Power to meet change

ENERGY is shaping as perhaps the most important issue in our lives.

It is of local concern: How are we going to curb our rising power bills? How are we going to help the vulnerable elderly and the grindingly poor from freezing through winter and baking through summer.

And it is of general concern: As we close coal-fired power plants how are we going to keep the lights on in our cities?

Environmental issues are important but the reality is as regular folk experience greater financial hardship those issues get less important. And if green policies are perceived to be causing that financial hardship then they become politically toxic.

This brings us to Victorian Premier Daniel Andrews’ ban on unconventional gas exploration (fracking); and on conventional onshore gas until 2020. Our Premier is big on gestures, often delivered to sympathetic tribes on social media, designed to make him look like a nondithering cut-through politician.

The gas ban announcement was painted as a heroic win for farmers and our “clean, green” agricultural sector.

It’s all very well to say renewable energy like wind, solar and hydro will one day fill the gap left by coal. But it is increasingly clear there could be serious shortfalls, black outs and soaring power bills, before the mooted utopia of a renewable energy future arrives.

The Victorian Labor Government has set ambitious new renewable energy targets of 25-to-40 per cent and seen the Hazelwood coal power station close on its watch.

But we need to get our energy from somewhere and we need reliable base load power.

State leaders like Mr Andrews can’t simply take the view it’s not their problem and vacate the field. True leadership is not about posturing but finding solutions to difficult problems.

Farmers will need to be justly compensated for any drilling, but our energy future requires Mr Andrews to heed the call of federal counterpart Bill Shorten and overturn Victoria’s ban on conventional gas exploration.