*Pic, Kate Ausburn, Flickr: A prayer vigil at Scott Morrison’s office for the death of Reza Barati in 2014. The protesters were charged. The charges were later dismissed …
Scott Morrison from his website …
Peter Dutton. Pic: GetUp
“Lay on, Macduff, and damned be him who first cries ‘Hold! enough!’” Macbeth Act V Scene viii.
First pubished August 27
It might have been heroic. Given another time, place or PM, Malcolm Turnbull’s call for a Liberal leadership spill Tuesday, might have been inspiring -“Turnbullian”, as Turnbull torch-holder, fan-girl Annabel Crabb would have it. Perhaps she could run a new hit TV series: “Kitchen cabinet makeovers you can safely enjoy at home.”
As it is, Turnbull makes a typically, ill-judged, call. Rattled by the jungle drums of the Dutton camp, amplified in True HD Dolby stereo in the Murdoch media, Turnbull demands a Liberal leadership spill, Tuesday. It is his undoing.
He gains 48 votes, 57.8 percent of all ballots cast. Making public his meagre victory, however, serves only to advertise how many oppose him. It helps prematurely end his own vexed term as the 29th PM of Australia by Friday; a mixed blessing.
Dutton says he’ll challenge again, (and again) Turnbull demands his Home Affairs Supremo supply 43 signatures by Friday.
Calling a spill may throw Dutton off-guard, but with Turnbull’s modest support now public, his insurgents have some useful vulnerability to work with as they hit the phones, twisting arms, tweaking role descriptions, even promising portfolios.
Don’t be sucked in. Monstrous, soulless, merciless, the Coalition is a horror-show, Labor Deputy, Tanya Plibersek warns the house.
“This is a Frankenstein’s monster of a government
“This is a Frankenstein’s monster of a government. It has the face of the member for Wentworth, the policies of the member for Warringah and it has the cold, shrivelled soul of the member for Dickson.”
Others, out of right field, voice disappointment that Tuesday’s coup has not delivered Mal’s head on a platter. Or under a strappado. Some may be heard getting pilliwinks ready.
“… in its current state the Liberal Party cannot even organise an assassination, let alone run the country,” Catherine McGregor carps in Fairfax, disappointed that Abbott and his monkey-pod rebels or his Monash Mensheviks have been so overtly unsuccessful. Rasputin’s hit job is beginning to look more professional.
Rasputin was poisoned, shot three times, bludgeoned with a dumb-bell, before he was bound and thrown from a bridge through the ice and left to drown in the river Neva. Even so, when his corpse was recovered, the position of the hands suggested he was trying to untie the bindings. The Turnbull government is just as messily despatched.
The final twist of the knife, happens mid-morning Thursday. Three cabinet ministers claim publicly that Turnbull has lost majority support among his colleagues and that they have to bring the leadership dispute to a head. Had they not defected, their three votes would have been enough to thwart Friday’s spill. Turnbull would still be PM.
Ultimately, Turnbull is undone when his three loyal lieutenants desert him. Cormann, Fifield and Cash all defect to the enemy en masse. Why? There’s no logical reason to pull their vital support. “It’s just the vibe of the thing”, Tony Wright writes in Fairfax. Do the three musketeers nobly elect to go with the flow in order to purge their party?
True, the Liberal Party, itself, is paralysed by division; gripped in a “cataclysmic, existential” fight, as Liberal shill, Terry Barnes, adviser to former Health Ministers, Abbott and Medicare levy Michael Wooldridge, hypes party discord to Fairfax.
Malcolm’s political miscalculation; misjudgement plays into Labor’s hands
Malcolm’s political miscalculation; misjudgement plays into Labor’s hands: Shorten calls a vote of no confidence. Pity there’s no vote of over confidence.
“The conduct of this narcissistic government is both shocking and selfish and undervalues the Australian people.”
This house should vote for no confidence because the prime minister has no authority, no power and no policies. And the reason for that sits behind him. If nearly half of his own government do not want him to be prime minister, why should the rest of Australia put up with him?”
Shorten echoes former Howard adviser, former QLD and SA state Liberal Party President, Geoffrey Green, a “senior Liberal” strategist who told The New Daily astutely and fearlessly last year that,
“The Turnbull government is at war with the people. This is a government which hates their own constituents. The Liberal Party has lost touch with what it stands for and will be decimated unless it changes tack.”
“The Turnbull government has attacked every core constituency, small business, superannuants, pensioners, families with children, all because they have a budget that is out of control.” OK there’s a class war they have to win too but he leaves that out.
“They have not done anything about their own backyard. Public servants still fly at the front of the plane.” Or anywhere in the plane if it’s a chartered RAAF jet to the football.
Far from having his knuckles rapped, Greene, moreover, now runs Peter Dutton’s campaign in the seat of Dickson which he holds by a margin of 2%. But he’s going to have to hose down Spud’s coup-mania, or his urges toward auto da fe.
Tuesday’s botched right wing coup is a colossal cock-up
Even for the modern Liberal Party, an oxymoron which rivals “Turnbull government” as a contradiction in terms, Tuesday’s botched right wing coup is a colossal cock-up. It sets in train a farcical series of miscalculations, aided and abetted by Murdoch’s media, Australian politics king-maker supreme. And by its own, internal fifth column.
Be it group madness or poor arithmetic, or Turnbull’s sheer bloody-minded revenge on Dutton, Scott “where the bloody hell are you?”, Morrison wins narrowly 40-45 against Dutton, Friday, after Julie Bishop is unfairly eliminated first ballot with only eleven votes.
A leaked WhatsApp reveals the party is instructed not to vote for Bishop in round one as this is a ruse to enable shonky Morrison to drop out and give all his votes to Dutton.
Dirty Tricks? Morrison is victorious 40-45. The MP whose capacity to foster racism and resentment makes him the “greatest grub in Australia’s political history”, according to Peter Hartcher, is sworn in as Prime Minister, Friday.
A divided, dysfunctional, party musters all its sublime ineptitude to transform chaos into catastrophe. Above all, as David Marr argues, the fiasco reveals an atavistic right wing desperate to wrest control of a party it doesn’t reflect.
Trouble is already brewing for Morrison if it is true that Peter Dutton, is – or was a stalking horse for Tony Abbott’s own return from exile. Morrison has already wisely excluded Abbott from his cabinet, fobbing him off with a job as Coalition water-boy.
