I read, more or less at the same time, material which emanated from two places whose fundamental laws of economics appear to be quite different. I’ll call them down-to-earth land and cloud-cuckoo land.
In down-to-earth land, ASIC reported that 243 manufacturers and 1387 construction companies went into administration in the second half of 2023; an accelerating trend. Maybe power prices played a part. Just a guess. This data came hard on the heels of Alcoa announcing the imminent closure of its Kwinana aluminium-refinery operation. Something about which the federal minister for resources Madeleine King “expressed disappointment.”
Meanwhile back in cloud-cuckoo land. Somewhere far off? Mentally yes, geographically no. In fact, part of it is in my neck of the woods. My local federal member Kylea Tink, along with her fellow Teals, is a steadfast occupant of cloud-cuckoo land. “By 2035, I believe we should be pursuing an emissions reduction of 75 percent at a minimum target,” she was reported as saying.
Other Teals were also like-mindedly quoted in my newspaper: Kate Chaney (Curtin), Zoe Daniel (Goldstein), Allegra Spender (Wentworth), Sophie Scamps (Mackellar) and pathbreaker Zali Steggall (Warringah); she who dumped Tony Abbott. But I have little doubt that all Teals are onboard the express train to 75 percent and, I imagine, that number will only go up in the next year or so. Why not 85 percent or more when there are no economic constraints.
The problem in a nutshell is not that the Teals (and their fellow travellers) have an unscientific, hysterical, and seriously misguided view about the effects of CO2 emissions on human wellbeing. After all, this flawed perspective is shared by King Charles, by David Attenborough, by John Kerry and Al Gore, by Greta Thunberg, by Michael Mann, by António Guterres, by Klaus Schwab, by AOC; by too, too many notables to count.
The problem is their economics. They are all cargo cultists. None of them short of a quid; they think that goods and services appear as if by magic. Well, in fact, in cloud-cuckoo land, they do appear as if by magic. But in down-to-earth land they don’t. Plentiful and affordable power has been an essential component of Western economic progress. Reliable and comparatively cheap power (built on coal) has been instrumental in making Australia prosperous. In giving people in North Sydney and Neutral Bay, where Kylea hangs out, a very comfortable lifestyle.
I’d have more respect for those living in cloud-cuckoo land if they showed any understanding at all of economic realities. If they were to construct spreadsheets laying out exactly what industries and businesses would remain internationally competitive in Australia in 2035, having manfully achieved 75 percent or more. Incidentally they might, at the same time, explain how shipping jobs offshore, including to China, will lower global emissions.
This is it in a nutshell.
They have no idea how the world works. They just can’t fathom how industry may need power 24/7, for example.
Joseph Conrad had their type pegged a century ago.
The irony is that nothing much is going on climatewise except the natural cycles. Certainly nothing unusual. The only temperature rise is in the adjusted data, there’s no rise in the raw data, apart from cities affected by the heat island effect. The average position of the snow line has not moved this century. Arctic sea ice area has likewise been trending sideways for about 20 years. Both follow the Atlantic Mutidecadal Oscillation (AMO) which has a cycle time of about 60 years, and which is at peak at the moment. Hurricanes and cyclones have been weakening slightly, as reflected in the accumulated cyclone energy dataset. Tornadoes in the US have been fewer and less intense than historically. Rainfall data is not changing much. Bushfire burn area is nearly at a record low. About the only measurable effect of all that CO2 is in agriculture and other plant growth, which loves the extra fertilizer.
But try telling this to a Teal or a Green and they just don’t want to hear it. They can never counter the data, they just dogmatically screech about global boiling in the face of all this scientific evidence that it isn’t actually happening.
I can vouch for that Monique Ryan answered when we asked her where the money would come from to pay for health and education when coal mining and gas were closed down ‘ Not my problem ‘ she said
We had invited her to address our Current affairs at U3A
In the UK, the coal fired steel blast furnaces of Port Talbot
will be closing down with a loss of 2,800 jobs.
They’ll be switching to environmentally friendly electric furnaces
which don’t make virgin steel.
Instead they recycle steel, which is made in Indian and Chinese
coal fired blast furnaces.
A win for The Climate.
Apparently.
