Is Gillard's 'Clean Energy Future' Going Nuclear?

Today I would like to discuss nuclear power, a topic that most politicians would not want to touch with a 10 foot irradiated carbon rod. Of the issues that crop up in the national debate there are a select few that engender a particularly fiery response from the Australian public. Asylum seekers and boarder control occupies top billing; here there is not middle of the road, you stand on your side of the fence and yell incessantly at those silly enough to occupy the counter-point. Coming in at a close second is Climate Change. The only reason it hasn't grabbed pole position is because, compared with the boat people debate, it hasn't been around as long (well it has, but up until now we have been able to ignore it). I suspect, however that within the year it may follow in Julia's footsteps and knife the asylum seeker debate in the back and take its top spot... Rounding out the top three is Industrial Relations; a boring topic, to be sure, but emotive none the less. Here narratives of class warfare and the 'fair go' get a good workout. While a rather dry topic of debate, the passion arises from the simple fact that it affects our work and, by extension our livelihood. After all nobody likes getting screwed at work... unless you are involved in an office romance, which is an altogether different topic...

Outside of these three core issues there is very little to awaken the fighting spirit of your average Australian voter... except for nuclear power. This is a far more divisive issue than most would think, primarily because it is quite complicated. What is a serious issue that deserve rational debate is often high-jacked by the likes of Bob Brown and Co. who are not only ill-informed on the issue but also pandering to their vested interests. Now, you are probably wondering when, if ever, I intend on getting to the point here. Well as some of you may have noticed in the news Prime Minister Gillard has decided to reverse the ALP's long standing position which prohibited the exportation of uranium to India. Now this is a large issue that has a very long history that I do not wish to bore you with, suffice to say that the ALP's opposition to sending uranium to India centres around the fact that India is not a signatory to the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty. Now I have my views on whether this new trade deal should proceed or not, however what I want to focus on here is firstly the timing of this decision and secondly the hypocrisy which it exposes.

Wayne Swan is preparing the first mini-budget in two decades in order to salvage the election promise of returning to surplus in 2012/2013. I think that it is noble that Swan is trying to ensure that Labor at least keeps ONE of its election promises, but the simple truth is that with declining revenue and the ALP's spend lust (and Swan's incompetence...) it looks unlikely that we will be returning to the black any time soon. Unless, of course, we find a new market to sell our resources to... With uranium exports bringing in a cool billion every year, Wayne can hear the till ringing by opening this market up to one of the largest nations in the world (which desperately needs power). Perhaps I am just cynical, but the timing seems awful convenient, don't you think?

Now Labor is no stranger to hypocrisy; in fact they have turned it into an art form. Resources Minister Martin Ferguson, when discussing the need to ensure that India has sufficient power to meet its demands was quick to point out the environmental benefits that this trade deal would have...

"At the moment, I might say, 70 per cent of their [India] energy actually comes from coal-fired power. The main thing they wanted to talk to me about last week was, 'Can you actually just find us more coal, thermal and coking coal?' This decision is also important from a climate change point of view, nuclear power is baseload reliable clean energy."

Did I just hear correctly? Do my ears and eyes deceive me? Did a Labor front bencher just sing the praises of nuclear power in the fight against Climate Change? It would certainly appear so... but if that is the case then where is the discussion of nuclear power being used here in Australia? Surely if this is truly a government committed to Climate Change action then it would consider all option right? Wrong; after all the ALP must pander to the will of their bedfellows, the Greens. Despite the nonsensical ranting of Team Bob, nuclear power must be considered as an option is we do want to move to a low carbon economy. Now I am not saying I support the move to atomic energy, all I am saying is that we need to have the debate. If we have Labor Ministers identify nuclear energy as a key factor in the low carbon equation, then it is time for a serious, considered, rational debate on Australia's energy future.

'Clean Energy Future': Gillard's WorkChoices?

