The Albanese government

[JohnDe]

I wasn't talking about Dutton, he isn't doing the small target approach.

Ok, but I wouldn't call Albanese's past three years as small target. He did introduce a controversial referendum, he changed the legislated big tax cuts and delivered more for lower income wages, he changed industrial relations laws.

Albanese has been in the media almost every day, he is no small target. His and the government problems have been in decision making and timing.

voters are in the midst of deciding which leader is strong and purposeful for the times we are in. Albanese is losing that battle, while Dutton's unpopularity is forgiven because he looks to be stronger and more willing to stand up to the woke system.

 

[sptrawler]

Ok, but I wouldn't call Albanese's past three years as small target. He did introduce a controversial referendum, he changed the legislated big tax cuts and delivered more for lower income wages, he changed industrial relations laws.

Albanese has been in the media almost every day, he is no small target. His and the government problems have been in decision making and timing.

voters are in the midst of deciding which leader is strong and purposeful for the times we are in. Albanese is losing that battle, while Dutton's unpopularity is forgiven because he looks to be stronger and more willing to stand up to the woke system.

True, but the referendum is long forgotten in most voters minds and the indigenous issues have been taken off the table, the tax cuts were well received and other than that nothing major has been announced and subjects like hydrogen super power are no longer mentioned.

So really there isn't anything anyone can really pin on him, Dutton has always had a persona issue with the public and it is up to him to change that or move aside.

Politics these days are all about optics and Albo is playing it well and shuts down controversy in the team quickly, Dutton still has a hell of a mountain to climb and the media aren't in his corner.

Big business don't want the energy sector back in Govt hands and the renewable sector is a huge money spinner, so he has a hell of an uphill battle on that front.

I will be surprised if he gets in, kudos to him if he does, it would be an amazing feat and show a disenfranchised swing not seen for a long time IMO.
At least he has made politics a bit more interesting, rather than the usual personal attacks on each other, at least Dutton has made it about policies this time, which is catching the Govt out of its comfort zone IMO.
They would much rather be discussing Dutton's head shape, than trying to explain their renewables, hydrogen super power story etc, but he is still a long way from the lodge.

 

[qldfrog]

Did you know ? Noted this morning
"Australia has contributed more than $1.5bn in aid to Kyiv since the start of the war."
Plenty of your money around you see, so a road resurfacing for the King beach house is peanuts .
Cause we all know Russia is such a threat to Australia, lets buy more Chinese solar panels..

 

[SirRumpole]

Albanese has been in the media almost every day, he is no small target. His and the government problems have been in decision making and timing.

The way Dutton is trying to bankrupt business and consumers with his nuclear energy policy will lose him the election in my opinion.

This country with a relatively small population can't afford Dutton's energy policies which are simply a mirage that Dutton knows won't eventuate under his watch and is simply there as a naysay to the Labor policies.

It's a cynical policy at best and a disaster at worse, and he is already trying to destroy all forms of cheap energy that will compete with nuclear, eg Port Stephens offshore wind(which he has promised to cancel) and the Burdekin hydro-electric project which was cancelled by the incoming Coaltition Qld government.

Want unaffordable energy ?
Vote LNP.

 

[JohnDe]

The way Dutton is trying to bankrupt business and consumers with his nuclear energy policy will lose him the election in my opinion.

This country with a relatively small population can't afford Dutton's energy policies which are simply a mirage that Dutton knows won't eventuate under his watch and is simply there as a naysay to the Labor policies.

It's a cynical policy at best and a disaster at worse, and he is already trying to destroy all forms of cheap energy that will compete with nuclear, eg Port Stephens offshore wind(which he has promised to cancel) and the Burdekin hydro-electric project which was cancelled by the incoming Coaltition Qld government.

Want unaffordable energy ?
Vote LNP.

It is obvious that you are a glued on Labor supporter, but sometimes we need to try and look without our bias and favoured eyes.

The reality dawning on Australians is that we don't have any energy plan remotely close to giving us an honest picture of our future power prices.​

​

The first Frontier Economics report did a service to the debate by unwinding an accounting trick. It revealed the real cost of the Integrated System Plan (ISP) - which has become de-facto policy for Labor - is around $600 billion. This figure towers over the discounted "present value" $121 billion figure touted by Energy Minister Chris Bowen.​

​

The ISP can't project power bills because its modelling depends on a host of heroic assumptions, and arbitrary exclusions and inclusions. These range from speculative reliance on hydrogen and uncosted batteries, to a rigid commitment to government targets.​

The Labor government has been hiding the true cost of renewables, and the truth has begun to unravel.

