Australian electoral bloodbath only 2 months away
It is a bitter moment when with all the material deserving of comment, this blog has to revert to discussions of the terrible Australian political system and its completely broken political class. There is so much of relevance and importance going on elsewhere in the western world which impacts on Australia and its future that it should be exposed first.
Of immediate importance to this site and writer, though, is the absolute wrecked state of politics in Australia. A reader might be a bit sick of hearing about it, the dysfunctional nature of it being clear quite some time ago, yet when you have a continuously-unfolding train wreck before your eyes it is hard to look away. With an election due in May, a supposedly centre-right government looks like getting smashed by a hard left, union controlled party which has seemingly abandoned its historic working class base for the upmarket elites. Identity-politics and policies loved by the Social Justice Warrior class, policies which have done so much to wreck various other centre/left parties all over the world are in evidence, but crossed over into the supposed centre-right side of politics.
Outside influences have been mentioned before, with so-called activist groups receiving large mounts of money from the usual overseas political financiers like the George Soros groups. It also comes directly from climate-alarmist propagandists such as the Sunrise Foundation/Sunrise Project Australia including over half a $million USD for this election alone.
Worse, the current government, the very party this money is trying to help defeat, while supposedly a centre-right government with strong conservative policies in view, it has had serious wrecking from within. Like some party rump after an old-fashioned Stalinist-like purge, it appears to be so close to the current opposition on policy that it is aping it’s climate alarmism and identity policies, therefore providing all the evidence you could expect that the public will need to crush it in the vote. It’s in-fighting has been laid out before in all its pathetic detail…merely adding to the public unpopularity.
The Australian public seemed to show during the progressive loss of favour by the last Prime Minister, the green-tinged Malcolm Turnbull, that when faced with a choice of either a fellow traveller like him or being able to vote for the Real Thing, they will vote for the real thing, ie the Labor Party/Greens virtual coalition. In the 2016 election he turned a Tony Abbott landslide margin from the 2013 election into a one-vote margin, pyrrhic victory.
If both sides of a political system of a western country push the same policies, the interests of the country as a whole will suffer if those policy directions are wrong. This Uniparty view on energy is stark, but typical of some other western countries which are moving towards a de-industrialisation scenario. Many seem to have a death wish and that seems to be evidenced in Australia right now also.
Using the energy sector as the key example here, Australia has unlimited coal resources, including just about the cleanest coking coal in the world, coal that is in great demand; coal that is Australia’s largest export. The country has nearly unlimited gas and is also (currently) the world’s greatest gas exporter. It has 1/3 of the world’s uranium and exports it everywhere too. It has ample supplies of iron ore and alumina. Some localised hydro power. On and on it goes.
Australia once had some of the lowest energy prices in the world, but thanks to policy decisions by “leaders”, that is history now. In parts of the country it now has some of the highest prices. Who would countenance the campaign against coal, the demand that coal-fired power be closed? That energy prices be allowed to increase to the extent that industry, manufacturing, smelting, even steel-making itself was at risk? Reliance on wind and solar? 50% renewables by 2030? Yes, that call is for intermittent wind and solar. Surely not without backup baseload power? Afraid so.
What on earth could get into politicians from any party in a country with such mineral and energy riches to allow this state of affairs to continue? Worse, what country with such mineral riches could possibly consider banning exploration for some more gas? Or would ban fracking, which has turned the USA into the largest energy producer in the world (and allowed them to reduce their emissions by plenty)? Yes. Australia, and the “policy” brought in by these two political parties. Oh, for anyone who is interested about the uranium stocks? Nuclear power in Australia is forbidden. Not an option.
Policy change ideas falling on deaf ears.
The Australian government is sitting on a vote poll rating of 46% as against the opposition Australian Labor Party’s poll vote of 54%. That is a landslide and very large defeat looms in May this year. That is in spite of the Labor Party promising 50% renewables, phasing out coal completely, going “green”. Risking all smelting, mining etc. How could it be so far ahead of the governing party? Because *of* the governing party, that’s why.
That party is the inaptly named “Liberal Party”. The name was meant to denote “classic liberal” but is hardly anything like that now and certainly not akin to the US liberal “left wing” party either – or at least it wasn’t until recently, when the undermining and sabotage of the party started. But with a very important conservative section and strong conservative history, who could have predicted that the party would be a version of Labor Lite, a meek and mild version of the policies of the Labor Party itself. When the previous PM Tony Abbott got it to power in a landslide in 2013, it was by calling out the whole climate alarmism idea and by arguing the case against carbon taxes and showing them ruining the economy. One would think that as time went on the idea that any party putting the economy at risk with more of the 2013 “same” would meet the same response. You would not expect major parts of the party to surrender to it. Or to the slogans, propaganda amongst children (with overseas money) and the same, challenged “scientific consensus”, but that is exactly what has happened. Again, when faced with a choice of how to do these things, the main advocate ALP seems to be favoured rather than the mere fellow traveller.
In what is more like a last gasp before the election, some National (rural-based) Party members have called for new coal-fired power stations. Whilst this could be seen as a last gasp attempt to save some seats in areas which would suffer greatly if climate alarmists are given free rein to destroy them, crippling agriculture and farming by going to 50% Paris reduction targets. It was quickly denied, though, by a Liberal Party leadership uninterested in guaranteeing coal, it seems. As has been seen, the major governing party has an influential core group totally dedicated to green and climate alarmist policies. The leadership is under so much pressure from this core group, that some of its members are allegedly cooperating with the partly overseas-financed Action Groups out to elect their supposed “independents” against their own sitting party members.
It will be known soon, but “last gasp” seems a sure description of what is left of the party right now.
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