I find it incredibly ironic that the woman who played such a key role in dismantling WorkChoices (and who revelled in it with smug joy...) is now facing an almost identical scenario with her so called 'Clean Energy Future' scam - I mean 'scheme' - otherwise known as the Carbon Tax. The key arguments which brought down WorkChoices, and the Howard Government, are as follows...

1. Pushing such a far reaching reform through parliament is undemocratic: Howard had what most government’s dream of, control of both the House of Reps and the Senate. However such a rarity proved to be a poisoned chalice; where the Senate was once a counter balance to the government's power, a place for review and debate, it was now seen as a rubber stamp, blindly approving Government legislation. This made a lot of Australians anxious, with some believing that due to the makeup of the parliament that the government had too much power and that there was nothing to keep it in check. Australians a pretty accepting of new reforms, provided that we believe it has gone through a proper, rigorous review.
2. Tax-payer dollars for party policy adverts: There is nothing wrong with a government advertising and educating the public on new policy and reform. However when that policy is viewed by the public as being more around ideology as opposed to national interest, it ruffles feathers. Australians do not like to see their hard-earned tax dollars funding party policy... especially unpopular policy. The more the Howard Government tried to sell and promote WorkChoices, the more cynical and jaded the electorate became. It was viewed as a shallow attempt to sell Liberal Policy as opposed to Government Reform.
3. Dial 'M' for Mandate: "How can you do this?!" The unions and Labor decried, "You have no mandate to introduce WorkChoices! How dare you make such far reaching reforms of Industrial Relations without first getting approval from the people!" Nothing had been said before the election about WorkChoices, so how could the Howard Government claim that it had a mandate to introduce? If all large, far reaching reforms need approval from the electorate the responsible thing would have been to go back to the electorate and seek their permission to do so... At least Howard did not say "There will be no IR reforms under any government I lead"; could you imagine the uproar if he had...?

Sound familiar? Gillard, with help from Bob Brown, is pushing this tax that will be felt across every sector, through the parliament with no discussion or debate (and certainly no consensus!) while spending over $200,000 PER DAY advertising this [Greens'] policy, all the while lacking a mandate! Instead of crowing over the fall of the greatest government we have ever had the privilege to have, Gillard should have been learning the lessons of WorkChoices...

Why Australia should abandon the 1951 UN Refugee Convention...

We live in a dynamic, ever-changing world, so it seems incredibly odd to me that Australia in 2011 is bound by 60 year old UN convention on refugees that was designed to deal with post-World War 2/Cold War Europe. It is absurd - ludicrous even - that the people of Australia must adhere to a policy that was built to solve a problem that existed before many of us were even born. At the heart of my distaste for this convention is how the term 'refugee' is defined, and how this must change to recognise the difficulties governments face now, as opposed to 60 years ago.

The convention defines a 'refugee' as a person who has a "well founded fear of being persecuted" should they be returned to their country of origin. This made sense in Cold War Europe, with the KGB willing to take care of any traitors to the great socialist cause. Those brave few who managed to escape over the Berlin Wall and break free of the Soviet Bloc would have without a doubt faced persecution and death if they had been returned to the Red Side of the Iron Curtain. That is in stark contrast to the so-called 'refugees' that we have piling up on our shores today.

While those fleeing communism faced the very real threat of death upon their return, do those who Bob Brown and Sarah Hanson-Young roll out the red carpet for face their untimely end should the boats be turned around? Of course not! These are not people fleeing death and destruction, these are not wartime refugees, they are economic refugees. It is not push factors leading them to our shores, but pull factors, such as Australia's economy, our work, our opportunities, our indoor plumbing. If these people can afford to spend over AUS$30,000 to a people smuggler in order to jump the queue, for the sole purpose of economic gain, then they are not genuine refugees. They are opportunists taking advantage of an inept government that leaks more than the boats carrying these people here and which fails at everything it attempts. These are people too lazy to work to improve their own country that they travel to, and exploit, ours!

Do these people look like genuine refugees?