On the numbers, the Albanese government will now find this difficult to contest.​

​

Labor has failed in its attempt to dispute the modelling that found its renewables-only plan would cost more than $600bn.​

More from today's AFR -

Michael Wu and Zoe Hilton are senior policy analysts at the Centre for Independent Studies.​

​

Amid the political fight over the Coalition's nuclear plan, the flaws in the federal government's own renewables-driven energy models - and the huge hidden costs to consumers- are being exposed.​

​

The first Frontier Economics report did a service to the debate by unwinding an accounting trick. It revealed the real cost of the Integrated System Plan (ISP) - which has become de-facto policy for Labor - is around $600 billion. This figure towers over the discounted "present value" $121 billion figure touted by Energy Minister Chris Bowen.​

​

But the second report - modelling the Coalition's nuclear policy - was more revealing. It showed that adopting nuclear would save more than $100 billion compared to a renewables-driven plan — sending critics diving into the details. What they end up surfacing may do more damage to Labor's plan than the Coalition's.​

Bowen and his allies were quick to attack Frontier's modelling, accusing the report's authors of being silent on bill impacts for consumers.​

This overlooks the fact that Frontier's analysis simply followed the ISP - the government's energy transition roadmap​

- which also doesn't project power bill impacts.​

​

The ISP can't project power bills because its modelling depends on a host of heroic assumptions, and arbitrary exclusions and inclusions. These range from speculative reliance on hydrogen and uncosted batteries, to a rigid commitment to government targets.​

​

For example, some critics have claimed that the 90 per cent capacity factor assigned to nuclear -the amount of electricity a plant generates relative to its maximum potential - is unrealistic. With wind and solar providing half the energy, the argument goes, nuclear's remaining 38 per cent share of generation would not be able to operate in a continuous state.​

​

If Frontier's model was built from the ground up to reflect reality, this critique might be valid. However, Frontier has anchored its analysis to the ISP, which supports implausibly low levels of spillage for wind and solar through a combination of acrobatic modelling and unrealistic assumptions.​

​

The average capacity factors in the ISP model - 25 per cent for large-scale solar and 35 per cent for onshore wind-are extremely optimistic. Even today,​

​

averages are closer to 20 per cent and 30 per cent. This will inevitably get worse as the share of wind and solar in the system more than triples, and the new generators cannibalise their own output.​

​

The ISP makes this appear possible because it contains so much unrealistic, uncosted "spongy filling" to support a high penetration of weather-dependent generators- whose mismatch with demand is far worse than nuclear. The same fudge factors that make a 90 per cent weather-dependent system physically possible could easily allow a large nuclear fleet to run at 90 per cent.​

​

The spongy filling in the ISP's Step Change scenario includes around 15 GW of ultra-flexible hydrogen electrolyser loads designed to perfectly soak up oversupply of solar - a pipe dream that's quickly unravelling as industry players pull out.​

​

The plan also calls for a staggering 157 gigawatt-hours of home and electric vehicle batteries by 2050- that's more than 11 million new Tesla Powerwalls- with 90 per cent of these batteries controlled by grid operators to manage surplus wind and solar.​

​

Under the government's plan, EV owners are increasingly expected to charge during the day and discharge in the evening - exactly the opposite of what they want. Surprisingly, none of these "consumer energy resources" are included as a cost in the ISP.​

​

On top of that, the ISP assumes batteries can accurately predict the weather to optimise charging and discharging.​

​

These crutches that keep the ISP from collapsing under its own weight are known to be unreasonable. Mr Bowen's own department commissioned a review - kept from the public for 11 months -that described this reliance on fully submissive consumer energy resources as "problematic" and a "limitation of the current ISP"​

​

If the crutches were kicked away, the estimated costs of the renewables-only energy system would skyrocket, almost certainly exposing even greater benefits from nuclear.​

​

The reality dawning on Australians is that we don't have any energy plan remotely close to giving us an honest picture of our future power prices.​

​

Because Frontier has anchored its analysis to the ISP, it has made a transparent comparison that is almost certainly directionally correct: a system with nuclear will cost much less.​

​

But because the baseline is so far out to sea, the dollar figures presented for either system are close to meaningless.​

Australians are still none the wiser about whether or when prices will actually come down.​

​

This uncertainty about eventual prices was laid bare during a Senate inquiry, when the market operator's CEO was asked whether following the ISP would lower power bills. His response? "I can't guarantee that, no."​

​

The energy transition is too important and too costly to rely on models riddled with biases and fantastic assumptions. If Frontier's model has flaws, they're mostly inherited from the government's own fatally flawed plan.​

​

 

[SirRumpole]

t is obvious that you are a glued on Labor supporter, but sometimes we need to try and look without our bias and favoured eyes.