What do you mean by the term ‘cargo’ cultists?
I am visiting NE Victoria this weekend. Up in the hills of Yackandandah I met up with friends who are enjoying the tree change. No mortgage, good super. The have found a village of like minded hippies who embrace the net zero cult. They quicker we are on ruinables the better the peoples will be. There is a religious fervour to it. The more they go down this track, the more government and corporates reward them. They are happy as on planet virtue.
Aluminium has been referred to as; “Frozen Electricity””, so essential is elctric current to its economical production.
Aluminium Oxide is one of the most abundant materials on the face of the planet, but with few exceptions, it is widely dispersed and thus uneconomical to recover.. I recall that in the early 20th Century, some European monarch ordered a ceremonial helmet made from the material.
At that time, pure aluminium was only refined via a complex and expensive chemical process. It thus had a market price close to that for Platinum
By WW1, the stuff was appearing everywhere, entirely because of the development of electric smelting and the associated serious and AFFORDABLE electricity generation capacity.
As usual, the death-cultists want to send the world back to the stone age; the associated “body-count” being “desirable” in its own right.
No Aluminium; NO aviation, apart from wood, wire and canvas death-traps. Then again, there is not supposed to be ayn hydrocarbon fuel for such devices.
pick a side: NOW and prepare accordingly.
Ryan and rug muncha really deserved each other
Fair Shake, there’s an excellent application of the “cargo cult” religion to the renewables rort in a recent Quadrant… *I think*. I’ve had a search online but can’t seem to put my finger on it… maybe another Cat or Kit?
Briefly, imagine an outer Pacific Island tribe taking abandoning their usual economy, trekking to the site of legendary deliverance, dressing in sacred ceremonial garb of stewardess aprons and shields made from scorched fuselage, lining up in an imaginary aisle with their arms outstretched and babbling bbbbbbbrrrrrr! mmmmmmmmrrrrrreowwww! bbbbbboooooooooshhhhh! …. in the logical faith that invoking the windfall which delivered them riches will hasten it to re-occur.
Of course, some naif’s deliverance was the more advanced economy’s disaster, and all the chanting grows no beans. This is what’s happening with ruinables- the Anglosphere is chanting the sacred rites of modelling against the dull reality of physics, and bleeding out our once perfectly decent economy to buy in useless turbines, toxic panels, and endless batteries.
If you get a chance ask haem what they personally have done.
1. Do you have an electric vehicle? If so do you always charge using the wind/solar generated electricity at 30% more?
2. Yes. Yes. Good on you. Now did you pay the voluntary $10k levy to reprocess your car batteries?
3. Yes. You are flying. Do you avoid the refrigerated and/or packaged food chain,and consume all your food in 3 to 5 days?
4. Yes to that too. You are a legend. Almost there. Do you avoid all modern medicine be it diagnostic, pharmaceutical or surgical?
5. Yes. Well good on you. You deserve a holiday. You are restricted to destinations within a days walk of your home. And the resort must be of sustainable materials – kind of like an Afrjcan village in the 15th century.with no running water.
.
Oh I am serious. Before you tell me how to live life, I want to see you “walk the talk” just a little bit.
As power prices go up, power becomes less reliable and manufacturing and jobs disappear always remember to thank a Teal and David Pocock.
China will.
Might be a good billboard for those standing against them.
Australia is heading for a manufacturing wasteland as local suppliers forced to shut up shop, lay off workers in the name of Labor’s green insanity
Australia has reached a grim milestone in its proud manufacturing history as one local company after another is crippled amid soaring energy prices and Labor’s green insanity, writes Nick Cater.
SkyNews.com.au Contributor and Political Commentator
Australia will pass a grim anniversary in the history of manufacturing this weekend.
The last ream of Australian-made white copy paper rolled off the production line at the Maryville mill near Traralgon in eastern Victoria on January 21 last year.
The last batch of Australian-manufactured Reflex copy paper meant 150 green redundancies – jobs lost as a direct result of government-driven decisions.
The mill’s owners, Opal Australia, struggled to find timber after the Supreme Court of Victoria shut down critical operations of VicForests last year.
Litigants Environment East Gippsland and Kinglake Friends of the Forest were responsible for the action.