The latest Newspoll shows a massive blowout in what Turnbull bragged, this week, was a closing of the gap – but which is more likely to have been an aberrant result. The two party preferred split showed a slim two point gap of 51/49 in favour of Labor a fortnight ago. Now it’s blown out by twelve points. Labor now leads 56/44.
For the first time since 2015, Bill Shorten emerges as preferred PM, reversing a 12 point lead by Malcolm Turnbull, two weeks ago, into a six-point lead (39/33) for the Opposition leader over Morrison.
… popular support for the Coalition has crashed to the lowest levels in a decade …
As The Australian’s Simon Benson puts it mildly, popular support for the Coalition has crashed to the lowest levels in a decade with the newly elected Prime Minister Scott Morrison now faced with leading a shattered government out of the wreckage of last week’s leadership coup and rebuilding a Liberal Party in crisis.
Yet there’s a lot to Morrison’s rebuilding of his own background before we even get to his party leadership or to his fitness to be Prime Minister. His success as state director of the NSW State Liberal Party 2001-4. His subsequent $350,000 PA post as head of Tourism Australia, bestowed by a grateful then Tourism Minister, Joe Hockey, is widely seen as cronyism or part of the Liberal tradition of jobs for the boys.
Morrison soon, however, ran into trouble with the nine man board of Tourism Australia inspiring complaints which echo those from Immigration Department Officials when he militarised the nation’s compassion by setting up Border Force in what it suited the xenophobic Abbott government to pretend was “strengthening our borders”.
Nick Bryant reports of Tourism Australia in The Monthly, “Its members complained that he did not heed advice, withheld important research data about the controversial campaign, was aggressive and intimidating, and ran the government agency as if it were a one-man show.”
His contempt for then Minister, Fran Bailey, also reveals qualities of mind and spirit that do not augur well for any neophyte Prime Minister. Morrison boasted that “if Bailey got in his way, he could bring her down”. In the end Howard backed his minister. Morrison was paid out in an “agreed separation” believed to have been A$300,000.
Much of the secrecy and the absurd officialise and bureaucratic jargon of “operational matters” and “on-water” matters are part of Morrison’s lasting legacy to obfuscation if not secrecy. Morrison’s incoherence owes a great deal to meaningless jargon.
Morrison failed in his responsibility to act in the best interests of children in detention during his time as minister
Morrison’s dealings with the media and accountability to the public have been widely criticised. A 2014 Australian Human Rights Commission report to government found that Morrison failed in his responsibility to act in the best interests of children in detention during his time as minister.
In 2014, he also succeeded in passing a bill through parliament which gave him more power than any previous immigration minister. He could now return asylum seekers to their place of origin, detain asylum seekers without charge, and refuse any asylum seekers who arrived by boat. No-one made much of a fuss. Unless it was all hushed up.
In his two-year career as Immigration Minister Morrison saw at least one major incident where he was shown to lie about an attack 17 February 2017, on a 23 year old refugee Reza Barati, who, Morrison maintained for days, was outside the compound of the Manus Island detention centre, until incontrovertible evidence emerged later that the young Iranian man was in fact attacked by a gang of guards inside the compound.
Witness and fellow Iranian refugee, Behrouz Boochani writes: “Even though four years have passed, the killers have yet to be brought to justice, and there are still no clear answers to the fundamental questions concerning the riot.”
Reza Barati’s parents still hold Morrison completely accountable for their son’s death. A senate inquiry found the cause of the riot to be a failure to process asylum seeker claims, stating the violence was “eminently foreseeable”.
It also found that the Australian Government failed in its duty to protect asylum seekers, including Barati. Morrison accused Labor and the Greens of using the report “as a blatant attempt to whitewash their own failures in government”. Nice.
Many similar miscarriages of justice and neglect of duty of care are documented in the 2000 leaked reports which detail the abuse of women and children on Nauru Island during May 2013 to October 2015. Morrison was Minister for Immigration and Border Protection 2013-2014.
Other examples of Morrison’s behaviour suggest that he is not a fit and proper person to be Prime Minister.
When 48 people died in the Christmas Island disaster of 2010, Morrison objected to the Gillard Government offering to pay for families’ fares
These include politicising suffering. When 48 people died in the Christmas Island disaster of 2010, Morrison objected to the Gillard Government offering to pay for families’ fares to the funerals in Sydney. The cost of the fares would have amounted to a few cents per Australian taxpayer.
Morrison did admit later that his comments were insensitive and inappropriate. But how many incoming PMs have hung with Hun Sen? Or sipped champagne with Pol Pot’s former Khmer Rouge battalion commander, a mass murderer and his cronies in Phnom Penh, just four years ago, as he sealed a bargain A$55m deal, whereby they would take five of our refugees off our hands?
The corrupt regime got A$40 million vaguely described as “development assistance’. In other words we bribed a corrupt Cambodian government to take our refugees, aka “illegal maritime arrivals”, whom our domestic political theatre has been taught are illegal aliens, persons we cannot accept because of their links with Islamic terror and their capacity to encourage demon people smugglers and other monsters of our leaders’ febrile imagination.
Finally, together with this selective account, offered as a clue to “Scott Morrison: Who the bloody hell are you?” (as Nick Bryant entitles his Monthly essay) must be included the means by which Morrison secured preselection for the safe Liberal NSW seat of Cook, prior to the 2007 federal election.
Michael Towke, a Lebanese Christian from the right faction, won with eighty votes. Morrison managed only eight. Four days later, amid allegations of branch stacking, Towke became the victim of a smear campaign, suggesting he’d inflated his CV, along with a series of damaging personal stories alleging his family has unsavoury connections leaked to the Daily Telegraph. (After mounting a legal fight, News Limited offered him an out-of-court settlement).
A Lebanese Australian could never win a seat that had recently witnessed the Cronulla riot, it was muttered. Consequently, the NSW state executive refused to endorse Towke’s nomination, and demanded a second ballot. The beneficiary was Scott Morrison, a cleanskin in the factional fight, who was parachuted in as a unity candidate.
Turnbull looks relieved. In part he is happy, no doubt, to see Dutton come unstuck. Some part of him also must be relieved to be rid of a role no-one could master; a straightjacket imposed by the Nats’ former leader, Warren Truss who, in the secret Coalition Agreement, dictated Turnbull’s Faustian compact: Malco could be PM just as long as he was never himself – especially on such matters as climate change, energy, water or same-sex marriage.