There is bias everywhere you look, on both sides of the argument, the question is how can we get a genuinely unbiassed assessment of our energy requirements and the solutions thereto.

Not from ANY political party or their associated fan clubs. It has to come from the science and engineering community, which is why I go back to Finkel and AEMO as being as unbiassed as it is possible to get in the context of electricity generation and distribution.

Neither of those parties mentioned nuclear as being necessary for Australia. Most of them say renewables backed up by gas(short term), batteries and hydro (long term). So that's the way I go and I will vote accordingly.

 

[JohnDe]

There is bias everywhere you look, on both sides of the argument, the question is how can we get a genuinely unbiassed assessment of our energy requirements and the solutions thereto.

Not from ANY political party or their associated fan clubs. It has to come from the science and engineering community, which is why I go back to Finkel and AEMO as being as unbiassed as it is possible to get in the context of electricity generation and distribution.

Neither of those parties mentioned nuclear as being necessary for Australia. Most of them say renewables backed up by gas(short term), batteries and hydro (long term). So that's the way I go and I will vote accordingly.

"Bowen and his allies were quick to attack Frontier's modelling, accusing the report's authors of being silent on bill impacts for consumers. This overlooks the fact that Frontier's analysis simply followed the ISP - the government's energy transition roadmap - which also doesn't project power bill impacts.
"The first Frontier Economics report did a service to the debate by unwinding an accounting trick. It revealed the real cost of the Integrated System Plan (ISP) - which has become de-facto policy for Labor - is around $600 billion. This figure towers over the discounted "present value" $121 billion figure touted by Energy Minister Chris Bowen." Michael Wu and Zoe Hilton are senior policy analysts at the Centre for Independent Studies.


Others are getting involved -

Lift the ban on nuclear power in Australia!

Petition to Australian government to lift the ban on nuclear power in Australia. Nuclear energy is the safest, cleanest, and most reliable form of energy known to humankind.

info.citizensparty.org.au

 

[SirRumpole]

"Bowen and his allies were quick to attack Frontier's modelling, accusing the report's authors of being silent on bill impacts for consumers. This overlooks the fact that Frontier's analysis simply followed the ISP - the government's energy transition roadmap - which also doesn't project power bill impacts.
"The first Frontier Economics report did a service to the debate by unwinding an accounting trick. It revealed the real cost of the Integrated System Plan (ISP) - which has become de-facto policy for Labor - is around $600 billion. This figure towers over the discounted "present value" $121 billion figure touted by Energy Minister Chris Bowen." Michael Wu and Zoe Hilton are senior policy analysts at the Centre for Independent Studies.


Others are getting involved -

Lift the ban on nuclear power in Australia!

Petition to Australian government to lift the ban on nuclear power in Australia. Nuclear energy is the safest, cleanest, and most reliable form of energy known to humankind.

info.citizensparty.org.au

Disclosure. I am not a member of any political party and never have been.

Can you say the same about yourself?

 

[SirRumpole]

The Centre for Independent Studies (CIS) is an Australian think tank founded in 1976 by Greg Lindsay.[4][5] The CIS specialises in public policy research and publishes material in areas such as economics, education, culture and foreign policy. Although there are no explicit ties between the CIS and the centre-right Liberal Party, the CIS is politically aligned with the Liberal Party, praising Liberal Party founder Robert Menzies,[6] hosting various Liberal Party politicians and holding very critical views of the Labor Party.[7][8] However, it has also hosted Labor prime ministers and politicians,[9] and often also criticises the Liberal Party's policies.[10][11][12]

Philosophy​

[edit]
The CIS describes itself as a "classical liberal think tank."[13]

CIS is affiliated with the United States–based Atlas Network, which advocates free market economic policies across the world.[14][15][16]

Activities​

[edit]
In 2023, the CIS partnered with other think tanks including the Institute of Public Affairs and LibertyWorks, conservative lobby group Advance and fossil fuel companies to coordinate the No campaign during the 2023 Australian Indigenous Voice referendum.[16][17]

Funding​

[edit]
The CIS does not publish its funding.

The CIS is funded by donations, membership subscriptions, and book and event sales from individuals, companies and charitable trusts. It does not accept government funding.[18]

Staff​

[edit]
Tom Switzer has been executive director of CIS since 2018, succeeding founder Greg Lindsay who had held the position for forty-two years. In 2019, Nicholas Moore was appointed chairman of the CIS board, succeeding Peter Mason.[19]

Notable individuals in the research staff include Gary Banks,[20] Salvatore Babones,[21] Nyunggai Warren Mundine and Steven Schwartz.[22]

Centre for Independent Studies - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

 

[JohnDe]

Disclosure. I am not a member of any political party and never have been.