Australia must swiftly abandon this 1951 UN convention, an out-dated relic of history, and put the interest of its own people ahead of those who seek to steal our jobs and our opportunities. If we continue down this destructive path that the Greens and Gillard have set us on, whereby any and all have the red carpet rolled out for them at the expense of the Australia tax-payer, we are going to be over-run with every third world opportunist who can point their raft in the direction of Christmas Island and cry persecution. The truly sad thing is that while these leeches con their way into this great nation there are genuine people in need, with the very real threat of death hanging over them, doing the right thing and waiting in the UN Refugee Camps. These true refugees are having their place in our quota stolen by selfish opportunists who are exploiting this stupid, incompetent government.

The Centre of our political landscape is very quickly becoming 'No [Wo]man's Land'

It is never a good idea to fight a battle on two fronts. The moment that you think you are making progress on one battle front you find yourself under attack from an unexpected direction before any gains made can be consolidated. This is, essentially, the predicament that the Prime Minister finds herself in; fighting losing battles across multiple fronts with troop morale plummeting and ammunition running low. The moments things start looking up in one direction, heavy losses are sustained on another. The net result? Well, let's just say it is something akin to watching a car accident in slow motion...

Now while it would be easy to discuss Gillard's battles as being based purely in policy, I think that actually detracts from the true basis of these on-going - and damaging - conflicts. These are battles of ideology and, as such, run far deeper than any mere passing policy debate. The Prime Minister, who has changed her colours (for political convenience...) from socialist red to a nice centralist beige, is now suffering from an identity crises, which is actually symptomatic of the broader ALP. The majority of the political battle occurs in the Centre which, from a purely political/vote grabbing perspective, makes perfect sense; go where you can get the most votes. There will always be rusted on ALP and Liberal Party supports, so why waste your time with them when you can pander to the needs and wants of all those moderates out there?

This 'shift to the Centre' has been the dominate feature of contemporary politics. While it is difficult to pinpoint when this move began, I would argue it was started by Keating (in an attempt to differentiate himself from the far more ideological Hawke) and finally mastered by Howard, with the so-called 'Howard Battlers' being the prime example of Centralist politics. While this 'Go Centre' attitude is now key to winning elections, it has created the strange circumstance where the major parties are, with each following year, becoming harder and harder to differentiate. No longer do we have the grand ideological battles over contrasting social paradigms. Instead, we now have minor skirmishes over slight disagreements in policy (case in point being Kevin Rudd's 'me too'/'Howard-lite' vote winning strategy at the 2007 election). And it is this decade’s long battle for control of the Centre that is, ironically, playing the biggest role in destabilising the Prime Minister.

The electorate does not understand what, if anything, Julia Gillard stands for. We all know that she comes from Labor's extreme Left, that she is a member of the Fabian Society, and that her views and attitudes are very closely aligned to the party's ideological past. However, following her ascension, Gillard suddenly wanted us all to believe that she had seen the light and miraculously converted to the Centralist belief system, as is customary of all federal party leaders. In her rush to the middle ground Gillard unwittingly made a huge tactical error on two fronts. She is battling an ideologue from the Right in Tony Abbott. The electorate knows what Abbott stands for and he has stuck to - and fought for - his political beliefs. In this respect he is mirroring John Howard's political conviction, which in the current environment is a huge plus; while you may not like his views, you have to respect the man for being brave enough to fight for his beliefs. Gillard, on the other hand, is viewed as a sell-out; betraying her roots and core values for pure political gain.

Big mistake, Julia...

The second front that this ideological identity crises opens up for Gillard, and the ALP as a whole, is that their lurch to the Centre has left them vulnerable to attack from behind, namely from the Greens. In a sense Labor has tried to be too many things for too many voters, and have lost their claim to being the dominate progressive party of the Left. By going into partnership with the Greens (and essentially elevating them to equal standing with Labor) Gillard has unknowingly anointed them as the ALP's successor. Before Gillard realised what was going on, she has found herself being held hostage by the new Green Labor. Now, any progressive social policy that Gillard embarks on will be viewed as Greens’ policy which they are bullying Labor into enacting (given that they currently hold the balance of power). The Greens will get the credit and Gillard will look weak and at the mercy of the increasingly smug Bob Brown.

