​

Build More Dams

Letter to the Editor, Regulation Economics (from Viv Forbes) - 12 May 2022​

   Since the days of Joseph in ancient Egypt, droughts have periodically rationed water and food supplies for humans and wildlife. Sensible peoples store water, but it is about 40 years since Australians built a big dam – young Aussie engineers have no damn experience.

​

Even beavers build dams and weirs to provide long-term wetlands and food supplies along rivers. Dams also moderate floods downstream.

See here for pictorial comment (right):
 

Foolish children and Green politicians think that floods are caused by carbon dioxide, but farmers know that it is La Nina that brings flooding rains to Eastern Australia             ..... Read more

COP26 and the climate cult’s schizophrenia

The Spectator,  7 November 2021

   British Prime Minister, Boris Johnson, in addressing the fashionable fiction of human-induced climate change used the hackneyed phrase “It’s one minute to midnight on that doomsday clock and we need to act now”. He even conscripted Prince Charles’ relatives to the cause, thereby lighting a slow fuse under the 1135-year-old monarchical institution.  

​

President Biden has taken leadership of the issue but due to the failure of Congress to pass the “build back better” spendathon, Myron Eball of the Competitive Enterprise Institute argues that the US has ”little to offer but hot air” but that its policies will bring “increasing energy prices and economic collapse”.      ..... Read online         ..... pdf 

Farewell ScoMo, hello crippling costs of climate fantasy

The Spectator,  28 October 2021

   Scott Morrison is heading off to lead Australia’s team at the Glasgow climate change meeting. He goes with a formula that will continue the nation’s shuffling towards diminished income levels from the politically motivated sabotage of the economy.   

​

Like Joe Biden and most other leaders who have decided to attend, Scott Morrison brings nothing extra to the table. Amidst the Conference’s impassioned pleas and scary stories, there will be no dramatic new pledges, no carbon border tariffs, no methane-driven constraint on beef growers and further deferrals in the promised gifting of $100 billion a year “compensation” the rich nations have promised poor nations. Voices from climate realists and alarmists alike     .... Read online         .....pdf 

ScoMo, net-zero, that deal – and the death of the Nationals?

The Spectator,  24 October 2021

   Like MPs from other political parties, the Nationals are motivated by self-interest with rare infusions of the public interest represented by Matthew Canavan and few others.  Apparently, enough rural MPs have been persuaded by opinion research purporting to show that rural seats’ voters believe the loud voices declaring “net zero” will be good for the regions. Others realise that any funding and regulatory compensations offered for sacrificing mining and farming would be meagre.    

​

Deputy Nationals leader  David Littleproud says that cast iron guarantees can be offered to protect regional Australia. He claims the Nationals have triumphed in “securing but also growing regional jobs into the future.”  This is absurd.     .... Read online         .....pdf 

Why won’t the advocates tell us the cost of net-zero?

The Spectator, 17 October 2021

   Nowhere in the world can wind and solar compete without subsidies which drive out more competitive supplies and eventually raise electricity costs and/or taxes. One manifestation of the cost stemming from increased renewables supplies can be seen in the price of electricity. The average electricity price alongside the penetration of wind/solar for the 15 largest economies in the world shows this pattern.  The relationship of wind/solar and price indicates the share of renewables accounts for 64 per cent of the difference in prices between these major economies.  (Other causes include policies on nuclear energy as well as natural endowments and pricing regulations). 

​

Most of Australia’s more grounded      .... Read online   .....pdf (unedited)

Much Pain for Net Zero Gain

Quadrant, 13 October 2021

   It is this simple: skyrocketing world electricity prices stem from renewables policies. Notwithstanding the avalanche of propaganda we are seeing throughout the country, no wind or solar gets built anywhere in the world without subsidies paid by taxpayers and customers.  In Australia’s case these costs are $10 billion a year in grants and network spending. 

