Precarious Climate can exclusively reveal surprising announcements made last week in a speech by Angus Taylor, Australia’s new Minister for Getting Electricity Prices Down. The media reported on only the first half of his speech, leaving out the unexpected turn he took toward the end. “My first and only priority is to reduce power prices,” …
Category: Spin
Jun 16 2017
The Paris Agreement was a sham anyway
Trump’s decision to withdraw the US from the Paris Agreement has been condemned by a surprisingly united chorus of political and corporate elites. The mainstream media narrative is that the world was progressing toward solving climate change, and now only Trump is standing in the way. But this narrative doesn’t make sense. Why are the …
Sep 14 2015
Will Turnbull act on climate?
As I write this, it looks like Malcolm Turnbull may replace Tony Abbott as Australian Prime Minister tonight. (Update: Turnbull is now PM!) Abbott has spent his two years in government doing everything he can to dismantle every climate change policy, and most recently was caught on tape joking about rising sea levels with Immigration …
Feb 02 2015
Tony Abbott’s intergenerational theft
It was advertised as the speech that would turn around his government’s plummeting popularity. Government backbencher Andrew Laming said it would be “bigger than Ben-Hur”. But Australian Prime Minister Tony Abbott’s National Press Club address today was underwhelming compared to even my expectations. He didn’t really say much that was new. The future he outlined …
Aug 22 2014
Is Energy Australia lying to its customers?
My household recently switched energy companies. The main reason was that the one we left, Energy Australia, has been lobbying to sabotage the federal Renewable Energy Target (RET). When an employee asked us why we were leaving we told them so, to which they innocently responded that Energy Australia is a leader in renewable energy …
May 24 2014
Bust the budget 5: Lies and outrage
This is the final part of a series arguing against the Abbott government’s first budget. Part 1 summarizes the overall unfairness and debunks the justification offered for this agenda. Part 2 examines how the budget affects climate, environment, fossil fuel subsidies, business, and science. Part 3 examines how it affects the federation, education, and health. …
Apr 06 2014
Protest votes, mandates, and entitlement
Last night I watched the ABC TV coverage of the Western Australian re-election count. It was an interesting result. With 68.7% of the vote counted, the governing Liberal/National Coalition won 36.8% (a swing of -7.5%), Labor 21.8% (-4.8%), Greens 15.9% (+6.4%), Palmer United 12.5% (+7.5%), and others 13.0% (-1.6%). In other words, there were significant …