Gillard and Labor's rush to the Centre has diluted their ability to lay claim to their traditional base, largely due to Gillard's deal with the Greens. Disillusioned, the voting public is looking to the ideologically true Liberals, whose core views of lower taxation, small government and support for small business are now strongly resonating with the electorate who are searching for a strong party to stand up for their interests. In a sense, by staying Right, Abbot is luring voters from the Centre, while the Greens are leeching votes from the disenfranchised on Labor's Left. The only losers here are Labor and Gillard. Why? Well the simple reason is that they have abandoned their beliefs in an increasingly vain attempt to cling to power. Forget policy failures, Labor's biggest problem at the moment is that it is pinned down in the Centre of the political battlefield and sustaining heavy fire from both the Right and the Left. With nowhere to hide Gillard and her government are being exposed as shallow, incompetent and politically bankrupt. How long Gillard can survive is anyone’s guess...

Deputy Prime Minister announces inquiry into the media

No, I'm not taking about Wayne Swan, I'm talking about the REAL Deputy PM, Christine Milne. Deputy PM Milne announced on the ABC's Q&A program on Monday that there would definitely be an inquiry into the media in the wake of the News of the World phone hacking scandal. Did I miss something? The last time I checked I thought that the Government was stilling undecided onto whether the inquiry would go ahead at all? Well, I guess Julia Gillard is just the middle-woman, the mouthpiece for the Greens...

But what, there's more! Not only has Deputy PM Milne stated quiet emphatically that there would indeed be an inquiry, but the Minister for War Against Regional Australia, Sarah Hanson-Young has stated that the inquiry would also explore the forced break-up of News Ltd, or as she likes to call them 'the hate media'. A more accurate term which Senator Hanson-Young might like to consider is 'the big meanie media that always points out how stupid I am'. I think the good senator is a little off the mark here, though. Reporting her numerous gaffes and incompetence is hardly part of some 'News Ltd. Conspiracy', it's just really easy (and fun!) to do...


Sarah Hanson-Young with all of her friends in the parliament...

The simple fact of the matter is that the Greens and Labor just do not like what News Ltd is printing, so they cry foul and claim it is some perverse attempt at regime change. The media reports what is going on in the community and reflects the attitudes and values of its readers. It is a reflection of popular opinion. The government's issue isn't really with the media, they just don't like the reflection which is starring them in the face.

The truth hurts, doesn't it Prime Minister?


"How dare you suggest that I'm some sort of nut!"

Bob Brown's 'Quote of the Day':

"All over the world, wherever there are capitalists, freedom of the press means freedom to buy up newspapers, to buy writers, to bribe, buy and fake “public opinion” for the benefit of the bourgeoisie"
Vladimir Lenin

Those who live in greenhouses should not throw rhetoric

The ‘Red Menace’ of yesteryear has evolved into a decisively smug shade of Green. Forget the Reds under your bed for I am far more concerned about the Greens in their Priuses or, worse yet, on their soapboxes. The other day I came home only to find the unsightly visage of none other than Senator Bob Brown gracing my T.V.


“Tony Abbott is a puppet of big business!” He decried, much like a self-proclaimed prophet standing on the hill preaching to the true believers and curious bystanders who always gather to gawk at the mentally ill. “Tobacco companies! Mining giants! Multinational conglomerates! All have Tony Abbott and the devilish Coalition bowing at their feet! Follow them if you wish to descend into a tobacco and pollution haze of greed and corruption!” Ok, so the often sighted criticism of yours truly being slightly prone to hyperbole may, at times, be somewhat appropriate. This, however, is not one of those times... anyway, moving forward...


