Australia has become a nation ruled by fools.
We have surrendered power over every aspect of our lives and industry to fifteen debating chambers in eight ruling cities. These assemblies are controlled by lawyers, unionists, centralists, green dreamers, power seekers and tax consumers.
The killer costs are incurred when they use direct investments or fiddle the rules on taxes and subsidies to chase impossible green dreams
Their direct cost alone is horrendous. There are 837 politicians (ignoring local government). Each has a salary (say $200Kpy), travel and office costs (say $150Kpy), and staff costs (say $200Kpy) – a billion here, plus a billion there and pretty soon you’re talking real money.
Now add all the state and federal governors, the cabinets with their limos and press corps, eight armies of tax collectors and the accountants and lawyers trying to protect tax payers from them. Then there are the building costs, each citadel probably getting its red-and-black flag (the NSW version flag cost $25M).
But salaries and perks are a minor part of their real cost. The killer costs are incurred when they use direct investments or fiddle the rules on taxes and subsidies to chase impossible green dreams.
Most of our 837 politicians and their servants are now obsessed with “Net Zero”, and learning from the Covid lockdowns, they now dream of Climate lockdowns.
Devoid of engineering talent or economic common sense they presume to design our electricity network (but they ban emissions-free nuclear power while planning the destruction of the old reliables, coal, gas and hydro). Although the green-infected electricity grid is struggling to meet current demands, they “plan” to add even greater loads to turn water into hydrogen, push water uphill, charge giant batteries and power subsidised fleets of electric vehicles.
Ignorant of the realities of food production they turn grasslands into havens for weeds and pests, and lock-the-gates to explorers, farmers, foresters and fishermen
Pretending to save the bush, their green mandates and subsidies are replacing useful grasslands and valuable resources of hardwood, softwood, mulga and saltbush with bird slicers, roads, poles, wires, plastic, metal, concrete and glass as the new green energy landscapes. And then they plan to use this intermittent low-density green energy to produce hydrogen which can never recover the energy used to produce it, and also consumes nine tonnes of fresh water for every tonne of hydrogen produced.
Ignorant of the realities of food production they turn grasslands into havens for weeds and pests, and lock-the-gates to explorers, farmers, foresters and fishermen. They think we can have drought and flood mitigation without dams, timber without foresters, minerals without mines, and food without farmers and fishermen.
They reward people who won’t work and tax those who do. Ignorant of the benefits of federalism, they strive to destroy federalism by inventing a “National Cabinet”, and run endless centralising summits, enquiries and talkfests. Soon the veto of “The Voice” could make anything and everything impossible!
A cold hungry winter is about to show Europe the deadly dangers of listening to green dreamers. It is surely time for Australia to withdraw from foreign entanglements like the Paris Treaty, and chop Canberra’s green tentacles, limiting its duties to defence, foreign affairs and maintenance of free trade (exactly as our founders intended).
Viv Forbes, Chairman, The Carbon Sense Coalition, has spent his life working in exploration, mining, farming, infrastructure, financial analysis and political commentary. He has worked for government departments, private companies and now works as a private contractor and farmer.
Viv has also been a guest writer for the Asian Wall Street Journal, Business Queensland and mining newspapers. He was awarded the “Australian Adam Smith Award for Services to the Free Society” in 1988, and has written widely on political, technical and economic subjects.