Still, it merely accelerated the Andrews Labor government’s decision to phase out native timber logging by 2030.
Like all manufacturing companies, Opal Australia was under pressure from energy costs, which are rising under Labor’s plan to reduce carbon emissions at breakneck speed.
Rising energy costs have been punishing companies like Trident Plastics, which has been doing its best to encourage recycling by manufacturing red, yellow and green-topped wheelie bins at its factory in Adelaide.
Yet the plastic injection moulding process is inescapably energy-hungry.
Plastic pellets must be heated to high temperatures for melting and moulding. Producing an average 120-litre bin requires around 250 kWh of electricity.
South Australia currently boasts the highest proportion of wind and solar power of any mainland state, but it is also the most expensive.
Last June, Trident went into receivership placing the jobs of 160 South Australians at risk.
Should the company close, wheelie bins must be imported from interstate, adding to their carbon footprint.
Wheelie bin manufacturers are just small fry in the growing number of companies struggling to make a profit with rising input costs.
The phased shutdown of Alcoa’s Kwinana alumina refinery in WA will put 550 people out of work by the third quarter of this year with a knock-on effect in the local community.
It would not be unduly harsh to say things are not going according to plan for Anthony Albanese’s government, which came to power with an energy policy based on catastrophically faulty modelling.
Slashing power bills by $275 was not the only benefit Albanese claimed would flow from its plan to cut carbon emissions.
We were also told there would be 604,000 new green jobs, with four out of five in the regions.
That promise rings hollow for workers in the growing number of businesses sent to the wall by rising energy costs.
Advance Bricks is closed its business at Stawell, Victoria in 2022 after 82 years in business.
The company, which employed 23 people, faced a rise in the price of gas from $6-to-$8 a gigajoule to more than $37.
Australian-manufactured toilet paper, kitchen rolls and tissues may soon join our copy paper as a distant memory as the Sorbent Paper Company struggles to cope with a 300 per cent rise in the cost of gas.
Last year, the company called for volunteers for redundancy in preparation for the closure and offshoring of some operations at its Box Hill, Victoria plant.
Sorbent napkins are now made overseas, and the manufacture of facial tissues at Box Hill will end early this year.
Facial tissue manufacturing at Greystanes, Sydney, has also been moved offshore, although Sorbent has committed to retain as many Australian manufacturing jobs as it can under difficult circumstances.
The notion that Labor’s 43 per cent emissions reduction target for 2030 would reduce the cost of energy and create jobs flies in the face of common sense.
The rapid decarbonisation of our electricity grids requires hundreds of billions of dollars of new investment, which must be recouped over time in taxes or power prices.
Rising energy prices and the tight supply in the gas sector would inevitably lead to job losses, starting with those in heavy industry that could be easily located in countries with lower energy prices and less stringent environmental regulations.
In 2019, environmental economist Brian Fisher conducted some of the most comprehensive modelling of the flow-on effects of reducing carbon emissions.
He found that Labor’s then target of a 45 percent reduction in emissions by 2030 would lead to a contraction of the entire economy and cause particular pain to the manufacturing sector.
He forecasted a 15.8 percent contraction in the manufacture of chemicals, rubber, and plastic and a 9.3 percent reduction in the manufacture of non-metallic goods.
He forecast a loss of 336,000 jobs economy wide.
The then Labor leader Bill Shorten scoffed at Mr Fisher’s report, accusing it of being politically driven and falsely claiming the fossil fuel industry had financed it.
Yet a little more than half-way through the Albanese government’s first time, Mr Fisher’s modelling looks close to the mark.
The promise of lower energy prices and a glut of green jobs now sits with the fairies at the bottom of the garden.
“‘E look like you. ‘E got white face.”
Off to the New Hebrides in a few weeks. They still survive on tourism and little else. At least we tourists bring actual money to the place, a type of prosperity I suppose.
The Teals stand on the shore, waiting for Energy Nirvana. It will never come, or if it does it will be because the dirty stuff is done elsewhere, out of sight and smell. They are, essentially, stupid people clothed in faux sophistication, virtue and overweening ambition. And money, lots of money earned by others.
