Chris Bowen, Crawford Forum, 2016
By Jo Nova
Deception and lies — the only way the government can get more renewables
The Labor Party was supposed to tell the whole world their 2035 renewables target in February, but they knew the voters would hate it, so they hid it until after the election. If Chris Bowen thought the voters wanted more renewables spending, obviously, he would have said so to win more votes.
As a part of the sacred Paris Agreement Australia was supposed to announce new Nationally Determined Commitment every five years. That deadline was late February. The world is bursting into flames around us, but the UN didn’t mind if the Labor Party were late, and hid their intentions, and nor did the Greens, or the “Climate Change Authority”. They all sat silent because they all know the voters don’t want it. Ipso Fabricato, all of them serve “The Blob”, not the voters.
Climate Change was virtually invisible during the election, yet the dishonorable Chris ‘Blackout’ Bowen now suddenly says the ‘silent majority’ support him.
Chris Bowen feels ‘silent’ wind at his back on green agenda
by Geoff Chambers. The Australian
Emboldened Climate Change and Energy Minister Chris Bowen has doubled down on Labor’s rollout of offshore wind farms, renewables and the phase-out of coal-fired power plants in a post-election attack on critics of his green power agenda, who he declares were rejected by Australia’s “silent majority”.
He wasn’t turbocharging anything two weeks ago:
After being sworn in on Tuesday for a second term, Mr Bowen will turbocharge Labor’s clean-energy revolution to achieve the government’s ambitious goal of 82 per cent of renewables in the electricity grid by 2030.
It’s such bad luck: The Climate Change Authority (CCA) just happened to need a few extra weeks of work after the election, before it could reveal the horror show to the hapless Australians who pay their salaries:
The Australian understands the Climate Change Authority is weeks from finalizing its advice on an upgraded 2035 emissions-reduction target, which will be more aggressive than Labor’s current 2030 pledge to slash emissions by 43 per cent.
Close down these fake agencies of industrial lobbyists like the CCA who serve themselves and not the people. Be gone, o’ parasites of the people, and slime-moulds of bureaucracy!
If Bowen cared about what the people think, he could just, you know, poll them…
As it happens Essential polling out yesterday shows one issue dominated the election, and it was “cost of living”. More than half of Australian voters ranked it their number one issue, and 87% put it in their top three concerns. And if cost-of-living matters, “renewables” are the opposite. Every time the people are asked “how much do you want to spend on climate change” the answer is next to nothing. An IPA poll in 2022 showed 70% of Australians don’t even want to spend $1 a week to reach Net Zero. (If they knew the real cost they already pay, they would riot in the streets).
Essential poll May 13, 2025. Most important Election issue:
The voters are crystal clear, and 100% consistent — when asked what they want the government to do, they said they want the government to reduce the cost of living, solve the housing crisis, fix medicare, crime and immigration more than they want Labor to fix “the climate”. 80% of Australians didn’t even put climate in their top three issues. Essential poll
Nearly 6 out ten voters think Labour shouldn’t do anything it didn’t already spell out in the election:
How’s that for a mandate for you Chris? If you didn’t talk about turbocharging the targets before the election, you are either stupid, or a liar? Or both. The voters do not approve.
Thanks for bringing this to our attention.
Confirms my expectations.
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We’ve known about it for decades; that’s why it’s called an ‘SBD’ (“Silent but Deadly”)… Just blowing gas.
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He mistakes his own gas for approval. The old saying of a ‘rat smells himself first’ is holding true. Chris is the most dangerous man in Albo’s government, more so than even Grim Jim with his taxes.
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Even More Frightening – he has his own Article in The Australian Commentray Section which I did NOT Open
The reality is suburbia and the bush love renewables
Conservative commentators – who don’t actually spend much time in our regional heartlands – don’t understand just how popular solar panels, batteries and EVs are out there in voter land.
CHRIS BOWEN
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Paywalled, but Blackout Bowen doesn’t understand that they only want “renewables” if they’re too far from a grid connection or to try and save money on expensive”green” electricity.
No sane, non-woke person gets renewables unless they have to.
