Australian government backs coal in defiance of IPCC climate warning

The Australian government has rejected the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change report’s call to phase out coal power by 2050, claiming renewable energy cannot replace baseload coal power.

Deputy PM Michael McCormack says policy will
not change based on ‘some sort of report’.

The deputy prime minister, Michael McCormack, said Australia should “absolutely” continue to use and exploit its coal reserves, despite the IPCC’s dire warnings the world has just 12 years to avoid climate change catastrophe.

He said the government would not change policy “just because somebody might suggest that some sort of report is the way we need to follow and everything that we should do”.

The Labor leader, Bill Shorten, also did not commit to the total phase-out of coal, but called for more renewable energy.

Read the story from The Guardian by Paul Karp - “Australian government backs coal in defiance of IPCC climate warning.”

Fired up over coal

CANBERRA: Deputy Prime Minister Michael McCormack believes the competition watchdog has given the green light for the Federal Government to support new coal-fired plants.

The Australian Competition and Consumer Commission has recommended the government give financial certainty to new power plants, but didn’t single out any particular technology.

The Nationals leader said the report showed coal was one technology the government should support if it moved to underwrite power generation.

Coal love: Michael McCormack, addressing media
in Verdun, Adelaide, yesterday, has spruiked coal power.

‘‘Coal has to be part of the mix. We’ve got plenty of it, we’re exporting plenty of it, why don’t we use more of it for our domestic power needs?’’ Mr McCormack told Sky News yesterday.

The government insists it is technology neutral and will let the market decide which forms of power generation come into the market.

Mr McCormack said coal created thousands of jobs, while also noting gas and other technologies had to be considered.

The Nationals leader’s support for coal is at odds with Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull and other senior cabinet ministers who have been careful not to single out any form of power generation.

Resources Minister Matt Canavan, a Queensland Nationals senator, and Coalition backbenchers are continuing to make the case for coal.

Cabinet minister Christopher Pyne said the government could not afford to be ideological.

‘‘The ACCC didn’t suggest the subsidy of a coal-fired power station,’’ Mr Pyne told the Nine Network.

The watchdog’s report claimed power prices could fall by about 25 per cent if all the recommendations were adopted by federal and state governments.

‘‘That can only happen with the government’s policy of not picking winners, but supporting all technological outcomes that put more power into the system,’’ Mr Pyne said.

Finance Minister Mathias Cormann downplayed divisions on energy within the government, insisting the Coalition was united on working to cut power bills.

Labor frontbencher Anthony Albanese said no-one in the business community was interested in new coal-fired power plants.

‘‘This is a fantasy of Tony Abbott and the far right of the Liberal Party,’’ Mr Albanese told the Nine Network.

Story from today’s  Shepparton News - “Fired up over coal.”

Meet our new deputy PM: Michael McCormack is just another Nationals climate sceptic

Given he is our new deputy prime minister, it is not surprising that “who is Michael McCormack?” pieces are now popping up everywhere. And yet, they glide over his worst offence: he appears to be just another National Party climate change denier.

New National Party Leader, Michael
McCormack - another climate change sceptic.

In some respects, McCormack is a departure from previous leaders of the Nationals like John McEwen, Doug Anthony or Tim Fischer, who were themselves farmers. McCormack, who today was appointed infrastructure and transport minister, is already being lined up in Question Time as a “fake farmer”. Political opponents like Labor’s Stephen Jones joked that the price tag was probably still on his Akubra, and that the only muster he’d ever done was to muster the numbers to knock off Barnaby Joyce.

Read The Monthly story by Paddy Maning - “Meet our new deputy PM: Michael McCormack is just another Nationals climate sceptic.”

ACF response to Deputy Prime Minister's speech at mining lobby event

The Australian Conservation Foundation (ACF) is deeply concerned that the Deputy Prime Minister’s extraordinary attack on public interest environment groups represents a disturbing disregard for civil society, democratic discourse and the public good at the top of the Turnbull Government.

On behest of the powerful mining lobby, the Turnbull Government is currently considering severely restricting the advocacy activities of public interest organisations that attract tax deductibility status on donations amid a wider set of anti-democratic proposals to limit the work of civil society groups.

ACF Chief Executive, Kelly O’Shanassy, said it was ironic that Mr Joyce’s speech had been made at an event held by the Minerals Council of Australia in Parliament House, an organisation that consistently sought to lobby and influence politicians into loosening safeguards against destructive and polluting development.

Read the Australian Conservation Foundation story - “ACF response to Deputy Prime Minister's speech at mining lobby event.”

Barnaby was 'at home' for his bar-room meet and greet

Barnaby Joyce at tonight's "meet and greet" at
Shepparton's Aussie Hotel. About 100 people
were in the public bar to meet the deputy PM.

Barnaby Joyce appeared “at home” at what seemed like spontaneous meet and greet in the main bar tonight at Shepparton’s Aussie Hotel.

The deputy Prime Minister and leader of the National Party appeared relaxed as he moved around the room talking with about 100 people and the media in what was surely his final formal function for the day.

Among other things, Mr Joyce spent some time looking at the Shepparton campus of La Trobe University where he talked with the head of the campus, Sue Nalder, who told him about the new agro-science course soon to be introduced.

In concluding his informal five-minute address, the Minister for Agriculture said, “Walk humbly, work hard, keep our eye on the prize, a better standard of living, a better quality of life, keep the services coming to your area, so that the idea of moving to Shepparton is as logical as moving to Mosman.”

“On the balance of things,” he said, “I’d rather move to Shepparton.

Questions about climate change were directed privately to Mr Joyce as there was no public QandA session and he immediately pointed to the fact the Australia had signed up to the Paris agreement in which the world’s nations had agreed to keep global warming to an increase of less the two degrees Celsius and as low as 1.5 degrees if possible.

Although he was quick to point to the fact that his electorate of New England was already exporting renewable energy, he noted that it was unlikely he, or his government, would agree with any of the pointed questions about how Australia could instigate serious mitigation solutions.

Among those at tonight’s “politics at the pub” were the new Member of Murray, Damian Drum; the Committee for Shepparton chair, Robert Priestly,  the committee’s CEO, Sam Birrell; the Editor of Shepparton’s Country News, Geoffrey Adams; Shepparton Chamber of Commerce board member, Carls Hainsworth; the unsuccessful Nationals candidate in the State election for the seat of Shepparton, Greg Barr, who is now controls the administration section of the city police station in Welsford St; and at least three of the City of Greater Shepparton’s new councillors, Chris Hazelman, Fern Summer and the newly elected deputy mayor, Shelley Sutton.

Obviously, the “meet and greet” event was not spontaneous, but several Nationals supporters said before the deputy PM arrived that they had only heard about the visit “by chance”.