We have tidied up our environment sufficiently to make the place attractive and clean. This is now not enough, though how their stupid policies can stop China and most of SE Asia polluting their rivers and air is anyone’s guess. Apart from halting all consumption of their goods, which they will never do.
.. its not just renewballs, either.
They’re all for – no forestry, no coal (steel production), no petroleum, no concrete (CO2, don’t-cha know?).. while barracking for the government to do something about high housing costs.
Where on earth do they think the materials for houses come from ?
What an appalling statement to make . . . shows she’s full of hot air which is ironic given her position on gerbil warning.
There are a large group of people, possibly up to one third, like the Teals, Greens, many Labour, who have strong authoritarian tendencies which emerge under the right conditions. In their arrogance they know what is best for you and nothing will deter them from pursuing that.
So economic realities, adverse consequences including ruin for other people “is not my problem”. They ensure they are insulated. Truly evil people.
Another question for our unctuous and vacuous Teals to add to Natural Instinct’s list:
Do you forsake evil aviation and travel by coach or train to Canberra? Sure, it takes half a day from Sydney and all day from Melbourne. But isn’t the future of the planet more important?
Nick Carter’s article drives home the absurdity of current politics: since the New Class hijack of ‘Labor’, ‘what about the workers’ has become the catch cry of its opponents.
I disagree. I say that the Teals do ‘have an unscientific, hysterical, and seriously misguided view about the effects of CO2 emissions on human wellbeing’.
I’m betting that these Teals don’t even realise that if CO? was absent in the air they breathe then they would quickly cease breathing altogether. That’s because CO? stimulates breathing. Breathing is an automatic response triggered by the brain in response to blood CO? levels (as bicarbonate ion, HCO??) Any Teal trying to hold their breath in waiting for a 75% reduction by 2035 would find that out soon enough. However, they wouldn’t make any scientific conclusion about that cause and effect experiment.
On the other hand I agree that the Teals are cargo cultists as a result of being in their comfy city-urban bubbles where they think no further than that the resources for their cushy well-being all come from the supermarket, car showroom or appliance store. They suffer from cloud cuckoo land-itis which the Cambridge Dictionary defines as: “to think that things that are completely impossible might happen, rather than understanding how things really are”.
Blast! I see that the Comments spell checker doesn’t compute superscripts and subscripts. Hopefully those readers with some chemistry nous will know what what. the ???’s mean
Why would any policy maker or their strokers moderate their behaviour, when there are no consequences to such behaviour?
Fear.
Fear is the key.
Fear is the primary motivator of human behaviour.
Pleading, debating, wailing and flailing will achieve nothing of substance until we understand human psychology. It’s not that there is no place for facts and logic, but as the ‘tip of the spear’ they are demonstrably ineffective.
Also describes everyone at the Davos WEF get together, I will not dignify it with the status of a conference since they are all there just to glory in their exclusivity. The elites revolted against us first but they will soon find out that there are more of us than them and we will win. What they could not endure is that we had great lives and living conditions which meant they are not special so we had to be brought down a peg or lots of pegs, for the planet of course. More and more people are waking up to the renewables scam and the non-existent global warming so our chances look much better than they did last year.
I gave up arguing with the Cargo Cult Greens 3 years ago now.
My policy is “That which cannot be sustained, will not be sustained.”
We are seeing the problem in the US with the government mandated EV policies. GM and Ford are making crippling losses on a product the market doesn’t want but the government is insisting on.
Crashing these two companies just may bring on the next recession or depression.
This one fits the Teals like a glove.
Are Our Elites Crazy? | Power Line (20 Jan)
I’m not seeing these people lead by example though. Maybe if they did so more people would believe their religion.
Look at DP World to see the damage new IR laws will do
EBAs are no longer an ordinary negotiation between two parties. They are set up to make intractable disputes inevitable.
Brad Popple and Brendan Milne
The ports dispute can teach us a lot about what is wrong with our industrial relations system.
DP World is locked in bitter negotiations with the Maritime Union of Australia for a new enterprise agreement. Employees are reported as wanting a 27.5 per cent pay boost over two years to catch up to their compatriots at rival operator Patrick. DP World says that is unsustainable, given Patrick’s employees are more productive as it has introduced greater levels of automation.
