would solve many issues.
If you sign up for that sort of electricity then you could be placed in a consumer stack related to price (reverse of the scheduling stack for generation). The price bands would range from say 10c/kWh to 100c/kWh. Wind generators would sell all the capacity across the price bands. So if the generators are at full capacity all those signed up for low cost weather dependent generation are turned on and all are charged 10c/kWh. If the output drops to 95% the 10c customers get shut down and all customers are charged 20c/kWh. If the power is under 80% then the 20c and 10c customers are shut down and so on. The 100c/kWh customers never get shut down and the supplier ensures they have enough gas plant to power those willing to pay 100c/kWh.
All this is technically possible with smart meters. Anyone choosing the lowest cost option could be forced to wait a few weeks to boil water for their cup of tea. They would not be able to use fridges and freezers.
Imagine telling someone that they can get power at 10c/kWh like for a total of a few hours a year over 10 or so occasions. You would need lots of clothes so they could be stored up ready for washing – hand washing is an alternative. You would want to have gas hot water and cooking. Also lots of batteries that you could charge up when you did get power.
I wonder how many people could be convinced to sign up for such a scheme? Everyone signed up for this low cost power would be taking a lot of interest in the weather patterns. They would have a much greater appreciation of ‘weather-dependent’ electricity.
30
I’ve said several times that the transmission lines supplying the ACT need to have a filter mechanism tying their output to that of the wind and solar farms that are contracted for their “100% renewable energy” supply. This includes oversupply as well as under supply so their infrastructure is exposed to the full variation in voltage and frequency that would ensue with a direct supply.
Canberra needs to experience what a true weather dependent grid implies to lifestyle.
30
I can’t help noticing that 13 billion a year would go a long way to reducing CO2 emissions in electricity generation (if people think it necessary), by paying for new CCGTs to replace the coal burners. Much as the USA has reduced their emissions by using gas from fracking.
30
Carbon Capture won’t get a run, too expensive to set up and it appears to be unproven technology. Fracking is politically unacceptable in some places and off the top of my head I reckon the Northern Territory will lead the charge on this.
00
CCGT stands for Closed Circuit Gas Turbine. Nothing to do with carbon capture which is dead.
Unlike the US we don’t have gas pipelines criss-crossing the country. Still best to to have the power station at the coal mine. Electricity is cheaper to transport than either coal or gas.
40
Excuse my ignorance on the CCGT and I agree that it would be more cost effective to build a coal fired power station close to the mine. A new Hele at Dubbo would cost about $3 billion to set up, which seems very modest compared to the Renewable expenditure.
20
Actually I think we do have quite an extensive Gas Pipeline system.
https://clubtroppo.com.au/2015/11/19/natural-gas-global-warming-and-the-nt/
Going back in time I remember that the Labor Minister for Energy, Rex Connor had a grand plan for a transcontinental pipeline. Lack of government finance (it was felt the Whitlam government had already over extended it credit on social programs) caused him to look for alternative financing which lead to the Kemlani affair and subsequently the sacking of the Government.
https://www.smh.com.au/politics/federal/the-decades-old-energy-plan-suddenly-back-in-vogue-20180425-p4zbmx.html
20
How things have changed!
20
el gordo:
It’s about efficiency and the Carnot cycle**. Australia’s old coal fired stations ran at 32% to about 36% efficiency. There are ways of raising the efficiency in coal fired stations but the major one is using ‘waste heat’ to dry the coal. Brown coal can have over 50% moisture so it burns at a lower temperature. Drying the brown coal boosts the efficiency hence more electricity output for the same CO2 emissions. Thus the latest German lignite (their name for brown coal) station runs at 800 kg CO2 per MWh compared with current Victorian ones around 1100 or higher. Hazelwood supposedly around 1260.***
Black coal used to run around 960 but increasing the temperature in the boiler drops this down towards 700. This is why TonyfromOz keeps stressing the need for UltraCritical coal fired. Reliable generation with reduced emissions, and there is a cost reduction too.
CCGTs are a 2 stage process in that the exhaust from the gas turbine first stage is fed into a boiler and some of the heat is turned into electricity. Modern units reduce emissions to 400-420. A single stage gas turbine (OCGT) runs at 620 – 700. These are the “Peaking Plants” beloved of the gullibles who think that they make renewables work. They never include those emissions or costs in their calculations. Incidentaly OCGTs can run on diesel (as SA’s did), oil, petrol, kerosene or natural gas, but are more expensive generators than renewables. They are prone to breakdown due to the rapid heat cycling as they try to accomodate variable renewables which leads to lots of maintenance time. Running CCGTs with wind means the same cycling, higher emissions and maintenance as the Irish Republic found out.
** from the 1820’s. Carnot looked at heat engines and pointed out that the amount of energy out was dependent on the change in temperature. Since the bottom temperature was around room temperature, the higher the temperature the more efficient the heat engine is.
*** That’s why Hazelwood was shut down when Dan Andrews tripled the cost of fuel. They used more fuel for the equivalent output.
70
Thanks for that G3.
