From STOP THESE THINGS

The clowns have taken over the circus and are firmly in charge of energy policy, which in its design and implementation makes a three-ringed circus look like a Benedictine Monastery.

It’s said you shouldn’t put down to conspiracy what can be chalked up to incompetence. Well, with Australian power prices rising at double-digit rates every year since Labor ramped up the Federal government’s Renewable Energy Target in 2009, with a further 25-30% jump in power prices set to bite next month, and with routine power rationing used as ‚demand management‘ – whenever wind and solar output collapses coincide with peak demand – it’s starting to look like a grand conspiracy of incompetence. At its head sits Chris Bowen, Labor’s Energy Minister. His take on Australia’s energy crisis is positively delusional.

Rocketing power prices are crushing households and driving businesses to the wall, but Bowen has been pushing the line that his wind and solar transition is going according to plan and that retail power prices have actually decreased. Yes, that’s right the Clown in Chief is claiming that Australian power prices are on the way down.

A clearly gobsmacked Chris Kenny had this report on Sky News about Bowen and his all-star clown show.

Labor and the Greens ‘renewables push’ causes power bills to top $2,000 annually
Sky News
Chris Kenny
31 May 2023

Sky News host Chris Kenny says Labor and the Greens’ “renewables push” causes average annual electricity bills to increase by more than double the price Prime Minister Anthony Albanese promised to reduce them by.

“Average prices have already well and truly topped $2,000 a year, yeah all that wind and solar and a big battery to boot, the stuff Labor and the Greens tell us is the cheapest power available … tell us again how this renewables push is the way of the future,” Mr Kenny said.

Transcript

Chris Kenny: Now, I don’t need to tell you about power prices, do I? I mean, I showed you last week, average annual electricity bills have shot up by more than twice as much as Labor promised to reduce them. Average household bills vary from state to state, but they’re near enough to $2,000 a year now, that’s looking like the norm. In South Australia, where they have more renewable energy than any other state, they boast about this, average prices have already well and truly topped $2,000 a year. Yeah, all that wind and solar and a big battery to boot, the stuff Labor and the Greens tell us is the cheapest power available and the crow eaters have got themselves the most expensive electricity in the country, and they had their first statewide blackout a few years back too. Tell us again how this renewables push is the way of the future?

Just extraordinary, isn’t it? The nonsense we’re fed by the Albanese Labor government on electricity when the facts, the reality we are living is entirely different. The Coalition attacked the government on power prices in parliament again today. And let me show you the most arrogant and delusional response from the climate and energy minister Chris „Blackout“ Bowen. He boasted about Labor’s interventions in the coal and gas markets and the effect that they’re having on power prices. And he attacked the shadow minister, Ted O’Brien, for not giving enough credit to Labor for these interventions.

Chris Bowen: The Member for Fairfax went on to say, so there’s no evidence here that the intervention itself was the thing that got prices down, no evidence that the intervention itself was the thing that got prices down. This creates a considerable mystery. What was it? Was it the Coronation, Mr. Speaker? Was it the final episode of Succession perhaps? No spoilers? Was it Sweden winning the Eurovision Song Contest?

Chris Kenny: That got prices down? He actually said, got prices down. They’ve already gone up by 20 or 30% since the election, and they’re going up another 25 to 30% in July. And the minister in charge of energy claims he got prices down? This is delusional. He talks like this while, around the country, people are hurting.

Ted O’Brien: You’ve got the exact same people who right now are sitting around kitchen tables as families saying, „Well, how can we pay all the bills? Can we go on that holiday? Are we okay with the education fees? Can we turn on the heater?“

Chris Kenny: Yeah, I’ll have more from Ted O’Brien later. But the trouble for the country is that the federal Labor government is only making all this worse. They’ve been allowing coal fire generators to close, they’re building transmission lines all over the country, encouraging offshore wind and more solar. All of this will just add to our costs in the future and undermine our energy reliability. This is madness. Of course, this is national self-harm. And the crowning glory, of course, is the Snowy Hydro 2.0 project. This is a green dream turned into a taxpayer-funded nightmare. Labor didn’t start it, the credit for that has to go to Malcolm Turnbull, who was desperate for some kind of climate and energy icon when he was Prime Minister.

Malcolm Turnbull: These are big dreams in these mountains, real courage, a belief in the future, a confidence in Australia. And what we are announcing today is our commitment to ensure that we build on that confidence, we continue with that courage. The projects that we are talking about today, which will add at least 50% to the capacity of the Snowy Mountains Hydro scheme. These projects were designed and engineered decades ago by the men and women who built this. That capacity was there, all that was missing was leadership and money, and my government has both.

Chris Kenny: Leadership and money, yeah! Honestly, the reckless grandstanding with our money, it’s our money. Five years on, and that project is literally stuck in a hole, it’s years behind schedule and already way over budget. It’ll now cost about $20 billion, including transmission lines. And get this, it’s really just a battery, it won’t produce a single watt of additional electricity. In fact, it’s a net consumer of electricity, it just stores hydro for when we need it. Yet Labor is ploughing on with this nonsense. And that’s the thing here, Labor can’t be blamed for all the climate and energy madness in this country, Coalition governments, state and federal, have gone way too far down this path themselves. But Anthony Albanese and Chris Bowen are doubling down, when they should be pulling back, they’re doubling down. The first thing they should do is scrap Snowy 2.0.
Sky News