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Bezos is pushing his Helios, nuclear fusion product. Does it have a future or is it just another “Turnbull” type project.
Alternatively is the concept of piping water from FNQ to the Hume Weir still a possibility.
It could be funded by installing inline electricity generators to cover 40-50 towns on the journey, and eliminate the wind/solar boondoggle
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I checked the map, it’s downhill all the way!
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If it was a Turnbull project he would be throwing away taxpayer money on certain failure. He would not risk one cent of his own.
At least Bezos is using his own money.
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Gosh, how much more aggressive can the destruction of our energy supply become?
Most of our industry is already shut down and much of what remains is heavily subsidised.
Domestic consumers have some of the world’s most expensive electricity when it used to be among the cheapest.
And Jo has previously reported here that our grid would already be suffering regular failures were it not for large amounts of taxpayer money paid to the aluminium smelters for the ability to shed their loads at will, apart from the fact that they wouldn’t be here at all but for other taxpayer subsidies.
Again, this deception of not revealing this insane fast-tracked Net Zero policy before the election just proves what psychopathic pathological liars Labor and the Left are. Not that these lies were any surprise. That’s what they do every time they open their mouths.
Net Zero is not science, it’s a LEFTIST RELIGIOUS CULT.
You can have an industrial economy or Net Zero but not both.
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If Dutton and the Liberals actually believed in something they could have won the election and saved us from this.
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Susan Ley is completely at sea with ‘Carbon Emissions’. Likely knows no chemistry at all.
Born in Nigeria, a very qualified financial person, pilot’s licence, mother and even camp cook in the outback. Well grounded and can add and clearly a hard determined no nonsense person. Very logical and can fly. And done the very toughest jobs including as a mother, so she can relate.
What is needed is to make her aware firstly of the pointlessness and secondly of the incredible cost of reducing “carbon emissions’ by theft and why Donald Trump and Nigel Farage are spot on. 95% of the world do not pay for Carbon Credits. And no country has a 35% Carbon tax on all industry as in Australia. Nothing humans can do changes Carbon Dioxide. This gas is controlled by the vast oceans on the scale, not human activity.
Carbon taxes are illegal, benefit China and not Australia, pointless and the most massive tax on breathing and working and even farting since governments invented taxes. They are destroying Australian. And the dismantling of Climate Change would unite all workers, farmers, sensible people behind a resurgence of the Liberal Party like no other issue.
We need to get her attention. in terms of leading the Liberal party to victory, it is the most important issue. And a quick examination of the carbon scams is the fastest way to show how Australia is being destroyed, silently. The appalling Safeguard Mechanism is almost never mentioned. But a qualified accountant would pull it to pieces.
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“the Liberals actually believed in something”
They could believe Climate Change is a hoax. As the President of America has declared. He is spot on.
And then realise how crippling and deep and hidden the Chinese Communist plot against Australia is.
Wuhan Flu, steel, crippling power supplies, coal extortion, tariffs, naval show of strength. Australia is being destroyed by a very compliant Green/Labor coalition, as with Canada and the UK. Balance of trade, jobs, massive debt and debt as a ratio with GDP. Massive unsuited migration. Refusing proven farmers from South Africa and accepting 3,000 trained insurgents from Gaza even the Arab countries would not accept. Australia is becoming a third world country by the actions of the Federal government. And the cost is massive. From the desalination plants still being paid off to Snowy II.
There is plenty of proof that Climate Change is a hoax. That CO2 is good for the world and nothing to do with ’emissions’. Even NASA agrees. And has proven natural CO2 increases the food supply and is pushing back the deserts, growing trees. A farmer would know that.
And the endless bans on dams and mining exploration. Even a gold mine with the absurd blue banded bee. Made up aboriginal names for cities. Unbelievable stupidity and control by a cadre of inner city greedy Greens. Destroying manufacturing and farming and water. QUENOS. Capel Prince windmills. Cars. Aircraft. So many companies going under or just closed by carbon taxes. So many opportunities not being exploited, oil, gas, fracking, shale.
