Monday 16th of December 2024
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cooking the books to make a political point........

There was no shortage of cunning showmanship when the Coalition stumped up to release its long-awaited $331 billion nuclear power plan.

Having failed to follow through on previous pledges to detail the cost of establishing seven government-owned nuclear power plants, the Coalition waited for a Friday less than two weeks from Christmas to deliver the news.

 

Cunning showmanship as Coalition conflates details to sell its $331b nuclear power plan
     By Brett Worthington

 

Granted, what's the rush? It's not like the first of them will be producing energy for another 12 years — if not years longer, according to the CSIRO.

But the decision to seek to bury the news at the end of a week so late in the year offers an insight into the confidence the party has in the signature policy it will take to the next federal election.

Tactically releasing some of the details in advance, the party briefed select details of its plans in the hope it would deliver the headlines it wanted on Friday morning. And deliver they did.

Headlines screamed that the Coalition's policy would be $263 billion cheaper than Labor's.

It was then only during the press conference, when the party sent out the analysis it commissioned that it suddenly became clear why it had waited so long to announce the details.

In a world of comparing apples and oranges, the $263 billion figure looks to have come from comparing apples and elephants.

Cooking the books to make a political point

The CSIRO and energy market operator AEMO have found that nuclear energy is twice as expensive as renewables.

So how does the Coalition end up disingenuously saying its plan would be 44 per cent cheaper?

You opt for an accounting measure that means you spread the costs over the 50-year life span of the nuclear plans. In doing so, you can punt the bulk of the costs beyond the 25-year costing window.

It's hardly a new trick. Governments from all persuasions have long used off-book accounting to hide the true costs of major projects.

Another key assumption in the Coalition's plan is it forecasts Australia would only need half of the energy needs the Labor plan aims for.

That assumes a future where electric vehicles aren't adopted at the rates forecasted. It also likely ignores the insatiable demand artificial intelligence has for energy.

A study in the scientific journal Joule last year found that if every Google search used generative AI (instead of traditional search technology), it would use as much energy as Ireland uses over a whole year.

The Coalition plan would also see higher emissions for longer, with coal-fired plants required to stay online longer to fill the gap until nuclear becomes available.

But details schmetails.

The multi-billion-dollar question

The Coalition's crowing about how much cheaper its plan is intertwined with its reminder that Prime Minister Anthony Albanese has failed to deliver his pledge to cut electricity bills by $275.

Dutton isn't looking for a debate on the economics of nuclear energy.

He wants a debate on electricity prices.

He's also betting that voters will pay little attention beyond hearing the words "Coalition", "nuclear" and "cheaper".

The opposition leader is hoping voters will conflate what he's saying about developing publicly-owned nuclear energy with the bills they pay to heat and cool their homes.

He knows all too well how hard people are doing it. But even if he's elected, his plan will do little to make those bills any cheaper within five terms of government.

The reality is, the Coalition didn't ask Frontier Economics to model what the nuclear plan would mean for electricity prices.

"It is not pricing analysis," Shadow Energy Minister Ted O'Brien conceded at the press conference. The report also makes that clear.

It's a cunning decision and leaves the Coalition, if elected, unable to be held accountable for putting a price on the savings — a lesson Albanese has learned the hard way.

Its approach has been savvy communications.

But in seeking to conflate and confuse on its centrepiece policy, the Coalition is doing little more than treating voters like mugs, assuming they'll be more interested in style over substance.

https://www.abc.net.au/news/2024-12-13/peter-dutton-cunning-showmanship-331-billion-nuclear-plan/104722496

 

YOURDEMOCRACY.NET RECORDS HISTORY AS IT SHOULD BE — NOT AS THE WESTERN MEDIA WRONGLY REPORTS IT.

 

         Gus Leonisky

         POLITICAL CARTOONIST SINCE 1951.

 

PLEASE DO NOT BLAME RUSSIA IF WW3 STARTS. BLAME YOURSELF.

slippery dutton.....

On Friday, the head of the Productivity Commission, Danielle Wood, published an opinion piece in The Australian. Wood was appointed by the government, but anyone doubting her independence was chastened early in her term, when she criticised one of Labor’s darlings, Future Made in Australia.

In the column, Wood strongly commended Labor’s childcare policies. Specifically, she and her colleague Martin Stokie praised higher wages for childcare workers as “the fundamental first step” in a series of necessary reforms. Last week’s announcement of $1 billion for more childcare centres in places where there aren’t enough was, they wrote, a “welcome next response”.