Yet quitting office is quite the best thing Turnbull’s done to date …
There’s a lot of the thespian in the PM; a ham actor. Yet quitting office is quite the best thing Turnbull’s done to date, a measured, if not restrained performance, not that he’s likely to get any thanks for it. The right wing mistrust him as a dangerous leftie, a threat to the purity of their Menzian ideological mish-mash. He’s not one of them.
Our media, once again, rush to air with “vox pops” interviews with “ordinary Australians” (there is no such thing as an ordinary Australian” – “ordinary people” are extraordinary – but that heresy is never part of the narrative).
The narrative is to deplore the change of Prime Ministers. In the next breath, it is time to bag Labor. Sheesh, the Coalition’s caught the Labor disease. Enough said.
Yet for all the truth that people like to get the PM they vote for and for all they suspect that a change means they’ve been sold a dud, the notion of betrayal is nonsense, a cheap and easy way to expose a raw nerve. We all know that our pollies our parasites. How much joy it gives to express our futile righteous indignation. And envy.
Aussies love to take the mickey out of those with tickets on themselves – even if we’re paying for them. We love to puncture the pomposity of the over-exalted. There’s nothing wrong with that. But Shorten’s on to something when he claims Turnbull’s government undervalues the people. We’re all ripped off.
The popular narrative has two skeins. Men and women in the street obligingly decry the incessant changing of our PMs, while behind our backs, other parts of the media find virtue in a new pretender, a process ScoMo helps with a brilliantly timed set of releases including a puff piece in the Australian Women’s Weekly that takes the cake.
You have to hand it to Morrison. His knack of being in the right place at the right time, his Zelig-like shape-stealing self-camouflage, his overweening ambition, his lust for realpolitik and his PM’s backing all help him see off his rival. ScoMo riskily insinuates himself between Dutton’s coup and victory; snatching the nation’s thirtieth Prime Ministership all for himself. For now at least.
Dutton is undone. ScoMo robs an ugly mob of reactionaries, opportunists, and the malignant malcontents of the monkey pod room, Monash groupers, a scurvy crew of climate change deniers orchestrated by Tony Abbott and Peta Credlin in league with Sky, The Australian and other Murdoch media outlets out to depose Turnbull.
Just how many days will it take before they turn on him? How long before telling the truth about a prime or any other minister will become an indictable offence?
*David Tyler (AKA Urban Wronski) was born in England, raised in New Zealand and an Australian resident since 1979. Urban Wronski grew up conflicted about his own national identity and continues to be deeply mistrustful of all nationalism, chauvinism, flags, politicians and everything else which divides and obscures our common humanity. He has always been enchanted by nature and by the extraordinary brilliance of ordinary men and women and the genius, the power and the poetry that is their vernacular. Wronski is now a fulltime freelance writer who lives with his partner and editor Shay and their chooks, near the Grampians in rural Victoria and he counts himself the luckiest man alive. A former teacher of all ages and stages, from Tertiary to Primary, for nearly forty years, he enjoyed contesting the corporatisation of schooling to follow his own natural instinct for undifferentiated affection, approval and compassion for the young.
• Kevin Rudd, The Age: Cancer eating the heart of Australian democracy
• Tim Colebatch, Inside Story: Turnbullism without Turnbull
• Will Hodgman: Federal Ministry
• ABC: Conservative Liberals moving against newly promoted moderate Richard Colbeck
Keith Antonysen
August 26, 2018 at 12:24
The new cabinet does not provide much confidence with two members caught with their hands in the till metaphorically, few women, and the Ministers for Energy and Environment might be described as the Ministers for the Rapture. Climate change has been ignored.
Morrison has shown that he will not be governing for all Australians.
philll Parsons
August 26, 2018 at 12:24
Describing Morrison’s past tells us not just what he was but also the lessons he may have learnt.
Have they hardened his feet of clay as he seeks to be the new god-king of the people, defender of faiths and distributor of maundy money?
Perhaps it was to be expected that the leader of the opposition would be more popular in the poll following the murder of the former leader’s popularity. It is certainly strange that they cabal of conservatives sacrificed their best card, a popular leader, in the hope they could return to the 1950s.
Among the issues they will have to address is formulating a bi-partisan energy policy, when on the far end of the spectrum the Monash morons stalk the halls of the governing party, along with the entirety of the Coalition partner, ready to die for old king coal.
Morrison will go to the drought affected inland as a first step to shoring up the Queensland vote. The Deputy PM is willing to admit on ABC RN it is getting drier, but not bell the cat.
For all of us, it is the elephant in the room even if you put you head where the sun don’t shine as the morons have done.
I wish us all well as we wait for judgement day sometime in the next 9 months. For those in the drought it will continue to be tough. For all but the morons, a hot burning summer appears to be ahead.
Perhaps the few votes that are not tied to one of the old teams will initiate a change that we can see as positive, but how you do new investment and lower power prices will be a neat trick unless government intervenes, as Labor in Victoria has promised to do if re-elected.
TGC
August 26, 2018 at 12:33
The latest Newspoll shows clearly that there is no need for a general election. Following the irrefutable reasoning during the ‘Gay Marriage’ debate – no need for a postal ballot, the polls are clear – and so they are again.
Labor will win in an absolute landslide and the reasonable thing would be for the Coalition to hand over now and give Bill Shorten a few months of ‘preliminary experience’ before an actual start in May, 2019.
By using the Newspoll figures, seats could be allocated by the Electoral Commission and the usual drover’s dogs declared ‘In’! It would save a lot of money.
phill Parsons
August 26, 2018 at 13:44
But #3, the ‘voters’ would remain unhappy being robbed of a say once again.
Nigel Crisp
August 26, 2018 at 13:47
With Morrison in mind, here’s a link worth sharing: https://www.smh.com.au/politics/federal/nasty-saga-you-nearly-missed-20091025-hem5.html
phill Parsons
August 26, 2018 at 13:54
#1 … Comments on the Ministry.
As referenced below we cannot expect a bipartisan approach to energy, leaving that area, and possibly the environment, Lieberal policy-free zones.
Perhaps the morons expect the worry about the cost of living they caused will see the people return them to continue with the policies that know the value of nothing and the price of everything.
The failure of the neo-conservative free market ideal is clear to anyone who remembers the time before Hawke/Keating, or who looks overseas at the Nordic and other nearby economies.
Ref: https://reneweconomy.com.au/morrison-names-leading-anti-wind-campaigner-as-energy-minister-49560/
Keith Antonysen
August 26, 2018 at 14:51
In relation to climate change, a drover’s dog might as well be our new PM. Past comments from the new Ministers for Environment and Energy suggest they are climate change deniers.