My first impression of Susan Ley was that she was completely ignorant of the scam. But she is perfectly qualified to lead the charge against the Greens by using raw facts and exposing the massive illegal theft through invisible carbon credits. Repealing all the Laws and shutting down the endless Clean Energy departments blossoming in Canberra and everywhere while Australians are losing their jobs and mining and farming are being crippled. Even taxing going to the toilet. Farmers are having to turning to mad carbon credits to try and make a living by growing trees and not growing food. It has to stop.
With our small population and massive often untapped resources, Australia should be one of the the richest countries in the world, like Saudi Arabia.
But like Argentina, Canada, even the UK, we are being shut down by Climate Change and the UN and China. It’s just so obvious. And fully supported by power hungry opportunists and China fans Kevin Rudd, Julia Gillard, Bill Shorten, Anthony Albanese, Daniel Andrews, Malcolm Turnbull, Scott Morrison, Paul Keating and Chris Bowen. Make Australia Last is the universal chant of these Greedy Malcontents and fifth columnists.
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Susan Ley has not worked her way through the Labor Party machine. Or the Liberal party machine. She could be a real force for change. Right now she needs help. And there is so much to do. Woke, massive debt, a collapsing economy and a public service determined to destroy the place. Out of control NDIS. But start with Climate Change. The savings here alone could kick start the economy and pay down the debt and build the dams and explore for and exploit gas and coal and shale. I cannot believe the cost of desalination or Snowy II or the Big Build in Victoria or distribution lines for windmills and solar. Just stop it all. Make Australia Great Again.
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She might be educable, or might not be.
It depends if the Liberals decide to move even further to the Left, in which case they might as well merge with Labor and we become a one party state, which we more less are already.
I have little to no confidence of her changing her position.
We need a conservative party, probably from the merger of existing minor conservative parties.
Surely enough people can see sense to vote for a real conservative party?
If Australians can’t see any sense in abandoning Net Zero do they even deserve to have a wealthy country anymore?
How could they have voted for Labor, as bad as the Liberals were?
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I spoke with Sussan 18 months ago at the Henty Machinery Field Days and she assured me that the Liberals would never win another election anywhere unless they had a net zero policy.
Our discussion of the stupidity and gutlessness of this stance got a little heated.
I also spoke to a littleproud and he said that we all know that it’s bullshit but we have to go along with it or the money lenders will have threatened to charge us an extra 3% for the money we have borrowed.
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This is an often repeated claim but is there any proof of that? International finance is competitive. We go to the one offering the lowest interest rate.
And I’d be willing to bet they aren’t charging the United States or China an extra three percent.
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I have done a bit of a search and can find no evidence of an extra three percent charge on interest if a country doesn’t implement Net Zero.
Grok says, using the search term “Do banks charge an extra three percent on interest if a country doesn’t implement Net Zero?”:
So it looks like this oft-repeated claim is a lie told by weasel politicians to justify the destruction of our economy and energy supply.
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Yes, the big lenders have been trying to determine public policy. But their threat doesn’t scare Donald Trump one little bit. The very idea of banks/superannuation funds using their power to control government policy is real but becoming history, rejected by State Treasuries across the US.
Ultimately the borrower has choices and can penalize the banks and financiers as well. Governments are not without power or financial weapons.
Specifically a large group of the US State Treasurers simply refuse to use funds from groups who set political conditions on lending. This is changing the game. State Governments also control vast superannuation funds apart from recurrent expenditure. And now that they have a financially conservative Federal government, its a different story. Blackrock, Accel-KKR, .. are backing down fast.
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Well they had a net zero policy and were wiped out. “The definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results”. If Susan wants to succeed, she needs to start from scratch and the vast waste of public and private money is a very good place to start, perhaps the best. Besides, what choice does she have? The Liberals are indistinguishable from Labor/Greens/Teals.
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Nuclear is the long game and should be brought into Australia’s Forward Planning (Is there such a thing?)
Reality, is planning for the building of HELE Coal Fired Power Plants on the Site of previous phased out, or scheduled to be phased out, existing sites where Transmission Lines are already in place
High-efficiency low-emissions (HELE) coal power plants are being installed in various countries around the world in 2025
As of July 2024, China had the highest installed capacity of coal power plants, with 1,147.23 gigawatts, more than five times the operational capacity of coal plants in the United States, which ranked third.