As for the government’s most significant announcement so far, taking large steps towards removing the activity test (which means more disadvantaged kids with unemployed parents will be able to get the benefits other children already get from childcare); this would “help centre the child” as part of future childcare policies, and should be taken further.

As you can tell from their comments, Wood and Stokie were not only pointing to the worth of the policies. Crucially, they were praising the manner of delivery. They were “encouraged that the government is going about its reforms in a systematic and considered way”. The order of steps taken was “as important as the steps themselves”.

This was not the only policy area to receive detailed commentary from a reputable government body last week. Earlier, the CSIRO had released an updated report on the prospects for nuclear energy in Australia. The Coalition had criticised the CSIRO over an earlier report on the same topic – so this time the CSIRO took the Coalition’s suggestions into account.

That the new report was not significantly better for the Coalition and its nuclear hopes was obvious from the Coalition’s response. Ted O’Brien, the opposition spokesperson, sought to cast doubt on the organisation’s expertise and methodology. Opposition Leader Peter Dutton went further, peevishly suggesting Climate Change and Energy Minister Chris Bowen had been involved in some way. Being charitable, I suppose you could say: well, what other option did they have? The CSIRO, even taking into account the Coalitions’ concerns, still found nuclear would likely be more expensive than renewables and unlikely to be working until 2040.

The contrast between these episodes points to a divide that has been on display for most of this term. It would be going too far to describe the Albanese government as a paragon of policy development – witness Wood’s early criticisms (some of which the government later addressed) or its debatable social media ban. Still, it would be reasonable to say this has been a government with an earnest commitment to traditional policy processes, a willingness to engage at the level of detail, and a faith in expert advice and institutions.

Dutton’s approach has been quite different – as his attacks on the CSIRO suggest. And on both migration and nuclear – Dutton’s most significant policies – we have seen multiple shifts now. Just last Sunday, Dutton dropped his previous commitment on immigration numbers.

 

READ MORE:

https://www.smh.com.au/politics/federal/labor-can-t-make-a-thing-stick-to-dutton-the-mr-teflon-of-empty-politics-20241215-p5kyhy.html

 

THE WEST KNOWS IT.

 

READ FROM TOP.

 

YOURDEMOCRACY.NET RECORDS HISTORY AS IT SHOULD BE — NOT AS THE WESTERN MEDIA WRONGLY REPORTS IT.

 

         Gus Leonisky

         POLITICAL CARTOONIST SINCE 1951.

 

PLEASE DO NOT BLAME RUSSIA IF WW3 STARTS. BLAME YOURSELF.

 

sniffing nukes?....

The founder of an aerospace company specializing in military-grade drones published a video on the Chinese social media platform TikTok, sharing his thoughts on the mystery drone sightings in New Jersey. His expert opinion is alarming, leaving many wishing that Paul Krugman's theory about an alien invasion was true instead.

"I spoke to a gentleman a few months ago, who was trying to raise the alarm to the highest levels of our government ... about this one particular nuclear warhead that he physically put his hands on ... that was left over from Ukraine ... and he knew this thing was headed towards the United States," Saxon Aerospace's John Ferguson stated in the video.

He continued: "Everyone knows that this administration is pushing to get into war with Russia."

"Let's back up a few years ... remember when those drones were mysteriously flying across I-70 from Colorado to Nebraska to Kansas and then to Missouri? Well, it was believed that those drones were looking for radioactive material that came up missing in the US," Ferguson noted. 

Ferguson then explained the various payloads drones can support, such as laser sensors and optics, and he added, "Drones have no reason to fly at night... Because they don't see shit. Unless you have thermal optics - drones really don't see stuff at night - mapping must be done during the day." 

Ferguson then segued into the purported drone sightings in New Jersey, noting, "These drones are not nefarious in intent ... but if they're drones - the only reason they would be flying - and flying that low at night - is because they're trying to smell something on the ground." 

"My belief is that these drones are trying to smell something on the ground - if that's gas leaks or radioactive material - or whatever." 

 

READ MORE: https://www.zerohedge.com/military/latest-theory-drone-sightings-could-be-nuclear-sniffers-amid-elevated-radiation-readings

 

THE WEST KNOWS IT.

 

READ FROM TOP.

 

YOURDEMOCRACY.NET RECORDS HISTORY AS IT SHOULD BE — NOT AS THE WESTERN MEDIA WRONGLY REPORTS IT.

 

         Gus Leonisky

         POLITICAL CARTOONIST SINCE 1951.

 

PLEASE DO NOT BLAME RUSSIA IF WW3 STARTS. BLAME YOURSELF.