Employees are engaged in industrial action to harm DP World’s business and force it to capitulate – as is their right. Meanwhile, the economic consequences for the rest of us are enormous.
Many have heaped criticism on DP World for deciding to not pay employees engaged in industrial action, and called on DP World to simply end the dispute by negotiating a deal. In doing so, they display an alarming lack of understanding of our industrial relations system.
Enterprise bargaining is not an ordinary negotiation, and has been made progressively more difficult over time. It is set up to make situations like this increasingly inevitable.
To understand the conundrum, the first thing to know is that enterprise agreements can live forever.
While they have a “nominal expiry date”, this concept is relevant to the timing of their renegotiation.
Until they are terminated or replaced, they operate in perpetuity.
The second thing is that the termination of enterprise agreements is now effectively impossible, since the government’s Secure Jobs, Better Pay laws took effect a little over a year ago.
Few options exist for employers faced with this industrial action.
Previously, employers could ask the Fair Work Commission to terminate an enterprise agreement – but only if they could convince the independent umpire that this was not contrary to the public interest.
This almost never happened, and only in relatively extraordinary circumstances and where the employer committed to maintaining existing pay rates, at least for a period.
This is off the table entirely.
When an agreement nominally expires (after a maximum period of four years), employees can engage in various forms of lawful industrial action, carefully designed to cause maximum harm and force a deal.
It’s worth pausing here to think about the peculiarity of this system.
Where else do we expect negotiations to occur in those circumstances?
Can you imagine entering into a lease agreement with a landlord permitted to progressively shut off access to parts of the property every four years until you agreed to pay whatever new rent they required – forever?
Few options exist for employers faced with this industrial action.
Of course, they can simply accede to whatever demands they face or otherwise just tolerate the business harm.
But what if the claims are unacceptable, or the employer needs to negotiate some changes of its own?
The employer can refuse to pay employees who impose partial bans on their work (but then they do not need to perform any work at all) or engage in their own responsive action by locking out employees without pay.
Neither option is available until employees fire the first shot.
Personal criticisms
That’s why criticising an employer like DP World for taking these options doesn’t make any sense.
What else is it to do?
The system is designed to make this type of disputation inevitable.
The same can be said of the personal criticisms levelled by Workplace Relations Minister Tony Burke at DP World’s executive vice president for Oceania Nicolaj Noes’ handling of Svitzer ports dispute, when that business needed to change decades-old restrictive work practices.
At the end of 2022, after three years of bargaining, and hundreds of instances of industrial action by employees, Svitzer decided to lock them out.
One upshot of the government’s previous law reforms is to enable the commission to more easily determine the outcomes of intractable bargaining disputes through arbitration – a process affording both sides an opportunity to persuade the commission of the merits of their position.
But the government’s next round of reform now looks set to close this as an avenue for workplace change too, by imposing an edict on the commission that each individual term of an arbitrated outcome be no less favourable than what it replaces.
That is, the commission will have no power to wind back unsustainable terms, no matter how strong the case for change and even if the commission considers it appropriate.
It’s not difficult to see that this will embolden union claims and entrench disputation. What is left to lose? And how can an employer respond?
Even Victoria’s Labor Treasurer Tim Pallas appears to acknowledge that this will create a disincentive for unions to reach agreement at the bargaining table.
Of course, he is right.
“Class warfare industrial practices remain institutionalised on the wharves.”
It’s unbeleivable, these people are just arguing against Christian civilisation as this is the current zeitgeist.
These people are stupid and do not know what they are talking about.
Try talking the real science, the sun as the source, the history of the earth, geology, that temp causes co2, not co2 causing temp, try explaining the use of resources for solar pannels on every home and wind farms v a coal station, the heat emitted by solar farm v coal station, we only produce 3 1/2 % of co 2 and 96.5 % from evaporation from oceans.
The reply of not my problem is gutless, lazy and no solution to jobs.
Their job, wimmenz jobs are not jobs, they are familial function made by law to be outsources eg childcare, further their jobs are jobs caused be new Regis and laws. They are not jobs – just shit.
It staggers me that 6 million males were made unemployed in north eastern USA who had real jobs in manufacturing plants.
The resources wasted, all those valuable ores lost forever on rubbish.