Every time I have the great misfortunate of gazing upon Senator Brown’s sickly face it is undoubtedly accompanied with either a self-congratulatory pat on the back or a rampant tirade about how the Coalition are the whipping boys of evil corporate forces, the likes of which who plot against him personally and, more broadly, anyone sporting a liberal agenda. Senator Brown’s paranoia over New Ltd. aside, the good senator does seem to derive a great sense of satisfaction pointing out that the Coalition does receive large donations from ‘vested interests’ (oh how Bob loathes donations, all the while gladly accepting them himself...). The clear inference being that large organisations can throw some money Tony’s way and –Hey Presto! – you have the Opposition opposing for opposition’s sake.


Plain packaging getting you down? No problem! For a nominal fee Tony ‘Action Man’ Abbott will take up the charge and defend your wicked organisation’s vile intellectual property rights...


So this got me thinking. Political parties, by necessity, collect donations to fund their election campaigns, etcetera. It makes sense, therefore, that non-political entities will support parties which champion causes which will lead to beneficial outcomes for them. The unions support the ALP because they believe that Labor will be a voice for the ‘working man/woman’. By extension, business groups will support the Coalition as their core values centre around lower taxation and limited government interference (i.e. the idea of ‘small government’). So far, this all seems fair; no ethical alarm bells sounding... Of course, a supporter becomes a vested interest when their contribution influences actual policy outcomes. For example, ensuring that one of your mates who supported your campaign lands a sweet government contract or that government funds are going to a sector which is a generous donor, even if the allocation of funds is to the determent of the Australian people.


This is the heart of Senator Brown’s criticism of the Coalition. The Coalition accepts money from the coal industry by the form of donations. Tony Abbott and the Coalition oppose the Carbon tax. Ipso facto, Tony Abbott is a slave to the vested interests of the coal sector. In the less astute mind of your typical Green support this may send those aforementioned ethical alarm bells into motion, screeching in a tone almost as annoying as the voice of Sarah Hanson-Young. To your average voter on the street this may raise an eyebrow and warrant a second consideration of the issue, but for the most part nothing more. This avenue of attack, ironically, is now one of the key vulnerabilities of the Greens who, up until now, have largely escaped the harsh spotlight of critical evaluation (nice work, liberal media!). If, however, the Greens want to play in the big league, then there are some serious questions that need to be asked...


The first dark corner which our spotlight must be shone is funding; where exactly is the Green’s money coming from? The renewable energy sector, of course! The green, environmental sustainability sector throws large sacks of cash in Senator Brown’s direction, supposedly because the Green’s want to move Australia to a low emissions economy. Is this really what the Green’s are trying to achieve, though...?


That brings us to the second corner on which we must shed some illumination: the Carbon Tax. Emissions reducing saviour or false prophet aimed at swelling the pockets of those nasty ‘vested interests’? The $10 billion Clean Energy Finance Corporation (colloquially referred to as ‘Green Bank’) is essentially tax-payer dollars being funnelled to approved green initiatives (direct action, anyone?). Now Green Bank is the creation of Bob Brown and was the key sweetener to getting the Greens on board to support this wildly unpopular legislation. Who decides what warrants an acceptable ‘green initiative’ worthy of those hard-earned tax-payer dollars? Why Senator Brown and his ilk, of course! And who do you think those funds are likely to go to? The Green’s largest and most generous financial backers, perhaps? Did I hear someone say “conflict of interest?”


Does anyone seriously believe that those who financially supported the Greens will not be the first in line to collect their recycled-plastic Government funded ‘Green Visa’ from Green Bank, with the Australian tax-payer picking up the tab? Is this not a blatant case of mates helping mates, of vested interests coming before national interests? If you are unconvinced, just considered Senator Brown’s reaction to the use of Green Bank funds to assist in the development of Carbon Capture and Storage (CCS) technology. Clearly not the reaction of a man considering all of the options in the nation’s best interest... Is there an allegiance you are putting ahead of the interests of the people, Senator?