​

The genesis of the current malaise has been closures of generating plants which have been demonised by the politically correct. In Europe this mainly involves coal.  Those countries that have been particularly severely hit by the present crisis are the UK and Spain, both of which have closed 80 per cent of their coal capacity – and Germany, which has closed about one third of its coal.  Germany also suffers from having closed  .... Read online

The Business Council of Australia’s green schizophrenia

The Sepctator, 11 October 2021

   The Business Council of Australia is a pale imitation of the body that pioneered economic reform and deregulation 30-40 years ago. Nowadays it is dominated by firms in service industries who support green policies which for many of them are important sources of revenue in trading and advisory functions.   

​

Most of the rump of BCA members involved in mining production, gas and electricity and manufacturing are acutely aware of their dependence on government.  In addition to commercial support this includes protection from the NGO activities that impaired business in recent decades but also against the increasing numbers of green left regulatory and judicial appointments.    .... Read online          .....pdf

Beware a blind charge to net-zero emissions

The Spectator, 30 September 2021

   In the prologue to the UN Glasgow meeting on climate change, Treasurer Josh Frydenberg has been preparing the ground for an Australian statement announcing a goal of “net zero” emissions.  He is doing so on the basis of “if rape is inevitable lie down and enjoy it”, arguing that banks and investors are increasingly requiring net-zero and that there is increasing investor appetite for Australian renewable energy (wind and solar) with $35 billion invested in it since 2017.    

​

Left unsaid was that all that $35 billion in investment was made possible by the direct and indirect subsidies to wind and solar.  This was made clearer by New South wales Energy Minister, Matt Kean, who has no misgivings about the forthcoming triumph of ren ..... Read online      .....pdf

Australia’s Obscene Green Subsidy Machine

Quadrant, 6 October 2021

   When an ALP government introduced a “carbon price” on electricity in 2012 it was sold as a neutral tax. It was, of course, nothing of the sort.

The tax was on the carbon content of fossil fuels, but a neutral tax would have had the new tax replace other imposts. In fact, mandatory levels of renewable energy required of every retailer, which were the major Commonwealth subsidies to wind/solar, were left in place, as were other support mechanisms. In addition, there were state schemes, though at the time these were still modest in scope.

​

At its 2014 rate of $24 per tonne, Labor’s carbon tax, if applied to all fossil fuel inputs into electricity, would have raised $3.7 billion  .... Read online

If we’re all such good friends and allies, there’ll be no carbon tariffs? Right?

The Spectator, 20 September 2021

   Almost daily, supposedly pro-business outlets publish material calling for net zero emissions, carbon taxes and the abandonment of coal in the cause of curing the synthetic problem of human induced dangerous climate change.  Never do they disclose the existing $7 billion a year cost of subsidies, further boosted by frequent spending announcements like the $1.5 billion pursuing of will o’ the wisp schemes for energy from hydrogen.  Only occasionally, for example in addressing the mounting costs of Turnbull’s Snowy 2 folly, does it refer to other expenses being incurred, and even then it is from a perspective of seeking even more subsidies to renewables.  

​

The Financial Review’s Jennifer Hewitt is not be the ... Read online     .....pdf

There’s so much wrong with Anthony Albanese’s ‘Green ANZUS’

The Spectator, 15 September 2021

   Rehearsing what he says is Labor’s long commitment to the American alliance, Anthony Albanese has sought to modernise this, saying, “ On coming to office, I will make comprehensive US-Australia co-operation on climate change a hallmark of our alliance.” 

​

That agenda is being set by political commentary on the recent IPCC report’s climate forecast.  The report, delivered last month, contained some concocted data on previous centuries, temperature data that disappeared the warmer climate in Roman times and the Viking era and cooler eras post 400 AD and in the four centuries to 1850.  That apart, the recent IPCC report was rather less gloomy than some earlier ones regarding adverse temperatures and climatic .... Read online     .....pdf

The ongoing woke undermining of Australia’s economy

New Catallaxy, 7 September 2021

   The march of the woke inspired destruction of the free-market economy continues apace. The additional baggage it is being required to carry is evident from articles and views from the past couple of day’s media.