The new LNP does not have the confidence of voters, according to the latest News Poll. An election needs to be held straight away. Hopefully, some of the trouble makers in the Liberal Party would then lose their seats.
The way things are panning out we could see a split in the Party into the ultra right Tea Party and the right section of the Party. There are no moderates .. in comparison to the Liberal Party prior to Howard. At that time, the Liberals were just right of centre. Following Hanson has led the Liberals into the swamp.
Rob Halton
August 26, 2018 at 15:54
The usual suspects are running around in circles crying panic as the world will end tomorrow, or the next day, and so it goes on!
The Morrison government’s first job is to assess the drought issue in QLD -Northern NSW which is the perfectly correct way to go .. the Australian way!
Barnaby as Morrison’s special envoy, “as a man of the bush”, will need to remain focused in the field supporting the farming sector for its needs in order to keep the farmers safe from the banks, as well as holding onto their breeding stock. An essential role for government to maintain the nation’s food supply chain.
The energy sector will be high on the agenda as new Energy Minister Angus Taylor enters the scene to focus on real time energy solutions .. instead of fiddling around with the anti-everything establishment who would see us living in the dark!
I look forward to Scooter as PM. Of course Newpolls are expected to be negative at present, something to be expected with a sudden change in PM!
By the way Malcolm Turnbull was a good PM within, but for providing pastoral care for his opponents within the Liberal party did not work particularly well.
Turnbull, great man for the people, better than Bill Shorten would ever be .. but nevertheless Turnbull was not tough enough to deal with those who opposed him.
Scooter will need to work hard and fast to maintain order at all levels as I would expect him to be lethal on those that opposed him both within and outside the government.
The best man for the job, in my opinion. Enjoy your day folks!
phill Parsons
August 26, 2018 at 17:10
#9 is like many denial propagandists, if you can’t see it .. it’s not there.
Fortunately, some of those who are some years into another drought, are fighting winter bushfires or are seeing the Great Ocean Road being eaten away by sea level rises, get it.
A bit like German rearmament in the 1930s when the English government had its head in the sand, Morrison will hold everyone in contempt and ransom if he fails to comprehensively and adequately reduce emissions in a timely manner.
No, it does not need to be tomorrow, or even next week .. just a believable plan implemented in spirit of tripartisanship.
TGC
August 26, 2018 at 17:50
#1.. “… he will not be governing for all Australians.” Who was the last Prime Minister (government) who (which) governed for “all Australians”?
And #4 .. the knowledgeable people reckoned, at that time, that most would gladly sacrifice their say in order to save the money.
And almost 50% will disagree with the outcome anyway.
max
August 26, 2018 at 18:20
# 9 … Rob who are the usual suspects that are running around in circles crying panic as the world will end tomorrow, or the next day, and so it goes on! Rob you are good at innuendo, but you rely on your gut feeling – without regards to logic or evidence.
We are entering another El Niño. The shift in rainfall away from the western Pacific, associated with El Niño, means that Australian rainfall is usually reduced through winter–spring, particularly across the eastern and northern parts of the continent.
Nine of the ten driest winter–spring periods on record for eastern Australia occurred during El Niño years. In the Murray–Darling Basin, winter–spring rainfall averaged over all El Niño events since 1900 was 28% lower than the long-term average, with the severe droughts of 1982, 1994, 2002 and 2006 all associated with El Niño.
We are still getting over the last El Niño and it looks as if we are going into another, the oceans are getting warmer and a warmer ocean may create a super El Niño with more crippling droughts.
If your hero Scooter assesses the drought issue in QLD – Northern NSW, and does the Australian way, what ever that is, there will still be a drought and no relief.
Tim Thorne
August 26, 2018 at 19:51
As I have said on another thread, it is not drought we have to deal with. Droughts break. What we are facing in Australia’s drier areas and in many other parts of the world is desertification. These areas will no longer be able to support sheep or cattle, let alone grow crops.
Given the role of cattle and sheep in contributing to greenhouse gas emissions, the best assistance Barnaby or anyone else could give graziers would be to subsidise a destocking program.
Lynne Newington
August 26, 2018 at 20:05
It’s fortunate that Tasmanians have Urban Wronski with his wits about him.
And I love “Rasputin was poisoned, shot three times, bludgeoned with a dumb-bell, before he was bound and thrown from a bridge through the ice and left to drown in the river Neva. Even so, when his corpse was recovered, the position of the hands suggested he was trying to untie the bindings.”
It reminds me of the mad pope Stephen: https://www.oddsalon.com/january-897-rome-the-exhumed-corpse-of-pope-formosus-is-put-on-trial-found-guilty/
Rob Halton
August 26, 2018 at 21:24
#12 … Max and others who are worried stiff about Scooter taking as Prime Minister, be buggered this thingo about Climate Changes has been going on since Adam was a boy, many historical events mention drought floods and so on in the past.
As for Australia reporting of these events has only become prominent since the advent of modern media, not exactly sure when this started but probably 40-50 years ago as the media started to sensationilise these events making the public believe we should be looking at facing disaster type scenarios.
Decades ago “the man on the land” generally lived through these events however today the move into the more arid regions of the nation for more intensive agriculture has posed new challenges for food production particularly in relation to water availability and rainfall which actually relates to the usual climate of particular regions.
Combined with the urgency to aim for sustainable population targets as well as not expecting water to be available constantly for cropping and stock production within the broader area of the nations outback where climate has always been variable with rain then drought shifting from one to the other, its nothing new ask the old hands who have lived through it all!
My advice is watch the water usage and dont expect to expand into territory where the climate controls the outcomes.
Ask any old black fella or cocky, they should be able to tell you!
max
August 26, 2018 at 22:36
# 15 … Rob, it’s not a new malady that you are suffering from, it’s the same one that let you blunder through a career in the forest industry. It goes under a lot of names, but to put it kindly you refuse to see past the end of your own nose. You have constantly proved your inability to see the big picture. It was forestry once .. and now it’s climate change.
Ask any old black fella or cocky, they should be able to tell you! Things ain’t what they used to be.
Keith Antonysen
August 26, 2018 at 23:40
#15, Rob … you deny anthropogenic climate change is happening, you have been challenged to provide evidence as to why scientists are wrong. Sophistry proves nothing.
