Anti business policies of Liberal governments in Victoria and New South Wales – war on renewable energy
Now, however, backed by the fossil fuel industry, the campaign against solar and wind power in Australia has exposed many of the very anti-business policies of the Coalition. With dropping costs and increasing reliability for renewable energy, conservatives have had to turn to ‘community concerns’ to wage their attacks. These concerns are based around a very tiny, loud minority, and apparently don’t exist for the coal or coal seam gas industry. They also go against strong evidence that show that renewable energy is extremely popular.
There is no doubt that the renewable energy industry will continue to grow throughout the world. Wind and solar are booming and will soon be cheaper than current fossil fuels.
The war against renewable energy The Drum, Simon Copland, 19 Jan 12, It’s an odd scenario when the Coalition becomes the main opponents to a new, profitable business. Long seen as the small government, pro-business party, the Coalition has engrained itself in the business community and business interests.
Yet, with the election of the Victorian and New South Wales Liberal Governments, it has become increasingly apparent that the Liberal’s pro-business pedigree is only extended to certain business operations – normally the dirtiest ones to boost.
It all started with new regulations in Victoria in 2011. Passed through both houses of the Victorian Parliament in 2010, these rules set strict new regulations on the development of wind farms in the state. Based on the idea of ‘community concerns’ about wind development, the regulations state that any person who lives within 2km of a proposed wind turbine will now have the ability to veto the project, with very little discourse for wind operators. The bill has the potential to cost Victoria $3 billion in wind investment and means that it would now be easier to get approval for a coal power plant in Victoria than a wind farm.
Despite outcry from the Victorian environmental and business community, on the eve of Christmas the New South Wales Coalition Government followed its Victorian counterparts inadopting similar regulations. The New South Wales Government boasted that these were the “toughest wind farm guidelines in Australia and possibly the world”. As Barry O’Farrell said, if he had his way, there would be no more wind farms ever approved in New South Wales. Continue reading
Western Australia’s new Labor leader might change uranium policy
Ripper to stand down as WA Labor leader in favour of McGowan, ABC, Radio National A.M. David Weber , January 18, 2012
Political analyst, Harry Phillips…. says Mark McGowan could change Labor’s current policy to
withhold approval for uranium mines.
HARRY PHILLIPS: He may bring about a reversal on Eric Ripper’s very strong stand on uranium; they’d rescind contracts and that. That’s a very hard policy to sustain and I think it leads to – they’re really locking themselves into a different position there to the Federal Labor. That’s a very hard policy to uphold…. http://www.abc.net.au/am/content/2012/s3410113.htm
Wind energy: South Australian govt in the grip of fossil fuel astroturfers?
Proposed Policy Threatens Wind Power Investment In South Australia, Energy Matters, 8 Jan 12, Australia’s Clean Energy Council (CEC) says the South Australian Opposition’s policy on wind farms would threaten more than $3 billion of investment and result in a further increase in electricity prices in the state if implemented.
South Australian Opposition leader Isobel Redmond has vowed to ban wind farms within 2 kilometres of any residence. Another key element of the Liberal’s policy is a ban on wind farms within 5 kilometres of townships.
Clean Energy Council Acting CEO, Kane Thornton, said wind power projects currently proposed for South Australia would provide for the electricity needs of more than 567,000 homes and create 948 direct jobs.
“As we’ve seen in Victoria, such measures would effectively make South Australia a ‘no-go’ zone for wind farms, driving billions of dollars of investment from the state. In addition, South Australians would see higher electricity prices as future renewable energy will need to come from higher cost sources,” said Mr. Thornton.
Mr. Thornton pointed out over 20 per cent of South Australia’s electricity is generated by wind power and the wind industry is one of the reasons the state’s carbon emissions fell by 18 per cent over the past five years.
In August last year, then-Premier Mike Rann said South Australia was home to 54% of Australia’s wind power capacity, 5 times more per capita than Victoria and 10 times more than New South Wales.