​

The Business Council of Australia continues to call for additional costs to be imposed on the firms it is supposed to represent. Its CEO Jennifer Westacott wants to make domestic violence leave a right.  The sixty something says her mother was abused so why should not employers be required compensate women for being assaulted by their husbands/lovers?!                                                                        .... Read online

The UN says no coal by 2030

The Spectator, 7 September 2021

   Reminding us of what a difference a year makes was yesterday’s exhortation by UN Climate Action Team head Selwyn Hart, that Australia abandons coal by 2030. That means replacing electricity from coal which, in spite of facing incessant government penalties, provides two-thirds of the supply.  It also means sacrificing a fifth of our exports.   

A year ago, the 2015 Paris climate treaty appeared to be dying. With President Trump coasting to re-election, China simply mouthing support and India using the treaty as a fulcrum to extract rents from the west, only the EU was taking it seriously. And in doing so the EU was completing its decades-long transfer from industrial powerhouse to an interesting place to visit that had outsourced its carbon-emitting   ....Read online      ..... pdf

When Liberals Gussy Up in Green Drag

Quadrant Online, 2 September 2021

   The advice to governments from the Energy Security Board (ESB) recommendations on the post 2025 electricity market has brought howls of outrage from the renewable energy sector. Wind and solar electricity suppliers, who already get half their revenue from subsidies, were hoping for more of the same.  The ESB does envisage additional subsidies in the form of transmission lines to link remote supplies but the centrepiece proposal is a “capacity” payment to generators.  This rewards those generators able to be dispatched by the market manager, as opposed to relying on the weather to make them available.

​

The ESB policy proposal was motivated by fears that the breakneck increase in supply of inherently intermittent and unreliable ....Read online

Kabul: the harbinger of western decline or the catalyst for Trump’s return

The Spectator, 20 August 2021

   Recently revealed from the fall of Afghanistan is that President Obama exchanged Kairullah Khaikhwa, the public face of the Taliban leadership, along with four other jihadists for Bowe Bergdahl, a United States soldier turned traitor.  One interpretation of this deal is that it stemmed from Obama’s political naivete, or even contempt for his own nation.   

​

An alternative view is that the deal was the action of an imperious grandee confident that a benevolent gesture to a conquered backward adversary would do no harm. The latter interpretation is consistent with that of a woke administration that trumpets its cultural sensitivity but flies the rainbow flag on the US Embassy in Kabul.  To the  ....Read online      ..... pdf

Will big financial institutions destroy our resources sector before the Greens?

The Spectator, 2 August 2021

   Last month Paul Kelly wrote that Australia was being inescapably propelled to adopting a Net Zero CO2 emissions policy, not by green activists or government policies but by global investment funds, “now mobilised in the climate cause”. 

​

Traditionally, investment funds have been passive stakeholders, buying and selling shares based on prospective returns.  An active approach, based on environmental, social, and governance — ESG — criteria is replacing this. The cornerstone of ESG is net CO2 neutrality.   

​

The common view is that investment in firms with rich ESG pedigrees is “closely linked with business resilience, competiti  ....Read online  ..... pdf

Another Green Spruiker Takes AEMO’s Helm

Quadrant, 17 July 2021

   As well as subsidy-seekers, governments, international institutions, business leaders and investment managers all conspire to close down cheap energy. The confected notion of harmful climate change is the justification for the dethronement of market forces and their replacement by a new clerisy of politicians and bureaucrats controlling the world’s economies. Though market forces would normally bring the demise of higher-cost suppliers, political and administrative, impediments under the Paris Accord on climate change are designed to prevent this, as my recent piece in The Spectator  explains. 