Challenge elsewhere:
“I have yet to view really compelling evidence that those promoting a contrarian view of climate change have any real arguments to support their views. You make many comments Rob, so must have compelling evidence … please provide your evidence. I do read references provided by contrarians and follow up. Your evidence would need to have a “doi†prefix in the url.”
I provided an example of a long Report you could critique in another comment.
http://oldtt.pixelkey.biz/index.php?/weblog/article/the-saturday-briefing-…-we-know-where-the-bodies-are-buried/show_comments
Without being able to provide anything, the question is why do you rubbish climate science when you clearly have no idea … you need to provide evidence using science.
Per your comment “this thingo about Climate Changes has been going on since Adam was a boy, many historical events mention drought floods and so on in the past.”
Have you heard about paleoclimatology, where proxies provide evidence of past climates? Ever heard of Physics and Chemistry?
Ted Mead
August 27, 2018 at 01:12
#15 … More cave-dwelling absurd hypotheticals!
“My advice is watch the water usage and don’t expect to expand into territory where the climate controls the outcomes. Ask any old black fella or cocky, they should be able to tell you!â€
OMG – With statements like that you must have been on a real bender over the weekend.
You need to go easy on the donepezil, razadyne, rivastigmine or whatever you’re taking for those repetitive geriatric brain-fades!
Here’s what’s actually happened in the outback since 1900+
In the late nineteenth/early twentieth century when settlers moved west over the Great Dividing Range, clearing the forests, introducing hoofed animals and sucking up ephemeral water supplies like the magic pudding for agriculture, all they saw was land with an endless supply of abundance.
Then came periodic droughts .. so what did they do? They began drilling bores into the artesian basin to source the water they needed for such an unsustainable practice of alien agriculture on marginal land.
Thousands and thousand of bores that release water from the artesian basin were left to their own means of pumping water out across the landscape for much of the century. This resulted in lowering the normal levels in the underground reservoirs, and hence the natural aquifers failed to push water up to its regular sources.
This went on until late last century when somebody realised that this water waste was madness, and then a process followed to cap these bores that were spewing out water to no use.
According to the early explorers 1850 – 1900 ( journals I have read) outback Australia had lots of reliable water sources dotted across the landscape that the Aboriginal people used. But with agricultural encroachments, lowering of natural water supplies, and gradual climate change, things started to dry up.
By the mid 20th century the land was slowly becoming marginal even for the indigenous people, and by the 1960’s big drought, the existence for these people was marginalised to the point that they accepted the help of missionaries to assist in their desperate plight, and began moving off their traditional homelands into settlements.
Since then drought frequency has escalated, and all indications point that El Niño will be far more dominant than la nina.
Climate change is here. Deny it if you want, like a true conservative, but it only clarifies that a fool only believes what he wants to believe .. regardless of the facts!
Rob Halton
August 27, 2018 at 03:05
#17 Keith, regardless of your convictions the next election which is only about 7-8 months away will be fought on energy policy and I will bet you any money that reliability and price will be the key issues for energy.
It certainly won’t be over wind and solar that will win over voters it will come down to reliable cost effective base load power won’t it!
All this stuff about climate change won’t make one iota on how the majority of Australians will vote you can be assured of that!
Morrison is a man of his word and will not present the nation with Fake News.
Rob Halton
August 27, 2018 at 08:07
#18 Ted lay off, suggesting that I am drug addicted will be at your peril if you continue! As with my age related issues the same applies!
I am aware of much of the history of the outback that you mention. As I have mentioned earlier water is a precious commodity, farming practices have to change of cease altogether in arid areas of Australia.
Special rural envoy Barnaby Joyce needs to rethink the entire rural strategy of outback Qld and Nth NSW when he visits those drought affected areas.
Tim Thorne #13, who obviously has some appreciation of the plight of the man on the land, has made some interesting suggestions without this ranting on about Climate Change! He mentions desertification and the fact that Barnaby could offer farmers a subsidy for de-stocking of the land!
We must remember that Barnaby is a rough-edged conservative with a tarnished reputation, however the PM will expect that he performs in the best interests of the rural community, and that will be a difficult task to implement especially if rain arrives before the next election by March next year.
Temporary grazing/cropping of these marginal lands could continue to occur on a much smaller scale using weather patterns and taking advantage of natural rainfall events allowing aquifers to retain their water capacity over time.
I think the other mistake could be the sale of large holdings on the fringes of arid areas to the cash laden Chinese who are willing to invest in massive farming infrastructure projects that are water dependent on extracting water by draining natural systems to grow crop or stocking that are not really suitable for the areas.
The ruthless exploitation of the outback by the foreign investors will be in for a rude shock, growing cotton for example on marginal land.
The government has to lead by example, not allow these transactions to occur in the first place as Australia is not the land of plenty that can be considered as a reliable source to provide foods and other commodities for a increasingly unsustainable global population including our own.
Something has to give and it could end up with more disputations with overseas buyers from Asia who lack any sense of sustainability given freer access to siphon of what we can produce in the long run at our peril.
PM Morrison needs to seriously identify with the nation’s Food basket areas, the science and practice is already there!
Rob Halton
August 27, 2018 at 08:28
#16 Max, Your envy of me for having a technical career in forestry speaks a lot of your insecurity.
My career was well focused and professional with good leadership values on the main – until Rolley the wrecker came along!
Ever since Rolley, Gunns and Lennon took over our forests or what was our public forests the scene changed from wavering on reasonable to terrible especially with the move away from native forests.
Max, how many times do I have to repeat that.
Ted Mead
August 27, 2018 at 12:19
#21 … The reason Tas partly moved away from native forestry is because there is a limited market that will accept non FSC products!
You know, and I know, and they know .. that STT will never get FSC under the present criteria.
max
August 27, 2018 at 13:18
# 21 Rob … You are sitting in the front seat of a play called ‘the end of the world as we know it’. The curtain has gone up, the lights have dimmed, and the play is starting .. but you are too preoccupied or blind and deaf and so are unaware of the opening. It appears you have always missed the beginning of every play and by missing the beginning have no idea of the play’s story.
Blaming Roller, Gunns and Lennon is a feeble excuse as it started before that. If your career was focused and professional and with good leadership values on the main, why did you miss the opening moves? The opening move was when clear felling instead of selective logging was adopted, something that you still defend. If your career was well focused and professional with good leadership values you would have realised that clear-feeling was a ploy to rape the forests for wood chips, and that this was totally unsustainable. John Gay saw the opportunity to move into wood chipping and away from saw milling, and he exploited our forests .. and you as a professional forester went along for the ride.