The cost of building new HELE plants in Australia was estimated at $2.2 million per MW or $2.2 billion for 1000 MW capacity, based on savings from utilizing a brownfield site and sourcing specialized equipment from Asia.
China: Has the highest installed capacity of coal power plants, with 1,147.23 gigawatts as of July 2024.
United States: Ranks third in installed capacity of coal power plants.
India: Has more than 200 coal power plants as of 2023.
The cost of construction for a modern HELE or ultra-supercritical (USC) black coal plant is estimated at $2.2 million per MW or $2.2 billion for 1000 MW capacity.
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So ridiculous – doubling down on failure .
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What do most of the simpletons and wokesters promoting this nonsense have in common?
They are usually public serpents, politicians or fake anti-intellectual, anti-science “academics” or CSIRO “scientists”. All Leftists. All funded by the taxpayer and all on generous fully indexed salaries and generous pension plans. None of them suffer from the high cost of living brought about by expensive “green” energy. They can fulfil their Leftist ideological fantasies at the expense of the taxes of hard working people plus vast amounts of money the government is borrowing (which sooner or later will run out but nevertheless has to be repaid by working people).
Or they are profiting directly from subsidy-harvesting using wind, solar and Big Battery plantations.
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Im old enough to remember the 2019 Federal Election – “the election on climate change”
Australians rejected the climate change agenda, we were done with it, we put it to bed – ever since, the only “advancement” of this garbage is via corrupted, sleight of hand politics
KING of which, was the then newly victorious “conservative” governments adoption of left climate policy AFTER the election !!??!!?
Then there was their covid behavior………….
NOT a conservative bone in the Liberal Partys body.
I cannot see a future where the Liberal Party play a role in saving Australia from this leftist dystopia we rocket toward.
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“NOT a conservative bone in the Liberal Partys body.”
The “Liberal party”, went aquishy with Billy McMahonm then Corporate-Statist, with Malcomm Fraser. Sliding further into the abyss with each electoral cycls.
I doubt that there is a single member of that rock-show who has a scintilla of a clue about ACTUAL “liberalism”, as opposed to the determinedly fascistic / corporate-statist US “liberal” model. The word “conservative” is pretty much a joke, too. Look at the sovist mpodel. There was only ONE path up the mountain; NO “deviation” was tolerated. REAL “conservatism”. Socialist-Realist “arts”, Stalinist-Gothic architcture
Sound familiar?
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So ridiculous, doubling down on failure.
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Just about everything yapped by B O Bowen, Albo and Labor is a delusional fantasy. Here’s what the 3 Universities + Nous report really tells us……
“Australia will need nearly three terrawatts, or 3,000 gigawatts, of wind and solar if it is to meet its goal of a net zero economy by 2030, a plan that could cost up to $9 trillion, according to a new study”.
“The astonishing numbers are revealed in a new report – Net Zero Australia – put together by Melbourne University, the University of Queensland, and the Nous Group, and released on Wednesday”.
“To put the 3,000 gigawatts of wind and solar in some context, Australia currently only has about 30GW of large scale wind and solar across the country. So it has a lot to do”.
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BTW here’s that link again to the 3 Uni’s report.
Are the Labor yappers barking mad or what? Just a pity the voters were fed a pack of lies and then believed Labor’s BS and fra-d.
https://reneweconomy.com.au/net-zero-study-finds-australia-needs-nearly-three-terawatts-of-wind-and-solar/#:~:text=Australia%20will%20need%20nearly%20three%20terrawatts%2C%20or%203%2C000,to%20%249%20trillion%2C%20according%20to%20a%20new%20study
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Never forget that these are not difficult sums to understand and currently we have a 30 Gigawatts grid and that must increase by ONE HUNDRED TIMES to 3,000 Gigawatts.
Does anyone on the planet really BELIEVE that we should try to build this delusional Labor fantasy using TOXIC, UNRELIABLE W & S?