​

Although Australia is not (yet) formally adopting “net zero” emissions, there are strong pressures to do so.  In any event, Australia is   ....Read online

Net zero emissions? That will be $3000 for each of you, each year

The Spectator, 15 July 2021

   In a widely accepted assessment, Energy consultant Wood Mackenzie Ltd. estimate the carbon price must rise to $160 per ton by 2030 to restrict emissions to the “net-zero” level that the IPCC claims is necessary to hold global warming to 1.5 degrees celsius.  

​

In crude terms, for Australia with CO2 equivalent emissions at an annual 500 million tonnes, net CO2 neutrality means a cost of $80 billion a year, or over $3,000 per head. The outcome would also entail closing much of the primary and secondary industry which define a modern economy.  

​

There is no shortage of interest groups seeking   ....Read online     .....pdf 

Forget the virus. We should be panicked by lost productivity

The Spectator, 30 June 2021

   The very definition of harmful advice is found in the Treasury’s five yearly Intergenerational Report, the latest edition of which was handed down on Monday.  In The Australian, Treasurer Josh Frydenberg acknowledged “there remains much work to be done”, but praised the report for its policy guidance.    

​

In his piece, Josh quoted one of Paul Krugman’s rare insights “Productivity isn’t everything, but in the long run it’s almost everything”.  

​

But that quote was probably Josh’s sole contribution to the piece.  You see, Josh has an economics degree and not all of it involved erroneous Keynesian macroeconomics, which advocates  ....Read online     .....pdf 

​

Also read about the Intergenerational Report on:   Catallaxy Files

Why don’t we hear about the $40,000 per household cost of decarbonisation?

The Spectator, 25 June 2021

   T he Irish Times reports that an IMF study of Ireland estimates that the nation will need to spend 20 billion euros a year – or five per cent of GDP – to meet its 2050 goal of net zero emissions of CO2 from the burning of coal, gas and oil.

​

In Australia, we are already edging towards the deplorable net zero target while not even formally embracing it. According to RBA estimates, we spend some $7 billion a year on large-scale renewables plus $3 billion a year on rooftop facilities.  

​

Wind and solar facilities cause so much damage ....Read online     .....pdf 

The western world’s elites conspire to outlaw cheap energy

The Spectator, 16 June 2021

   Aspirations of the “have nots” or “have too littles” have, through their elected representatives brought an inexorable growth in the size of government. Government in most western nations controls over half of GDP (it is 45 per cent in Australia) compared to under 25 per cent a century ago. Ironically, some notionally communist nations that ostensibly favour an enhanced government economic presence have relatively small government GDP shares – China (37 per cent) and Vietnam and Cambodia (23 per cent).   

​

Notwithstanding their diminishing non-government sectors, western economies have, to date, still retained scope for markets to bring about cost efficiencies and innovation — and hence rising living standards.    

But a corrosive undermining of economic         ....Read online   ..... pdf

The G7, woke corporates and the end of capitalism

The Spectator, 9 June 2021

   The Bank of International Settlements, the G7 Finance Ministers and the Australian Securities and Investment Commission have amped up carbon emissions-based “climate risk” warnings to Australian firms. This represents a new triumphal procession of green activism through international business institutions.  

​

Environmental crusaders’ colonisation of business is most evident in that nadir of wokeism, the annual Davos meetings, attended (remotely this year) by business leaders who pay up to £480,000 to listen to nagging strictures of figures like Greta Thunberg and Prince Charles.  

​

The first Davos meeting in 1973 emphasised the    ....Read online   ..... pdf

ScoMo and Josh’s irrational exuberance

The Spectator, 1 June 2021

   Last week the Australian Bureau of Statistics released figures showing new private capital expenditure rose 6.3 per cent in the March quarter. 

Treasurer Josh Frydenberg told parliament, “Manufacturing investments had the biggest jump for 16 years. This is the product of our policies.”  

Well, yes.  There are lies, damned lies and statistics.  

​

If the increase in manufacturing investment was to be welcomed, it also has to be recognised as a cherry on a paper maché ice cream.  In aggregate terms, the value of new private investment in the March quarter 2021 was just one per cent above that of a year earlier.