‘Your envy of me for having a technical career in forestry speaks a lot of your insecurity’. No, I have no envy of your technical career in forestry. I had one of my own and I am still proud of the things I accomplished.
Keith Antonysen
August 27, 2018 at 14:18
#19, Rob … You try to sidestep the challenge I put to you.
If you are going to rubbish science, I will continue to challenge you on it. You simply do not have any science references that knock the science of climate change over. If you were a Professional Forester as suggested by Max, then you would have read scientific research in relation to Forestry. You clearly do not read anything of a professional nature in relation to climate change.
For the first time ever I have seen the term RWNJS used to describe Abbott, Dutton, Abetz et al in an article in a daily paper. The term is so insulting that I will not translate it. In other words, while the Liberal Party still has the extreme right we will not be seeing much in the way of informed policy.
Hopefully, the cross bench will create a situation where an election has to be called through a vote of no confidence in the House of Representatives.
Tim Thorne
August 27, 2018 at 14:30
#20 … Sorry to disappoint you Robin, but the desertification I referred to in comment #13 is one of the symptoms of what is generally called “climate change”.
Unless the whole world (of which, at last observation, Australia was a part) stops burning coal and other fossil fuels, and eating lamb and beef and travelling in single-occupant, combustion engine-driven vehicles, the climate will soon become such that existence for many species, including humans, will become impossible.
john hayward
August 27, 2018 at 15:04
Tawdriness is inflated to an epic scale in this cutting down of a PM in the midst of selling his kingdom out to save his political skin which he purchased in cash. His bumbling assassin loses out as well, when the crown is snatched by a huckster most noted for his prodigious production of pork pies.
This is a hero-free story.
John Hayward
John Biggs
August 27, 2018 at 15:11
#9 [i]“Of course Newpolls are expected to be negative at present, something to be expected with a sudden change in PM!â€[/i]
[i]“Turnbull, great man for the people.â€[/i]
[i]“The energy sector will be high on the agenda as new Energy Minister Angus Taylor enters the scene to focus on real time energy solutions ..â€[/i]
Wrong, wrong, thrice wrong.
Sudden changes in PM have hitherto resulted in higher polls for the government immediately afterwards. Turnbull was anything but a man for the people. His view from the towers of high business (and from his harbourside mansion) simply meant he hadn’t a clue on understanding how ordinary folk managed their business, and he talked over their heads except when emulating Abbott’s shrill insults. Angus Taylor, a climate change denier, is in no position to focus on the solutions that really matter to us, and yes .. even to the world.
max
August 27, 2018 at 16:23
# 24, Keith … To understand the man you need to look at the background.
If you are indoctrinated with anything such as religion and become a true believer it is hard to face the fact that what you believe is wrong. If you are indoctrinated, and believe, you may never recover. Rob believes that destroying the environment for a company to make a one-off profit is OK.
To believe that destroying our habitat with fossil fuels is only a small step up from destroying forests and the habitat of animals and insects with napalm.
Luigi Brown
August 27, 2018 at 17:44
I liked the front page of the “Herald Sun” on Sunday that said of Josh Frydenberg: “He wanted families to know that there were no glass ceilings in Australia”.
Except of course for his predecessor, Julie Bishop.
Peter Bright
August 27, 2018 at 18:15
Russell at #28 says [i]”Doing nothing about Climate Change and continuing to add CO2 to the atmosphere by supporting the filthy coal industry only ADDS to the frequency, longevity and severity of current and future droughts. Coal is caveman stuff.”[/i]
There’s support for his incisive view here:
https://tinyurl.com/ClimateChange-with-no-way-out
Rob Halton
August 27, 2018 at 18:36
#28, Russell … Be careful how you accuse me of being racist. Watch your step, indeed watch your step!
Keith Antonysen
August 28, 2018 at 01:11
Rob Halton … if you cannot critique the mega Report provided by the American Meteorological Society, then a mega Report presented by California may be easier:
http://www.climateassessment.ca.gov/state/docs/20180827-StatewideSummary.pdf
A little teaser provided a business as usual paradigm keeps operating … “The costs are in the order of tens of billions of dollars.”
The Report is solely about California.
Clearly, the costs of a business as usual approach jump right out. Do you suggest that you know better than the hundreds of authors of the 2 mega Reports and authors of references provided by the Reports? Both Reports have only recently been published.
The NEG, and now the Morrison approach, pushes a business-as-usual approach. Not good for farmers or anybody else. You mentioned farmers in previous post:
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2018/aug/28/drought-policy-must-reflect-climate-change-says-former-farmers-chief
On the news in the last day or so was the warning that food prices are going to rise quite significantly due to extreme conditions experienced on farms.
Rob Halton
August 28, 2018 at 01:55
Folks, I am putting my money on Morrison who must solve the energy crisis that has dragged on for too long to create policy that favours reliable electricity by keeping remaining coal fired power stations open for as long as possible and most likely to create investment into state of the art coal fired units to ensure adequate base load supply and maintaining our industrial users staying onshore.
Most Australians are becoming sick and tired of shifting opinions by policitians who have no REALISTIC plan on energy.
Gas and other Renewables can follow coal, but only when energy prices stabilise.
The fact is that most Australians focus on the cost of living and I believe they are not prepared to see energy bandied around for too much longer.
Morrison has to firm up with his plan, and Shorten with his .. and the Greens with theirs.
Trust in providing RELIABLE electricity at a reasonable price will win the voters hands down.
BREN
August 28, 2018 at 02:11
The liar from the shire is a slight improvement on the dark lord dutton , but not much. Just vote for the grown ups and get rid of these frauds and corrupt bastards.
Peter Bright
August 28, 2018 at 04:11
I see the new PM as a glib chameleon.
[b]Glib[/b] (of words or a speaker) [i]fluent but insincere and shallow.[/i]
Rob Halton
August 28, 2018 at 12:57
Morrison must at least offer one new coal fired power station to be constructed for the voters at the new Federal election, and that is reality .. and not a threat!
George Smiley
August 28, 2018 at 13:58
Our internal self-interested ructions all over, a thumbs up a wink, ‘NOW we’ve got YOUR back!’ (to paraphrase a ScoMo visual/soundbite)
Whatever ineffable thoughts are these people thinking? Not having been born yesterday, I felt the keen edge of a knife pressing between my shoulders instantly, and the carnage actually begins a day later with good old Barney re-birthed as clean-skin ‘special envoy’ to the drought stricken. Even as you are mixing your paraquat cocktail you feel this friendly hand on your shoulder.