00
This is a couple of years old, but I suspect nothing has changed.
https://smallcaps.com.au/fracking-landscape-australia-by-state-and-territory/
The PM is pro fracking.
00
Im thinking it could be a great opportunity for a political catoonist to create a left wing character like “Captain Carbon” or similar… to take the michael from the labor party.
Pickerings cartoons took the michael during the Hawke era….gee they were ruthless…but good…
30
Here’s a video of Malcolm Roberts asking Simon Birmingham if the Minister is aware that the true cost of climate policies on households through electricity prices is a staggering $1,300 per year? Birmingham’s body language on rising to answer the question is rather reminiscent of a smug git. (Not that I’m calling him one, he just reminds me of one.) ToM
https://mailchi.mp/onenationhq.com.au/weeklynewsletter21082020-464954?e=fd1cb97d95
50
The Car industry and the Aluminium smelters come quickly to mind.
There was a recycling company in Adelaide that closed because of increasing electricity costs. I am sure there are many others.
100
Another relevant way to view Australian electricity prices is from the Bureau of Statistics: Cheers to all Geoff S
http://www.geoffstuff.com/cpielectricity.jpg
70
Wow, Thanks Geoff,
That is powerful!
30
Isn’t that free energy wondrous!!
00
Its a mannian hockey stick!
30
Peoples, you do realise that if this sort of nonsense about how much extra cost is forced upon us was perpetrated on American citizens there would be riots all over the place. We Australians just remain quiet and the scam continues to grow and grow unabated. Go figure.
30
“Live Free or Die” has never been part of the Australian ethos, notwithstanding the Eureka mutiny.
Dependency on the Government has been a long standing tradition.
30
Yes Australians trust (too much) our governments and also are more peaceful than our American counterparts. Witness what’s happening to people who openly support Trump by displaying signs at their houses. Now the fanatical left are going around invading their houses, damaging them and in some cases threatening the occupants. I can’t imagine it happening here, which is just as well. However, there are other ways to make it clear to governments things are not right. The ballot box is one way but alas that peaceful yet powerful act is wasted by most voters. So, we get the governments we deserve.
20
Peter
When you say wasted, what do you mean, as surely voting is compulsory in oz and therefore the result has great weight of numbers behind it
10
Wasted in the sense most voters don’t use their brains to realise a vote for either major party is a vote for the continuation of the decline of our nation into the abyss. Rather than eventually resorting to violence to vent their frustration, it would be far better to do it peacefully now by creating a hung parliament and allow the possibility of one or more minor parties to bring common sense back into politics. We dare not follow the pattern exhibited in say movies like V for Vendetta to make the change. We need it done at the ballot box. Otherwise, our society will collapse into chaos as in such movies. We the people have the power to change things peacefully. So, let’s use it and not waste it.
20
Most votes are for that person’s team, right or wrong. There’s rarely any assessment of what the candidate intends to do for the electorate.
10
A candidate’s personal following/reputation can count. For years Alex Downer had the safest Coalition seat in the country. Only challenged seriously once by Robert Schumann (lead singer for Redgum).
In Mayo (SA) his succesor Jamie Briggs lost support even within his own party and got dumped at the election. The new member (Rebekha Sharkey) worked hard and built a reputation as working for the electorate and has won twice since. Not my cup of tea as she is a firm believer in the AGM nonsense but likely to win the next election also. Her only threat would be the local State Lib. member (Dan Cregan) who could win, but won’t be selected by the Liberal machine because he has ‘rocked the boat’ for his constituents. Besides he is too smart to go up against the Shark with too many still disaffected Liberal voters.
00
Poor Americans get help from multiple sources. Most don’t have a clue how much money-value they receive. Insofar as they don’t pay for much, because others are supporting them, they care only a little about what some things cost.
Our local electrical Utility has a line on their billing asking folks to “be charged and amount extra” to supply funds for those that need help paying. The Utility transfers that amount to local charities that advertise they can provide help paying the electrical bill (and other expenses). In a small population county, “almost 900 households” get energy bill assistance.
See: https://www.needhelppayingbills.com/html/kittitas_county_assistance_pro.html
Over the last several years we have picked up food from “food banks” and redistributed it to others that do not have autos or time to get to the distribution centers. Others do likewise.
The USA has riots, but the triggers are found elsewhere.
10
I would like to record my Thanks and Appreciation to Malcolm Roberts and the Alan Moran for this important work.
Both of them have been long standing advocates against the Climate Religion.
60
Then there are the investors. It’s only a few weeks ago Greg Combet, former ACTU secretary, former ALP politician, and now chair of Industry Super Australia and Chair of IFM Investors, a global asset management business owned by the industry superannuation funds, advertising about how they are investing in the future. Althought he doesn’t actually mention renewables, there is a picture of a number of wind turbines. In other words, the industry super funds are investing members money in renewables, for which the members pay through the hidden costs.
70
But those hidden costs are spread across all electricity users so the funds are benefiting from the broader community. In other word, it’s socialism.
20
Who can we vote for to abolish this idiocy? Every party wants to (be seen to) do something. Governments taking less money from their citizens doesn’t seem to be a thing. I for one would like to stop paying the idiot tax.
10