And, though the December 2020 to March 2021    ....Read online   ..... pdf

Will we get mugged by the return of inflation?

The Spectator, 19 May 2021

   The recent lift in the United States annual inflation rate to 4.2 per cent, the highest in ten years, has caused fears that the massive injection of money into the economy (33 per cent in the latest month) might now be igniting a general lift in prices. Below is the Consumer Price Index (in red) and money growth (in black).                                         ....Read more   ..... pdf

Enjoy the sugar hit as we flirt with economic ruin

The Australian, 17 May 2021

   Economic growth requires political stability and secure property rights. Its drivers include low taxation, an educated, skilled workforce, and technological innovation. But the overwhelming influence for nations such as Australia is investment in business activities, roads and other infrastructure.

​

The budget papers note that Australia has weathered the COVID crisis better than other nations. Treasury maintains, “new business investment has picked up alongside Australia’s broader economic recovery, supported by government policy incentives implemented in response to the pandemic”. In fact, Australia actually shows a disturbing trend in the business investment component of GDP.                    .....Read more   ..... pdf

Budget week is looming - as are electric shocks over power prices and reliability

The Spectator, 5 May 2021

   Last month energy minister Angus Taylor cited analysis by the Australian Energy Market Operator showing falls in wholesale electricity to nine-year lows as “an outstanding result [that] demonstrates how effective the Government’s actions have been”.  For example, he said, “In New South Wales, prices fell to $38/MWh, down from $86/MWh in the corresponding quarter in 2020”.  

​

Self-serving distortion is unremarkable among politicians and the true situation is far less rosy.  For a start, added to the wholesale price are other elements, one of which, environmental charges, has shown a rapid increase in recent years as a result of the subsidies that have fed wind and solar into the system. In NSW the environmental   .....Read more   ..... pdf

Higher prices, lower competitiveness as Daniel Andrews goes it alone on emissions

The Spectator, 3 May 2021

   Victoria has announced its intent to go much further than the federal government in requiring the substitution of renewable energy for the much cheaper and more secure energy that is provided from its endless supplies of high-quality brown coal.  Compared with the national policy of reducing emissions by 26 to 28% by 2030, Victoria is opting for a 45 to 50% reduction. Not only does this introduce another variation on what should be a national energy policy but it consigns Victoria to further losses of industrial competitiveness and households to higher energy costs.  

​

Victoria’s intervention in the energy markets is long-standing. The state’s brown coal reserves have formed the basis for its electricity generation for 60 years. Gradually that generation became to be seen as a means of providing jobs and the union-controlled power    .....Read more   ..... pdf

Climate follies: more than half a billion new spending to keep Joe Biden off our backs

The Spectator, 22 April 2021

   The Government is desperate to appear to be doing more in the run-up to Joe Biden’s Climate Summit for Thursday US time. While professing support for decarbonisation, the Prime Minister is looking to spend money in ways that do as little damage as possible to the economy. 

​

Commendably, Scott Morrison has said Australia would not, “look to reduce our own emissions by shutting down our existing export industries like agriculture, aluminium, coal and gas”. 

​

Per capita, Australia is already the world’s biggest spender on wind and solar, two expensive electricity sources that have negative value because, supported by subsidies, they drive out lower-cost coal and gas. Our subsidy-supported national spending on wind and solar is twice that of Japan and the US, three times that of Germany and .....Read more   ..... pdf

Joe Biden’s bid to enforce climate club

The Australian, 22 April 2021

   The urgency of the Biden administration in pursuing green policies signifies the prominence of the issue in terms of world diplomacy and domestic policies in the US, Australia and elsewhere.

​

Even though the long-planned UN Climate Change Conference will take place later this year in Glasgow, the Biden administration determined that it would call a two-day online conference, scheduled to begin on Thursday US time, addressing the issue of energy, climate change and the actions it deems necessary.