“I know just how it is mate, save it for the weeds – I’ll be fracking my own ground.”
or “Don’t politicise this thing to anthropo whateverthehell warming like some kind of a halfwit matey, I’m here to help.”
Tony, the Rhodes scholar, is a little more reticent about being offered up as the white armband gift to the black community.
And Robin Halton, you are a brick. That’s in the English schoolboy sense. But I have been everywhere. If I had been an honours physics or chemistry total egghead it wouldn’t have happened, but from the mining industry at the Arctic circle to the outback and dairy farming, and even the Tasmanian Forest industry for a while .. I have seen it all, and in no uncertain terms I can say we are … ‘troubled’ (to avoid the TT auto-redact or whatever it is that only accepts euphemisms.)
There were no roads, and we used to fly in and make camps on the cold northern lakes in mid June when the ice broke up. And the forests in the valleys that stunted their way up to tundra in the micro and macro view are going, going, gone because the winters don’t kill the bark beetles any more, and they are already burning by May. And there are roads, and those pristine valleys that were overshadowed by permanent glaciers, also missing in action, have been turned over by excavators for jade for the Chinese market, or access just to give the speculative bunnies a run for their money. And so the hunters have gained access and the moose that maintained the valley ecology are being wiped out by the indigenous remnant who couldn’t get in there before either. Their hunting privileges aren’t seasonal, as it is for everyone else, and you can’t afford beef from the baby check.
You fly south down the coast from Vancouver. The great coastal forests are gone even to the mountain tops, as if the country has been done over by some mad barber. Logging still goes on however, truckloads of ‘peckerpoles’ are clear-felled long before anything worthwhile is allowed to grow back, and on the right there is a green cliff of giant trees of the tiny Olympic Peninsula which will likely begin burning again by March. But California is burning just about anytime by now.
You have a better hand on Australia, but according to my own reckoning I will be DESTOCKING (again) in the next few weeks, selling some ewes with lambs, and hopefully closing up enough ground early enough to make some hay .. and that it has come to this, even in Tasmania, is pretty upsetting for the North Coast, but they know it well further South.
As for ‘state of the art coal-fired’ .. firstly you can write off CO2 sequestration. Then there is a 7 to 10 year lead time, and the capital outlay blow-out that is going to make it difficult in an electoral time-frame. So only public money will be available (ironically amongst so many economic rationalists) but possible with the demise of Budget Repair in favour of the abject ‘what the Australian People want’ which didn’t include discipline or taxation.
Keith Antonysen
August 28, 2018 at 15:56
#38, Rob … still no response to challenge.
But, my question is why would Morrison offer one new coal fired power station?
Before answering, read George Smiley’s great narrative at #39.
In the past, I have provided articles from the US detailing how incredibly expense the so called “clean” coal fired power stations are to build and operate. When Australia is meant to be a market drive economy, why should Morrison have a “clean” coal power station built?
Can you provide a definition of “base load power”? On RN radio after the Q&A program on Monday night, a respondent gave a completely different definition to the one provided by politicians and their conservative voting mates.
max
August 28, 2018 at 20:08
#38, Rob … A backbench push for a new taxpayer-funded coal fired power station has been derided as “ludicrous” by energy analysts who believe it would cost at least $3 billion, drive up energy prices and take eight years to build.
The decision to build the Datteln 4 coal power station in Germany was announced in 2004. Construction began in 2007 and after delays on account of legal challenges and engineering hiccups, it is not expected to come online until at least 2020.
And you still have these out of date ideas on coal. Coal is no longer cheap. It is polluting and gives the workers ill health … and yet you still back it.
Chris
August 28, 2018 at 21:55
Quack RH
Mjf
August 28, 2018 at 22:26
#41 … All the more reason to get started then.
What are you going to do with all the Australian coal miners you’re happy to throw out of work ?
If you include port, rail, and the innumerable service industries directly involved, popular research indicates upwards of 200,000 jobs will effectively stop by the week’s end if you shut it down tonight.
Throw them all into digging up more lithium for batteries ? That’s a lot of Li every year.
What are you going to do with Gladstone, Mackay, Townsville, Bowen, Blackwater, Dysart and Moranbah communities to name a few ? Tourism ? B&B ? Grey nomads’ free camping ? Eco-adventures ?
What about the take or pay QR contracts to move millions of tonnes of coal annually? Force Majeure I suppose ? No worries, just bring down the curtain on a 3,000 km track network.
Not to mention the income guaranteed into government coffers to underwrite our standard of living. But I will, anyway. What royalties do Renewables energy pay ? There must be something returned.
Please reveal the transition plan Max. Time is ticking. This is a complex problem I agree, and it has not been helped by age old government procrastination.
How can the ‘same’ government commit to the Paris Agreement and then urge to drop it 3 years later ? Maybe it was all too complicated for Tone at the time.
Ted Mead
August 28, 2018 at 22:58
#38 … More senile, head in the sand, delusional abstractions.
How is the building of another coal-fired power station supposed to reduce domestic power prices? Coal energy is indisputably the slowest and most expensive option out there.
The only way to obtain lower energy prices is to produce it much cheaper, that’s where Renewables lead the race.
Do you know who controls the price of grid energy? Not the government. Try doing some research on AEMO.
Read this also: https://www.businessinsider.com.au/heres-why-political-promises-that-youll-have-both-cheaper-electricity-and-no-blackouts-cant-be-kept-2018-8
If the above doesn’t permeate into your highly daft grey matter then try the new drug BNC210. It may be your only hope!
Rob Halton
August 29, 2018 at 03:03
Folks, the last thing we want is another revolving door of PMs. Scooter has to work hard to deliver his style of government for which I think will be taking hard decisions without withdrawing to suit the lefties, trouble makers and the ultra conservatives.
He has witnessed the trial(s) of PM Turnbull, there must not offer pastoral care, not all will be smooth sailing on his ship there will be the mutineers who will go overboard at their own discretion and there will others like Julie Bishop will will survive the voyage.
Now you lot, that is most of you lefties need to know that we dont want to see another revolving door of PM’s, that would be unreasonable as there is no time for down time in government for pandering and revolutionists, instead focus on Morrison getting it right.
That said ‘We will make Australia great again. The lights dont go out that means investment in reliable electrictiy and not this hotch poch mess that we are experimenting with at present!