While Ms. Redmond reportedly claims wind turbines are being installed “willy-nilly with no accountability“, the CEC states current guidelines ensure a proper balance between wind farm developments and community in South Australia.
The CEC says it will work with the South Australian Liberal Party to “ensure they understand the value of the wind industry to the state, and to provide them with a more complete understanding of wind farms and associated issues.” http://www.energymatters.com.au/index.php?main_page=news_article&article_id=1973
South Australia’s Liberal Party sucked in by anti wind power astroturf
Liberals to ban wind farms within 2km of homes by: Political Reporter Daniel Wills The Advertiser January 06, OPPOSITION Leader Isobel Redmond has vowed to ban wind farms within 2km of any home. In her second policy announcement since declaring the end of her small-target strategy, Ms Redmond said she would move to “protect”
residents from the possible economic, social and health impacts of wind turbines if the Liberals won the 2014 election.
This comes just more than two months after Planning Minister John Rau released a scheme to reform the wind power industry, including allowing turbines 1km from homes, and follows Ms Redmond’s commitment this week to find savings in public sector wages.
Ms Redmond yesterday labelled wind “probably the least efficient and most unreliable of all the green energy sources”. She said she would not be fazed if the policy caused a drop in turbine investment…..
Government figures show wind energy contributes 21 per cent of power generated in the state. The Clean Energy Council estimates $2.8 billion has been invested in the sector…..
http://www.adelaidenow.com.au/news/south-australia/liberals-to-ban-wind-farms-within-2km-of-homes/story-e6frea83-1226237791196
Australian Greens defend renewable energy schemes against fossil fuel “greenhouse Mafia”
Greens defend loans for renewables, Herald Sun, AAP , January 04, 2012 AUSTRALIAN Greens leader Bob Brown says fossil fuel industry attacks on a government loan scheme for renewable energy projects are “a bit rich” given the massive subsidies they get.
Senator Brown was defending the $10 billion Clean Energy Finance Corporation, which will provide finance to renewable energy, energy efficiency and low-emissions technologies…..
The corporation has been attacked by the opposition as a slush fund, with finance spokesman Andrew Robb saying it would only “fund projects that the private sector won’t touch with a barge pole”. Now a new attack has come from some of Australia’s biggest industry sectors. The Australian Industry Greenhouse Network – whose members include the Australian Coal Association, the Minerals Council of Australia and the National Generator’s Forum as well as large mining and petroleum companies – says the loans fund could distort markets, the Australian newspaper reported today…….
Senator Brown said government had a legitimate role in helping establish new markets that had wider public benefits. He cited the fact that most coal fired power stations in Australia were originally built by governments, even if they were now privately owned.
“Here we’ve got that same industry, having been built upon government financing, claiming now that the renewable energies of this century shouldn’t even be subject to assistance through loans,” he told ABC radio today. Senator Brown said the fossil fuel industry was currently subsidised to the tune of $11 billion a year.
“The subsidies involved in the clean energy finance corporation are really very restrained compared to those going to the polluting industries at the moment,” he said.
“The fossil fuel industry is largely foreign-owned, it pours billions of dollars out of the country each year and it’s complaining about domestic industries getting a $10 billion loan fund.
“It’s a bit rich isn’t it?” http://www.heraldsun.com.au/news/breaking-news/greens-defend-loans-for-renewables/story-e6frf7ko-1226236190140
Success for Australia’s coal lobby, with new laws against wind farms in N.S.W. and Victoria
The state’s conservative Premier, Barry O’Farrell, .. has said that he personally opposes any no new wind farms.
public concerns about turbines have been “aided and abetted” by climate sceptics who have launched a Tea Party-style fear campaign. The campaign has featured local lobby groups protesting under the banner of “landscape guardians” – believed to be based on Britain’s Country Guardian.
The NSW Greens said the proposal would kill off the wind-generation sector in favour of coal seam gas projects
Australian state launches world’s toughest wind turbine laws, Telegraph UK 24 Dec 11 Australia’s most populus state has proposed the world’s toughest laws on wind turbines, with a plan to give all residents within 1.25 miles a veto over new projects.By Jonathan Pearlman in Sydney 23 Dec 20111. The New South Wales Government proposed the new rules following controversial rural wind farms which angered residents over noise and raised claims the vibrations cause stress and illness.
