It is one thing to suspect that politicians are laughing at Australia’s dire situation, but quite another to hear the cackles accompanied by arrogant jokes and the mocking of genuine environmental concerns.
While being questioned by One Nation Senator Malcolm Roberts about coal-fired energy and intermittent renewables, Senator Timothy Ayres saw fit to refer to Senator Matt Canavan as ‘koala’ Canavan and made rather disparaging comments about whale migration. He then appeared to suggest that criticism of renewables is some sort of ‘weird’ and ‘imported ideology’.
(Don’t tell Senator Ayres that renewable energy is an imported ideology.)
The Labor government might think this kind of flippancy is funny, giggling amongst themselves in the Senate, but Australians opening their energy bills don’t agree.
If only more voters saw how politicians behaved.
Here is their exchange verbatim.
Malcolm Roberts asked: ‘To Senator Ayres, representing the Minister for Climate Change and Energy, Chris Bowen. Minister, is coal-powered electricity generation intermittent energy or baseload generation?’
The question is painfully simple and in no way a prompt for climate theatre.
@malcolmrobertsonenation Senator Ayres’ disgraceful behaviour when questioned about the reliability of the energy grid – insulting #OneNation and Matt Canavan while dismissing criticism of #NetZero as ‘weird ideology’.
Senator Ayres replied:
‘Well… Well… Here I am. Here I am. Senator – Senator Roberts’ question really does, you know, uh, bell the cat in terms of where One Nation and their ‘almost’ Coalition partners over here in the National and Liberal parties really are on some of these climate and energy questions.
‘I think – I think – um – I think if I go directly to Senator Roberts’ reference to the unreliability of our current aging coal-fired power fleet, uh, that is – that is – as I cursorily read the newspaper, I think that is what – uh – Minister Bowen was referring to – uh – because – because – what – what is going on every single day – every single day – is that there is an unplanned outage – of – of – of one of the – or more – one or more – of these facilities.
‘And – and that redundancy – unplanned redundancy – causes additional cost, puts pressure on industry – uh – and it reminds Australians that under the previous government all of that uncertainty – all of that policy failure where I think I’ll come back and let you know, Senator Roberts, if I get this wrong, but I think it was 24 out of 28 – I think – uh – coal-fired power stations announced their closure and – and – what did we have from the Liberals and Nationals? Sort of re-litigating the same old nonsense that held Australia back with a – a $600 billion nuclear power plan and Mister Littleproud saying we should – we should – sweat these assets.
‘I mean the only – the only way, if you went to some of these power stations in New South Wales – the only people that would say you would sweat that asset is somebody who’d never been to one.’
Senator Roberts asked his first supplementary question: ‘Coal power is baseload generation. It is designed to run continuously and, when operated continuously, electricity generation from coal is reliable and affordable. It only becomes intermittent and expensive when the generator is deliberately turned on and off all the time to give preference to what is really intermittent power: solar and wind. Minister, why is the government’s policy set to deliberately destroying baseload power, coal?’
Senator Ayres replied:
‘Well, I suppose there’s a number of responses, Senator Roberts, the first is – uh – coal-fired power stations fail when there is a breakdown – uh – or there is planned maintenance. Now, when there’s planned maintenance, that’s a good thing because you’re improving the capability of the asset. When – when – when an asset like that has gone on for so long that – that – it can’t continue to function reliably. I’ll … Koala Canavan over here…’
A comment which the Senator was immediately asked to withdraw.
Senator Ayres:
‘I withdraw. I withdraw. I withdraw. I withdraw. But – but – but Senator, that is the problem. So, we are moving to modernise the electricity system to deliver the lowest cost, most reliable approach, the Australian approach, and we won’t be deterred by, you know, imported ideas about – about – you know – political memes and weird ideologies about the future.’
Senator Roberts was able to ask a second question: ‘According to the Australian Energy Regulator, for the fourth quarter of 2024, saw the second highest number of extreme electricity price events ever, with prices exceeding $5,000 per megawatt hour. $5,000… This happens when baseload power generation is not in the mix. Instead, when run continuously, coal can provide electricity at just $50 per megawatt hour. Minister, will you give Australians suffering from record high electricity prices a break and run our coal generators properly?’
Senator Ayres:
‘Well – well what this government will do is continue to modernise our electricity system. In the interests of industry, in the interest of households, in the interests of future industry, because what we require in this country additionality, more generation capacity, more transmission capability.
‘And that the Coalition and One Nation, who campaign against energy generation capability around Australia wandering around, whether it’s about koalas, or complaining somehow that offshore wind projects will be bad for whales. I mean, these whales who go up and down the Eastern Australian coast dodging container ships and bulk carriers are somehow going to DOOR THEMSELVES on a stationary offshore wind turbine it is too silly for words. It is too silly for words. Sillier than a two-bob watch, and it’s imported, weird ideology, coming from overseas that’s been used to try and stop progress right here in Australia.’
Well, what do you think of Senator Ayres’ replies? Are you getting value for money out of the government?