Immigration levels are capped, sending new arrivals to regional centres where thet can incorporate the Australian way of life.
And of cause national security which should mean less land sales to aliens and keeping the nation safe from both economic and racial invasions by the wrong types who only come here to make trouble or take profits offshore.
With the right vote we can make Australia great again and enjoy all things Australian.
Rob Halton
August 29, 2018 at 03:18
#37 … Russell, you are well known to be on the public record. That is a fact.
spikey
August 29, 2018 at 12:00
#37… Russell, just be thankfull he isn’t sending his well known imaginary gang of aggrieved southern foresters after you.
When the shills are making idle threats, you know you’re on the right track, and they’ve nothing left in their spin doctors’ medical bag to bandage a situation.
Keith Antonysen
August 29, 2018 at 13:07
#43, MjF … we are now getting to the pointy end of the product of climate change denialism begun in the US from Reagan onwards. Nathaniel Rich wrote a 30,000 word article for the New York Times magazine outlining the history. It provided the base for denier groups such as Heartlands to promote pseudo science very successfully. Physics and Chemistry underpin climate science.
The science of climate change was established almost 200 years ago.
Lord Stern had written a Report some years ago about the cost of mitigating climate change. Costs go up as climate conditions become more extreme. Lord Stern’s prognosis has been shown to be true through the billions of dollars lost through extreme conditions experienced in the US alone in 2017. Dr Michael Mann has stated that we are in a crisis situation heading towards catastrophe through climate change.
Renewable Energy provides many jobs. Fossil fuel emissions kill people, cause illness, and fuel a changing climate.
Past use of fossil fuels has pretty well ensured the loss of the Great Barrier Reef. The main cause of damage to the Great Barrier Reef is warming marine waters that will persist with continued use of fossil fuels in Australia, and by other countries. Any coal Australia exports will ultimately come back and bite us. The Great Barrier Reef provides thousands of jobs.
Rob #45 … the problem that the Liberals have created is that they have lost the trust of the community. The perceived view in the community is that they are too busy promoting their sponsors rather than the needs of the voters. They have been downright nasty to some sections of the community. The LNP need to be in Opposition to work out whether they are an odious extreme right wing party or a right wing party. The issue of women candidates has been dealt a blow through the harassment of women politicians when the leadership spill happened.
Mjf
August 29, 2018 at 15:25
#48 … I’m not a denier, however I am keenly interested in how the transition rolls out and what the lost income stream into government coffers from royalties will be replaced with.
My question remains .. what are you going to do with 200,000 + displaced Australian coal workers, a 3,000 km rail network, how much money in QR rolling stock and at least 5 dedicated coal storage/loading facilities.
Presumably you will also close down Australia Cement at Railton which burns Fingal Valley coal, and turn what’s left of St Marys, Fingal & Cornwall into complete ghost towns. The emissions there are essentially the same as a power station. You provide no tangible answers.
“Renewable Energy provides many jobs.” Awesome. Do tell. I’ve suggested one so far, mine more lithium. What have you got ?
You say The Great Barrier Reef provides thousands of jobs. A Deloitte report I found from 2013 bears this out … 69,000 FTE positions across tourism, recreation, commercial fishing and scientific research. But then you add the loss of the GBR is now pretty well ensured so presumably none of the 200,000 + displaced coal industry employees will get a look in there.
I realise all these little issues are just annoyances in the grander scheme of things Keith, but they have to be considered and addressed.
max
August 29, 2018 at 19:06
# 45 … Rob All I can say, you must have accumulated a big superannuation or payout in your career as a forester.
The right wing has never looked after the workers, the handicapped, or the old. If STT, or their predecessor, hadn’t given you a big payout from the money they ripped off the taxpayers, you would be singing a different tune.The Liberal party is for the top end of town and the top of town is for the top end, not the workers, nor the old and poor. Tony proved that with a draconian budget. It cost him his job and the voting fools believed Turnbull, but will they believe your Scooter?
#49 … My question remains .. “what are you going to do with 200,000 + displaced Australian coal workers?†Maybe it will be what they did with the car industry, or any of the other industries that were forced off shore.
Mjf
August 29, 2018 at 21:05
#50 … There used to be 50,000 convicts providing free labour in Tasmania, and the place got ahead nicely if you ignore a bit of cannibalism, ship theft, murder, uncontrolled sodomy, a ‘black war’ etc. No big deal. That was until the anti-transportation league showed up and wanted it all closed down and hidden. Now we can’t get enough of that ‘heritage stuff’. Odd.
Lets go back there.
#52 … Rubbish. Shutting down outdated and long subsidised inefficient car plants because they couldn’t compete on a cost basis only resulted in an increased demand on social welfare and reliance on government support. What existing activities do you think provide the income for funding for those displaced workers to get by on ?
So the best you can come up with is nothing. You never cease to amaze.
max
August 29, 2018 at 23:30
# 53, MjF … Let’s get a few facts on the table. All countries subsidise their car industries, in one form or another, and no country in the world allows car sales to their country without tariffs .. except Australia. How do you expect the car industry to compete against low wage country? If you do, tell STT as they have the same problem.
• Coal mining now employs less than 1 percent of the people who work in Queensland.
• Coal mining currently employs around 20,000 people in Queensland. This has fallen from a highpoint of 30,000 in 2013. There are 2.36 million people in work in Queensland.
• Nationally, coal mining is projected to cut its workforce by 21 percent by November 2020, according to Commonwealth Department of Employment projections.
• In Queensland, all parts of mining (coal, as well as gas and other resources) are projected to fall by 7,400 jobs up to 2020.
If Adani gets up and running will this change, or will it be another scam like Ta Ann?
Ted Mead
August 30, 2018 at 01:12
#53 … For the die hard, stick in the mud, inflexible fools who can only see progress as chop it down, dig it up, then their stone-age ideology ahead looks bleak.
The future of rural employment won’t be more coal-mines, abattoirs, and woodchip mills.
Renewable Energy will be one of the big employers of the future. Why? Because it is a cheaper energy source to develop. It is also a more ethical product that invites a promising return for investors, and so private investment will dominate over government policy.
Australia is slow to move whilst our government clings to coal, but change will come and with it there will be ample employment.
Here’s what’s happening with renewables employment versus coal employment in the USA: https://www.agweb.com/article/rural-jobs-coal-vs-renewable-energy-blmg/
Trump has tried everything to inhibit renewables development, but all to no avail.