Can you say the same about yourself?

Yes, and I am not rusted to any particular party.

Why would you ask such a question?

 

[SirRumpole]

Why would you ask such a question?

Because your relentlessly disseminate LNP propaganda.

 

[JohnDe]

Because your relentlessly disseminate LNP propaganda.

That is Labor talk coming through, even if unintentional.

I have shared information from several sources, including a German scientist several months ago. I have shown financial figures from an independent source, which Labor have not fully disputed.

Labor has failed in its attempt to dispute the modelling that found its renewables-only plan would cost more than $600bn.​

real cost of the Integrated System Plan (ISP) - which has become de-facto policy for Labor - is around $600 billion.​

Multiple times I have described myself as a fan of science, that has read books of futurism and science fiction, waiting and hoping for a day that we use nuclear power and travel to the planets.

If you cannot accept debate with proof because it does not meet your ideology, please do not lower yourself to a mudslinger.

Nowhere have I intentionally 'disseminate LNP propaganda'. Besides being a ridiculous comment because everyone knows that the LNP are worthless at the propaganda game, and it is the preferred tool of the left of politics and union.

A recent example is Albanese's Labor government closing the ABCC claiming a witch hunt of Unions, only to have unions like the CFMEU up before the courts for corruption and intimidation.

And now we have the Victorian Labor party forming their own version of the ABCC.

Propaganda you say.

The Victorian government will move to strengthen labour hire laws and establish a complaints advisory body to stamp out criminal and unlawful conduct in the state’s construction sector.​

Victorian Premier Jacinta Allan said she wanted the changes to come into effect “as soon as possible” to stamp out the “rotten culture” and provide a stronger framework to support workers on construction sites. ​

The government has also supported in principle the recommendation to establish an alliance involving state and federal law enforcement and regulators to address allegations of criminal and unlawful conduct on Victorian construction sites.​

New complaints mechanism for Victoria's 'rotten' construction sector

The Victorian government has accepted all of the recommendations of a report into unlawful activity and corruption at government construction sites.

www.abc.net.au

 

[SirRumpole]

Multiple times I have described myself as a fan of science, that has read books of futurism and science fiction, waiting and hoping for a day that we use nuclear power and travel to the planets.

Are you sure you haven't got a case of confirmation bias?

 

[sptrawler]

Just to keep things on the level, Allan Finkel has never been against nuclear, just the fact it will take a long time to put it in.

So is it the wrong choice, or the wrong target, or the wrong timeframe?

The latest from Finkel:

Former top scientist says nuclear is 'not a solution in the short term' - ABC listen

With the debate around Australia's energy future raging in parliament, hear from the former chief scientist Alan Finkel.

www.abc.net.au

Australia's former chief scientist Alan Finkel says there is no better source of zero emissions electricity than nuclear power, but it will take too long to meet our emissions targets.

Joining Raf Epstein, Mr Finkel said that he would like to see nuclear introduced in support of electricity in 2040s as our population expands but said it was not a feasible option in the short term.

Hit play to hear the full interview.

 

[SirRumpole]

Australia's former chief scientist Alan Finkel says there is no better source of zero emissions electricity than nuclear power, but it will take too long to meet our emissions targets.

Of course he's right.

Nuclear is a great source of clean and constant energy as long as it's affordable.

Personally, I think emissions 'targets' are a bit of a crock, but the fact is that coal stations are wearing out and we need other sources of energy.

We could build more coal stations, but coal like gas and uranium is a finite resource that cost money to extract, process and transport.

As well as meeting our emissions targets we have to replace our ageing coal stations. The time frame for nuclear won't ensure that we do that if we just wait for nuclear.

 

[sptrawler]

Of course he's right.

Nuclear is a great source of clean and constant energy as long as it's affordable.

Personally, I think emissions 'targets' are a bit of a crock, but the fact is that coal stations are wearing out and we need other sources of energy.

We could build more coal stations, but coal like gas and uranium is a finite resource that cost money to extract, process and transport.

As well as meeting our emissions targets we have to replace our ageing coal stations. The time frame for nuclear won't ensure that we do that if we just wait for nuclear.

Like I keep saying it will be sorted, it can't afford not to be and money wont come into the equation in the end.
If it is a stuff up, it will cost twice as much to fix, so as time moves on the realities will catch up with the expectations that the people have.
If the renewables can do it the people will be happy , if they can't people will become very unhappy and something else will have to be used. Simple really.