Electricity generation must return to public
THE National Electricity Market is wrecking Australia’s economy and endangering lives. For the sake of the common good it must immediately be shut down, and the generation, distribution and retail of electricity returned to public control.
Australia possesses enough natural resources to generate unlimited electricity at minuscule expense, yet Australian businesses and households are paying the highest power bills on the planet.
Manufacturers are shedding thousands of jobs, and many are shutting down altogether, for want of a reliable, affordable power supply; and as the ABC has reported, working families unable to make ends meet are turning to charities for help with their energy costs while the ill, aged, and infirm are having to forego medication and even meals just to keep the lights and heating on.
This is the direct and inevitable result of the National Competition Policy “reforms” of the late 1990s, greatly exacerbated by the Howard government’s 2001 Renewable Energy Target, all of which were designed to loot the public for the benefit of private interests under the false pretences of cutting red tape, promoting efficiency, and mitigating
so-called “climate change”.
So the RET must also be scrapped now. — JIM HAZZARD, Toowoomba
Liberal thing?
IN AUSTRALIA’S most read journalist’s column (TC, [3/7) about the current unrest in the Liberal Party, Mr B described Mr Abbott’s position as wanting “to do what’s right – which, to him, means Liberal things”. Mr B then listed a several “things” which, to him, fulfilled the criteria: stopping wind farms, freezing the renewable energy target, lowering immigration, tough spending cuts.
I was flummoxed: when did these become “Liberal
things”?
To help resolve my perplexity, I googled Liberal Party of Australia – constitution. My puzzlement remains.
Of the 14 objectives listed there, none mentions stopping things. Quite the contrary. For example,
“The objectives of the organisation shall be to have an Australian nation:
(d) in which an intelligent, free and liberal Australian democracy shall be maintained by (vi) looking primarily to the encouragement of individual initiative and enterprise as the dynamic force of progress.”
But not, according to Mr A and Mr B, if your initiative
and enterprise in anyway involves renewable energy generation.
And “(f ) in which … industries are promoted, new and adequate markets developed, the lot of country people improved, rural amenities increased, and decentralisation of industries encouraged;”
That sooo did not happen when Mr A was PM?
Whether or not Mr B has the standing within the Liberal Party to dictate which matters are and are not “Liberal things”, he really needs to check the Liberal Party constitution first. — PHIL ARMIT, Toowoomba