Under the proposals, turbines will be subject to a noise limit of 35 decibels, five decibels less than in the state of Victoria, which has similar guidelines. The NSW planning minister, Brad Hazzard, said the measures were “some of the toughest wind-farm guidelines in the country, possibly the world”. “One hundred per cent of neighbours have to be happy within that
two-kilometre zone,” he said. Continue reading
Bleak prospects for Australian uranium miners: most States and ACT ban uranium mining
Olga Galacho reports in the Herald Sun , 19 Dec “….In Western Australia, a pro-uranium conservative government faces a Labor Opposition that wants the mining banned. It is in WA that Toro will next year begin extracting uranium for the first time in that state from its $300 million Wiluna mine.
In Queensland, a state Labor government opposes uranium mining, unlike the Labor governments in South Australia and the Northern Territory.
In NSW and Victoria, freshly elected conservative governments have maintained their Labor predecessors’ ban on uranium
exploration……”It takes two election cycles to get a uranium operation up and running and in Australia, this is considered too high a political risk.”…..”
Government of Australia’s URANIUM STATE, South Australia doing its best to kill renewable energy
Green energy fund gets the chop BY: MICHAEL OWEN The Australian, December 16, 2011 A FUND to create a green energy industry will be axed in a cost-cutting measure by the South Australian government….. One of the most significant programs to be cut will be the Renewable Energy Fund, to deliver savings of more than $10 million a year. The
move will threaten the future of the five-member RenewablesSA board, chaired by prominent businessman Bruce Carter, and the role of the Commissioner for Renewable Energy, Tim O’Loughlin…..
Ousted premier Mike Rann launched the South Australian fund with an initial $20m in 2009 as the centrepiece of state Labor’s plan to become Australia’s green energy powerhouse.
It was to help the government reach its target of 33 per cent of renewable electricity generation by 2020 using wind, solar, geothermal and wave power. According to its website, the latest big announcement from the fund was a joint plan with new federal Industry Minister Greg Combet to use the fund to “create significant new job opportunities in
SA’s manufacturing sector”.
Mr Snelling refused to comment last night. Labor sources said cabinet chose to abolish the fund as it was hoped federal moves to invest in renewable energy because of the carbon tax would help reduce any political backlash.
Budget figures show that of the $10m allocated in 2009-10, just $2.7m had been spent by the fund, while last financial year just $2.9m of another $10m allocation had been
used…..http://www.theaustralian.com.au/national-affairs/climate/green-energy-fund-gets-the-chop/story-e6frg6xf-1226223413572
Australia’s fossil fuel industries determined to kill the Large Scale Renewable Energy Target (LRET)
what really scares the fossil fuel generators is the potential impact of a widespread deployment of solar, which some analysts predict could dominate the LRET rollout post 2015, as the cost of large-scale solar PV matches that of wind.
It is clear that there is a big push from industry and from the established generators to remove all “complementary measures” now that a carbon price has been implemented, and this includes the LRET – which, incidentally, is up for review next year.
Why big energy wants to kill the Large Scale Renewable Energy Target (LRET) Climate Spectator, Giles Parkinson, , 16 Dec 2011 Ever heard of the merit order effect? Readers of this column may be familiar with it, because it is emerging as a key issue in the Australian electricity sector, and a flashpoint between the established fossil fuel generators and the new wave of renewable energy technologies, and a conflict between short term profits and long term gains.
The National Electricity Market, like many around in the world, is based on a merit order, where the plants with the cheapest marginal cost of fuel get preference. They bid into an energy stack until demand is filled. The price of electricity for that period is set by the bid of the last generator into the stack.
For decades, this has meant that the brown coal generators in Victoria, shoveling in cheap and dirty coal from their doorstep, go first, followed by black coal, gas, and then gas peaking stations when demand is really high. But the rollout of renewables has changed those dynamics, because their marginal cost of generation is next to nil, so they go first, forcing other generators further up the stack, meaning prices are pushed down, and some fossil fuel generators miss out altogether.
