Ben's Blog

The Honorable Angus Taylor, Federal Minister for Energy and Emissions Reduction (ha ha, very funny!) has released a grandiose statement intended to put the interminable climate debate to bed once and for all, no matter who you have gone to bed with.

After much faffing about, he has come up with a plan. Right from the very start he boldly states, without so much as a hint of irony:

“My plan is based on outcomes, not ideology”.

Young Angus feels we have all been choosing between renewable energy and fossil fuels based on our ideology, and he is none too pleased with our choices. But let’s take a look around the world. (and it is round, by the way) We see Nations opting for renewable energy irrespective of their ideological bent.(and some of them are pretty bent, believe you me) The choice between renewables and fossil fuels is not an ideological choice, no matter how hard you try to make it one.

The ideology emerges when the time comes to choose the method we use to choose that choice. (l hope that makes sense)

Your 3 free marketeers, after reluctantly conceding that climate change is not fake news, (That only took 30 years or so) would obviously opt for a carbon tax: thus allowing the market to choose how they would avoid that irksome tax. (this is the fun part, your freemarketeers enjoy nothing more than devising devious ways to avoid tax)

Your dyed in the wool Socialist however, finds such unbounded freedom anathema to his ideology, repugnant to his basic instincts and an affront to his very raison d’etre As an organ of The State, he feels impelled to wield the limitless power at his disposal, to bend the market to his iron will.

He decrees: “Thou shall not invest in renewable energy. Thou shalt invest in carbon capture and storage….or else!”

“If you wishy-washy, namby-pamby Capos choose to give your money to those Greenies and hippies to build their abominable windmills, The State must assume the awesome responsibility of building the greatest gas plant the world has ever seen. A monument to the glory of Socialism that Father Jo himself would be proud of. (God rest his eternal soul)