​

The US administration now proposes to spend $US2.9 trillion ($3.76 trillion) on infrastructure, most of which is climate-.....Read more   ..... pdf

Big government is watching you

The Spectator, 16 April 2021

   Sexual issues have come to dominate the news cycle. This week’s headlines have been dominated by Christine Holgate. Last week sexual harassment formally become a ground for dismissal in Australian workplaces, with both parliamentarians and judges subject to the Sex Discrimination Act, in measures unveiled by Scott Morrison and Attorney-General Michaelia Cash in response to Sexual Discrimination Commissioner, Kate Jenkins’ Respect@Work report on workplace sexual harassment.

​

Like walruses being driven off a Siberian cliff by a handful of polar bears, ministers in the Morrison government are scrambling to avoid femocratic attacks on real or imagined male bad behaviour.

In doing so, they may be changing our politics  .....Read more   ..... pdf

EU strongarming Australia on CO2

Online Opinion, 1 April 2021

   The EU has long sought to impose its carbon dioxide abatement policies on the rest of the world. A major setback to this was the Copenhagen climate summit in 2009 where Kevin Rudd sought to play a major role. Clearly operating under the EU Commission's strategy, the European Ambassador in Canberra Australia, Michael Pulch, has been making increasingly aggressive threats to Australian market access.

​

He now says we will face tariffs unless we further lift the penalties we place on the use of the low cost, high CO2 emitting coal that accounts for two-thirds of our electricity generation. In recent developments, the EU Parliament has lifted the bloc's emission reduction ambitions to 55 per cent below the 2005 level (Australia's remain at 26-28 percent ...Read more

Why we must beware American senescence

The Spectator, 1 April 2021

   Sometime in the next five years, the Chinese economy will overtake that the United States.  China’s workforce may already have peaked but still has surplus labour in the 25 per cent of people working in agriculture, a share that is likely to fall to under 5 per cent.  Savings, the engine of growth, as a share of China’s GDP remain well in excess of 40 per cent – twice that of the US (and Australia). 

​

By 2030, the Chinese economy, even if its growth rate falls to 5.5 per cent, will be 15 per cent greater than the US.  The US will see its growth rate stagnate to below 1.5 per cent under a Democratic Administration seeking income redistribution, diversion of capital to unproductive venues like renewable energy, allocating vast sums to raise  .....Read online   ..... pdf

An Extended Romp Down the Green Garden Path

Quadrant, 24 March 2021

   If you have ever wondered how green absurdities become articles of faith and public policy, look no further than the mainstream and specialist media, which has long ignored the maxim that if something seems too good to be true then it probably is. Case in point: the rise of Sanjeev Gupta and, just at the moment, the state of the “green steel” titan’s empire as it wobbles on the brink. For those who haven’t been following the story, the BBC has a very good primer on the Indian tycoon’s woes, albeit focusing almost exclusively on his UK operations.

​

Closer to home,  those who look askance at the way woke world fantasies of cheap renewable energy are endorsed with taxpayer cash will know of Gupta from his much-lauded arrival in Whyalla, the            .....Read online

Green Eurocrats threaten our industries

The Spectator, 17 March 2021

     The EU has long sought to impose its carbon dioxide abatement policies on the rest of the world. A major setback to this was the Copenhagen climate summit in 2009 where Kevin Rudd sought to play a major role.

​

Clearly operating under the EU Commission’s strategy, the European Ambassador in Canberra Australia, Michael Pulch, has been making increasingly aggressive threats to Australian market access. He now says we will face tariffs unless we further lift the penalties we place on the use of the low cost, high CO2 emitting coal that accounts for two-thirds of our electricity generation.

​

In recent developments, the EU Parliament has lifted.....Read online  .....pdf

Why did Cormann get the top job at the OECD? His track record shows he won’t upset woke globalists

The Spectator, 15 March 2021

     Having gone to considerable lengths in lobbying for one of our very own, former finance minister Mathias Cormann, to become Secretary-General of the Paris based OECD