I have warned, endlessly, about the consequences of the utterly mistaken energy policy being pursued by the Albanese government, articulated by the arrogant and ill-informed Chris Bowen.

One of the consequences of escalating energy prices is that business, especially manufacturing, is moving offshore.

It is too dear to do business.

This has cost jobs and has had an unacceptable impact on the national economy.

Well, recently, the Australian Workers’ Union National Secretary, the 39-year-old, Dan Walton, spoke in Sydney about the Labor Party’s free trade approach to critical mineral exports to China; he rightly argued about the national security risks.

Put in layman’s language, we are exporting our minerals, raw materials, to China, so that they not only grow their wealth from this but also, they are making, with our mineral resources, the kind of weaponry to improve their military expansion.

The AWU is right when it is calling for the Labor government to tax unprocessed exports of critical materials and to set up ‘a subsidies scheme to foster domestic refining, processing and component manufacturing’.

Dan Walton warned of the vulnerabilities in the current supply chain, with 96 per cent of Australia’s lithium, exported to China, where it is processed and brought back in the form of components for batteries, solar panels, and military equipment.

You would have to be completely stupid to think that makes sense.

But, rest assured, these AWU proposals will be ignored.

A tax on unprocessed exports of critical minerals!!!

Think about it.

We export this stuff to China from which they make solar panels, wind turbines, and, then, we import these very things; while they improve their military capability with our resources.

Why can’t we process these same resources here?

The answer is simple.

Energy costs, under the Bowen plan, make us hopelessly uncompetitive.

Australian manufacturing is dying at a rate we’ve never seen before.

In the last few weeks alone, we’ve seen the last brickworks in Western Australia close.

We will now import our bricks from India, Vietnam, and China

We’ve seen Australia’s last helium production plant announce it will close in the coming months.

Remember, helium isn’t just used to inflate balloons. The gas is important for several industries with use in everything from MRI scanning machines to solar panel manufacturing.

Meanwhile, we’ve seen Saputo Dairy close two of its facilities in the Gippsland region of Victoria.

Supermarkets, the hospitality industry, and the medical profession are now concerned about a looming carbon dioxide shortage.

Believe it or not, this gas, that activists claim is destabilising the climate, has several critical uses in medicine and food.

We now have supermarket food, grocery, and beverage industries complaining of a shortage of carbon dioxide, which would threaten the supply of hundreds of consumer products from baby foods, packaged meat, fresh food, and baked products.

Carbon dioxide is used as a pure gas or in mixtures with other gases for anaesthesia, stimulating breathing, and sterilising equipment.

Yet there are limited carbon dioxide source sites in Australia; so, yet again, we rely on overseas suppliers.

Construction companies are collapsing; nobody should be surprised. The price of steel and cement have gone up by around 40 per cent over the last year or so; and now Australia’s last paper manufacturing plant in Victoria has shut, meaning Australia can no longer produce a piece of white paper.

Instead, this country will now import paper from Indonesia and China where tropical forests are being clear-felled.

If this isn’t an own goal for the green movement, I don’t know what is.

Meanwhile, we continue to import 90 per cent of our refined fuel products.

We import 90 per cent of our fertiliser.

We import 90 per cent of our pharmaceuticals.

We are a sitting duck.

We are totally reliant on international supply chains that, since the Covid pandemic, have proven to be unreliable and unstable.

We have politicians allowing the closure of our biggest coal-fired power plants, which they hope to replace with weather-dependent wind turbines.

Yet the price of these turbines has increased by 38 per cent in two years.

This comes after the price of the critical minerals, from which wind turbines are made, has increased by 93 per cent over the same period.

Meanwhile, our politicians are prioritising the creation of an Indigenous Voice to Parliament and reducing carbon dioxide emissions; and the Reserve Bank is hiking interest rates to reduce the inflation problem that has been caused by the shutdown of our heavy industries and the debt accrued during the Covid lockdowns.

I have said before there isn’t a single issue in this country that hasn’t been caused by our politicians.

The AWU have recognised the crisis.

We should be processing these minerals in our own country; and if we are going to export them, then why shouldn’t there be a tax on unprocessed exports.

Like most things, I suspect Australia will wake up when it is too late.

You can watch Alan Jones LIVE and free over on ADH TV.

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