This has been a well documented effect in Europe and elsewhere, and is considered a virtue by the International Energy Agency, which says the merit order effect has meant that cost savings on wholesale energy prices have, in some cases, more than compensated for the cost of the subsidies that got the renewables built in the first place. Continue reading
Martin Ferguson, Australia’s Energy Minister, pushes nuclear, sabotages renewable energy
Ferguson stokes nuclear debate, ABC Radio P.M. December 13, 2011 Matt Peacock, The Energy Minister Martin Ferguson has urged the states to privatise their power assets. He’s also reignited the debate on nuclear power. The Greens say Mr Ferguson’s undermining the Government’s attempts to introduce renewable energy and most state governments have brushed aside Mr Ferguson’s push for privatisation.
That’s enraged the Greens who say that nuclear power is a dead end and that the white paper deliberately ignored the potential of the renewables. Stephen Dziedzic reports from Parliament House……
STEPHEN DZIEDZIC: The Federal Opposition’s energy spokesman Ian Macfarlane is also an advocate for nuclear power. He says the Coalition won’t consider nuclear while the community remains hostile to it, but that may change in the future…
IAN MACFARLANE: We haven’t had any active consideration of nuclear energy in Australia but the fact remains that nuclear energy is the one base load technology that is clean energy…
STEPHEN DZIEDZIC: The Greens are furious with Mr Ferguson. They say he’s biased against renewable energy and the figures the draft white paper cites on the cost of solar are out by a factor of at least two or three.
And the Greens Senator Christine Milne says Mr Ferguson is deliberately undermining the Government’s clean energy policies.
CHRISTINE MILNE: This long awaited energy paper it’s really a blast from the past. I mean Einstein once said that you can’t solve problems with the same thinking that created them.
And here you’ve got Martin Ferguson with the thinking that created the problems we’ve got with climate change coming out with predicting that the future is going to be based on coal and gas at the same time as the Prime Minister has announced that the reason she is giving Greg Combet industry and innovation is that she wants it linked to climate energy efficiency and the low carbon future. So these two policy areas are in complete collision course…. http://www.abc.net.au/news/2011-12-13/ferguson-stokes-nuclear-debate/3729494?section=business
Former Australian Liberal Prime Minister condemns sale of uranium to India
A reason India wants access to nuclear trade including uranium is precisely to further its nuclear proliferation. Senior Indian military leaders have publicly said so…..
India reserves the right to classify future reactors as civilian or military. It was not required in return to commit to significant positive measures – indeed, it has made no nuclear disarmament commitments, it has not ratified the Comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban Treaty
Why Gillard’s uranium-to-India policy is dangerously wrong, SMH Malcolm Fraser, December 12, 2011 Canberra’s abject submission to US pressure is shameful. ON SELLING uranium to India, Julia Gillard is wrong, dead wrong. Ramming the policy change through a deeply divided ALP national conference last weekend was not smart politics, but a failure of leadership.
The unequivocal longer-term consequences of this policy backflip are aggravating India’s nuclear arms race with Pakistan and eroding the already failing brakes on proliferation of nuclear weapons. A nuclear war between India and Pakistan is not some theoretical possibility, but a real and growing danger. …. Continue reading
NSW Labor opposes uranium mining, Liberal government discussing it
Labor Opposition says NSW uranium ban should stay Big Pond News, 10 Dec 11 The NSW opposition has slammed any move to lift the state’s ban on uranium mining, saying nobody wants a uranium mine in their backyard.
