‘Mums and dads’ seem to be replacing ‘working families’ as the focus of political concern in Australia. The biggest problem with last week’s hoax media release about Whitehaven Coal, many argued, was its impact on ”mum and dad investors”. The language of mum and dad investors is as widely used as it is meaningless. Gina

The Climate Change Authority’s final report on the renewable energy target, which was released yesterday, contains a number of controversial conclusions and recommendations. A standout amongst these is the recommendation that the federal government explore whether making native forest wood waste eligible to participate in the large-scale RET (LRET) would increase the rate of harvesting

The NSW Minerals Council is out spruiking the benefits of the mining industry in the Hunter region in a new economic study. Using the same old tricks to inflate their numbers and ignoring any economic downside they manage to spin the result into a rosy picture that reaches the epic proportions of claiming that the

Imagine if we could increase the number of car parking spots in the Canberra CBD by 20 per cent. Now imagine we could do so at no cost to government, business or individuals and with no disruption. Would you support it? I imagine you would. So, what’s the catch? The catch is that most street-side

According to Rene Hidding, Tasmania’s Liberal spokesman for forestry, it is “insulting” to Tasmanians to inform them about the tiny contribution the forestry and logging industries make to that state’s employment. Presumably he thinks it would be better to deceive the people? For all of the analysis about what the collapse of the state’s forest

Listening to the mining industry complaining about the high exchange rate is like listening to a three-year-old complaining about the noise of their own tantrum. It simply adds insult to injury. The surge in world demand for our resources and the flood of foreign money into Australia to buy or build mining assets has been

The Nationals are worried about Chinese farm ownership yet it’s European mine ownership that’s harmed farmers Australians, it seems, don’t like selling off the farm. And the National Party really doesn’t seem to like selling them to the Chinese. But while the Nationals have a long, if not always proud, history in Australia it is

It’s obscene for someone with inherited wealth, whose business is subsidised by government, to criticise low-paid workers. Two numbers pretty much sum up all that is wrong with political debate in Australia: Gina Rinehart earns the annual full-time minimum wage every 53 seconds and, at the peak of the mining boom, the industry contributed only

The question perplexing many ActewAGL green power customers is a simple one: if my bill says I am responsible for no carbon emissions why did my bill go up when the carbon price came in? Unfortunately, the answer from ActewAGL has been anything but simple. Since my first article about this in The Canberra Times

It is rare to read about the dangers of fluoride in the opinion pages of Australia’s mainstream newspapers, even though a small group of “fluoride sceptics” are convinced of the dangers to our health. It is also rare to hear about the Rothschild banking conspiracy on radio, even though a committed group of people around

Australian climate policy has been defined by its volatility. Grand plans have been hatched, only to wither in the face of opposition. Where policy measures have come to fruition, most have had a short lifespan. On the surface, the one major exception to this is the renewable energy target or RET, which was created by

You would think that, with the introduction of a carbon price, the gap between the cost of coal-fired electricity and the cost of renewable energy would close, but, at least if you are an ActewAGL customer, you would be wrong. Surprisingly, despite not facing a carbon bill for the production of green power, the price

Over the past 12 months, the political debate over whether the carbon price is a tax or an emissions trading scheme has been as brutal as it has been boring. Rather than explain the details of what is, in fact, a hybrid scheme, the government, opposition and media have instead busied themselves in the politics

The Rio+20 gathering in Brazil last week was little more than a self-indulgent festival of environmental inaction. The idea of holding a summit to mark the 20 years since the world leaders last pledged to save the planet is like holding a lavish anniversary party to celebrate a failed marriage.

In his televised address, Premier Campbell Newman warned Queenslanders that spending cuts were needed to rein in debt. This follows his announcement that the state cannot afford to pay 20,000 public-sector workers. But how can this be when Queensland is the second most resource-rich state in the middle of the biggest mining boom in Australia’s

Like a man who buys a cheap house next to a pub and then complains that the noise late at night is depressing his house price, the Minerals Council has come out and complained that Australia is now an expensive place to do mining. The Minerals Council of Australia released a report by Port Jackson

If the mining industry was a political party, it would make the current federal government look like a success story. The miners are internally divided, running entirely contradictory messages and are increasingly unpopular in the published opinion polls. But luckily for the miners, it is far easier to make billions of dollars selling resources you

The government announcement on Tuesday that it accepts all of the recommendations of the Broadbent inquiry into the Clean Energy Finance Corporation (CEFC) is a high-water mark in the politics of perception. The commitment to spend $10 billion on renewable energy and energy efficiency helps convince the public that the government takes climate change seriously.

Late last week the ACT electricity price regulator released its draft electricity pricing decision for 2012-13. And the political response couldn’t have been more predictable. The Coalition raced to highlight that, out of an estimated $244 increase in annual household electricity bills, almost $190 was attributable to the carbon price. Labor and the Greens downplayed

‘Who’s using the hot water?!” You can often hear that shout from someone trying to have a shower while someone else in the house is trying to do the dishes. The reason is simple; most houses don’t install multiple hot water systems to ensure that everyone in the house can simultaneously use as much hot

Is it any wonder that Australia’s energy and climate change policy is in a permanent state of confusion when we have Martin Ferguson as the Minister for Resources, Energy and Tourism, Greg Combet as the Minister for Climate Change and Energy Efficiency, Anthony Albanese as Minister for Infrastructure (but not energy infrastructure?) and Tony Burke

The New York Times recently asked its online readers a simple question: should the newspaper check the claims made by politicians before it reports them? The response was a torrent of bemused hostility. What, the readers wanted to know, did the newspaper think its job was? Much has been written in recent years about the

There is no doubt that the automotive industry plays an important role in the Australian economy, but there is also no doubt that the Gillard Government’s recent attempts to support it are like providing Panadol to a heart attack victim. It might make them feel a little less pain but it will do nothing to

What is it Australian politicians are afraid of? They can’t seem to take a strong stand on important environmental questions. In a rapidly changing world it’s reassuring that a few constants remain in Australian politics. Like the sounds of cicadas in the summer bush, the sounds of Australian politics always take on a distinctly summer

The road to fiscal recklessness is paved with green intentions as poorly designed climate policy could cost ACT taxpayers millions. It is rare in public debate that you can enter a fight knowing that you can’t possibly lose. Sadly, the same cannot be said for the taxpayers of the ACT, who will likely waste hundreds

The one thing that unites people about the mining tax is that it is not the best designed tax ever proposed. That should hardly be a surprise given that it was bashed out between the new Prime Minister Julia Gillard and the three biggest mining companies in the first days of her taking office from

As with all complex financial products, when it comes to emissions trading, all is not what it seems. Common sense tells us that banks would never lend money to people who have little chance of repaying it, but the collapse of the American banking system taught us that they do. Common sense tells us that

The list of friends for Tony Abbott’s Direct Action Plan continues to shrink. The Australian Industry Greenhouse Network (AIGN) which co-ordinates, among others, the mining and manufacturing industry’s response to climate change issues has rejected the Opposition’s plan saying it would cost far more than the Coalition has claimed. Opposition Leader Tony Abbott responded by

One of the most interesting features of the mining boom is the way that it is opening up old, and unresolved, political and policy debates in Australia. Do we trust that the benefits to the small group of people directly involved in the mining industry will “trickle down” to the rest of us? Should governments

The current debate about the introduction of a carbon price in Australia marks the nadir of policy evaluation and political commentary in Australia. It is hard to imagine an economic issue where there could be less reliance on established facts and consistent logic. Then again, recent developments in US politics suggest that we may indeed