Again Wind Capacity Factor is only 30% and Solar C F is only 15%. See Wikipedia and Nuclear C F is 93%.
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How fortunate for Labor that the report wasn’t ready for release during the election.
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Yes Graeme No 3 I think it was released on the day of the federal election, so great timing for Labor and B O Bowen.
And I suppose the poor Aussie taxpayers must suffer the consequences. Certainly we’ll all be very poor paying off Labor’s TRILLIONS of $ debt until 2100.
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I hate to be fatalistic but Australia is cooked. We need someone like DJT to step up to the plate instead of pathetic excuses for politicians and little blokes with huge ego’s.
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Follow the money. Bowen is no idealist.
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I observed and experienced a Net Zero lifestyle in the Himalayan mountains of Nepal remote from grid connections.
If people have electricity at all, they will have a small solar panel to charge a battery to provide some low wattage LED lighting and perhaps a bit of power to charge a phone. But only until the battery goes flat.
I carried my own electricity for my devices in the form of lithium ion battery packs.
Heating is non-existent except the paying adventurers like me might have the luxury of a wood burning stove in the common area for 2 to 3 hours at night.
Cooking is over a wood or dung fire. The guest house proprietors wash dishes and cooking utensils in cold water with no detergent as detergent doesn’t work in cold water and most people (tourists) have constant diarrhoea due to the inability to clean utensils from contamination.
Very rarely there might be solar hot water for a shower but that runs out after one or two showers and that’s only in the lower altitude areas anyway, and luke warm, gravity fed low pressure.
No hot water for washing. No hot showers. No refrigeration. No TV. No heated rooms. No electrical labour saving devices like pumps to convey water. That was either brought by bucket or gravity fed from higher up.
Not an aspirational lifestyle for a Westerner except for Himalayan adventures. Not the lifestyle I want to live in suburban Melbournistan.
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Incidentally at those high altitudes there are no trees so wood is carried up the mountains on the backs of men or donkeys. Indeed everything is carried up, there are no roads.
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What’s the bet Ley and Littleproud (new leaders of Australia’s opposition political parties) either provide no comment or actually support new emissions targets?
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The Australian Government hates the ordinary people (non-Elites).
The favoured ones are politicians, public serpents, fake government “scientists”, fake university “academics”, union thugs, professional parasites, and subsidy harvesters.
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Interesting that Richard Bolt is also with the Nous Group of Consultants and is a younger brother of Andrew Bolt and he has previously headed 3 state govt departments and obviously believes in Labor’s BS and fantasies about net zero etc.
Here’s his profile from the Victorian Chamber of Commerce.
https://www.victorianchamber.com.au/profile/richard-bolt#:~:text=Richard%20Bolt%20is%20a%20Principal%20of%20Nous%20Group%2C,most%20granular%20analysis%20of%20pathways%20to%20net%20zero.
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Hard to believe he’s Andrew Bolt’s brother.
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What the WEF wants the WEF gets, They own both parties and the election was a sham. Any illusion of ‘We the People” is dead in Australia. Political laziness and complacency has it’s consequences.
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Another very important fact we all forget is that toxic, unreliable W & S will not last longer than 15 to 20 years and must be replaced many times while reliable BASELOAD, Nuclear power stns will last until 2100.
Therefore Nuclear’s full cost of 0.15 trillion $ is tiny and very cheap compared to up to 9 TRILLION $ from the 3 Uni’s study.
Of course many more TRILLIONS of $ for W & S replacement costs. And what is the full cost after destroying 28,000 klms of our land and sea environments?
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Yes.
Renewables are not a one-time investment. They require constant replacement which makes their cost even higher than their already ridiculously high cost.
A coal, gas, nuclear or real hydro (not SH2) plant will last a minimum of 50 years at least and usually much more.
The Nine Mile Point Unit 1, Turkey Point 3&4 and Surry 1&2 nuclear plants in the US have license approvals to extend their life to 80 years, for example. That’s the life of about 5 windmill replacements.
And unlike wind and solar they will be producing environmentally friendly, inexpensive reliable power at constant output levels with no expensive battery storage for the entire time with only occasional downtime for maintenance.
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