During a question and answer session at the Lowy Institute in Sydney on Friday night, Premier Barry O’Farrell opened the door to the possibility of allowing uranium exploration and mining in NSW…..http://bigpondnews.com/articles/TopStories/2011/12/10/Oppn_says_NSW_uranium_ban_should_stay_695152.html
Labor Party transforming Australia into John Howard’s dream
Labor invokes ghost of Coalition past, SMH, Russell Marks December 6, 2011 The party’s long-standing ban on exporting uranium to India reflected a principled commitment to the non-proliferation of nuclear weapons, and was a major point of difference with the Liberal Party. Principle and point of difference are now gone Despite expectations that it would reverse the Howard government’s paternalistic and racially discriminatory Northern Territory intervention, Labor retained the basic frame and actually extended it to encompass additional welfare recipients……..
The Rudd-Gillard administration has not changed Australia. Rather, it is changing the Labor Party to fit into John Howard’s Australia, and is rushing headlong towards electoral irrelevance. Given that the Liberal Party will always be a better fit for Howard’s frame, why would anybody vote Labor? .. http://www.smh.com.au/opinion/politics/labor-invokes-ghost-of-coalition-past-20111205-1oeq9.html#ixzz1flx91dNW
http://www.smh.com.au/opinion/politics/labor-invokes-ghost-of-coalition-past-20111205-1oeq9.html
Australia’s uranium policy dictated by Washington
the actual reason for the shift, [ to sell uranium to India] which was strongly insisted upon by the Obama administration in the lead-up to the US president’s visit, and which dovetails with Washington’s efforts to promote India as a regional
counterweight to China……..Rudd had incurred the wrath of Washington in 2007 by reversing a decision by the previous Howard Liberal government to approve uranium sales to India, following a similar decision by the George W. Bush administration.
Australian Labor Party to enforce dictates of Washington, financial markets, World Socialist Website By Mike Head 5 December 2011 At its 46th national conference last weekend, the Australian Labor Party (ALP) committed itself to imposing the “hard decisions” required by the Gillard government’s unconditional alignment with Washington’s increasingly aggressive confrontation with China, ……
It was the first ALP conference since the June 2010 backroom coup in which Labor’s factional bosses, who had reported their preparations to the US embassy, installed Julia Gillard as prime minister at the expense of her predecessor Kevin Rudd. The conference was also convened just two weeks after President Barack Obama’s visit to Australia and the region, in which he mounted a diplomatic and strategic offensive against China. Not a single delegate referred to these developments, yet they dominated the entire proceedings.
Rudd was removed above all because he had sought to alleviate the tensions between the US, the Australian ruling elite’s military protector, and China, Australian capitalism’s biggest market. Upon her appointment, Gillard immediately made clear her unconditional alignment with Washington. She also quickly struck a deal with the three biggest mining companies to drop the Rudd government’s proposed mining super-profits tax,…. Continue reading
Labor federal Member of Parliament’s scathing criticism of change in uranium policy
Uranium decision a ‘moment of madness’ ABC News, December 05, 2011 Labor’s federal Member for Page says her party’s decision to export uranium to India was a moment of madness. The ALP national conference yesterday endorsed the Prime Minister’s plan to lift the ban on selling uranium to India.
The move sparked some fierce opposition from MPs worried that India has not signed the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty. Janelle Saffin says it was the wrong step to take. “Well I see it as a moment of madness,” she said.
“It overturns about four decades of a principal position that’s been taken in Australia on that issue and I just think it will be hard to implement with the stringent safeguards that have to be put in place.” http://www.abc.net.au/news/2011-12-05/uranium-decision-a-moment-of-madness/3713358
1 This month
Chernobyl: The Lost Tapes – A good documentary on Chernobyl on SBS available On Demand for the next 3 weeks– https://www.sbs.com.au/ondemand/tv-program/chernobyl-the-lost-tapes/235274195556
20 May – Webinar – The dangerous world of AUKUS, US, military occupation and suppression of dissent
National Webinar, 20th May, 2026, 6.30pm AEST. Confronting laws restricting/suppressing protest speech and action
Speakers: Former Sen. Rex Patrick, Lawyer Nick Hanna ,Arthur Rorris ,Jorgen Doyle, Sen David Shoebbridge,
Facilitator Kelley Tranter.
of the week – Australians for War Powers Reform (AWPR)
To see nuclear-related stories in greater depth and intensity
Antinuclear 