It’s time the ABC was privatised

Coronation Procession at the Coronation of Charles III and Camilla. Photo: Katie Chan [CC BY-SA 4.0]

In my view, the ABC no longer provides news and current affairs content that is relevant to mainstream Australians. This means that mainstream Australian taxpayers are funding the Woke, biased content that constantly streams from the so-called public broadcaster. Yet the ABC’s news and current affairs service only represents a narrow, left-wing audience. It is time the people who actually watch or listen to the ABC paid for it. It is time for the ABC’s news and current affairs service to be privatised.

Here is my latest article in The Spectator Australia's Flat White, "It’s time the ABC was privatised".

"Go fund yourselves..." That is the overwhelming sentiment directed at the #ABC after their appalling coverage of the #Coronation and decades of biased, politically partisan reporting.

Is it finally time to disconnect the ABC from the public teat?https://t.co/VqWfjOIqMl

— The Spectator Australia (@SpectatorOz) May 28, 2023

Labor's Coal-Fired Green Dream

Coal Mine in the Hunter Valley, NSW, 2011. Photo: Max Phillips [CC BY 2.0]

With cost-of-living pressures really starting to hurt Australians, Labor’s green dream would be a complete nightmare if it wasn’t for coal.

When then Treasurer Scott Morrison brought a lump of coal into the House of Representatives, the left-leaning media were quick to respond:

‘What a bunch of clowns, hamming it up – while out in the real world an ominous and oppressive heat just won’t let up’.

Fast forward to 2023 and Labor’s budget surplus has little to do with sound economic management, and much to do with unexpectedly high prices for exports of fossil fuels. And this is despite Labor’s running mates, the Greens, doing everything to demonise coal and gas.

In the real world, it takes more than just dreams to power the nation.

Here is my latest article in The Spectator's Flat White, Labor's Coal-Fired Green Dream.

"Without coal there is no green dream."

Michael de Percy lays down another authoritative piece on energy policy, in which he analyses the enormous economic benefits the fossil fuel industry brings to Australia: https://t.co/cCdBMNQdpa

— The Spectator Australia (@SpectatorOz) May 24, 2023

Australia in the Atomic Age: Menzies’ legacy and nuclear’s unrealised potential

High Flux Australian Reactor (HIFAR), Lucas Heights, opened in 1958.

Tomorrow I will present this work in progress for a paper for the Robert Menzies Institute's Third Annual Conference, 'The Menzies Ascendency: Implementing a Liberal Agenda and COnsolidating Gains, 1954-1961'.

The slides and abstract from my work-in-progress presentation are below. 

Slides

Abstract

Menzies embraced the atomic age rather more enthusiastically than many other Australians. He envisaged Australia’s substantial uranium and thorium reserves providing Australia with a source of clean, reliable, and affordable energy that would ultimately replace fossil fuels. But he also knew that “what is best advertised tends to be more popularly understood”. Despite the opening of a nuclear reactor at Lucas Heights in 1958 to “test materials for their suitability in use in future power reactors”, the purpose of Australia’s first nuclear reactor was gradually reduced to producing medical radioisotopes and conducting research. Menzies faced similar concerns about the safety of nuclear reactors, the propensity for conflating nuclear industries with nuclear weapons, and storing nuclear waste to those concerns political leaders face today. But with Australia’s strategic defence capabilities enhanced by nuclear-powered submarines through the AUKUS agreement, and the absence of a ‘Plan B’ for a carbon-neutral future, the unrealised potential of Australia’s atomic age has manifested into the very lack of skills Menzies was concerned about in 1962. The Lucas Heights facility was more than just a case of hubris, or “what are they doing here that can't be better done elsewhere?” It provided opportunities for training Australian scientists and sharing and transferring nuclear-related research and knowledge. At the same time, recently declassified documents suggest that Menzies aimed to develop Australia’s nuclear capability amid eleven years of atomic weapons tests conducted by Britain in Australia. While much has been written about “nuclear colonialism” following the Royal Commission into the tests, very little attention has been given to the unrealised potential of Australia’s nuclear industry envisaged during the atomic age. This paper, then, traces the development and subsequent stagnation of the nuclear industry in Australia, with a focus on Menzies’ legacy and its influence on energy and defence policy today.

Dumb Ideas: Where's our energy Plan B?

Nuclear Power Plant [CC0]

Minister for Climate Change and Energy, Chris Bowen, has released a video calling Opposition Leader Peter Dutton’s plan for nuclear energy ‘a dumb idea for Australia’. Mr Bowen’s statement is at odds with the people and also at odds with his Prime Minister’s promises – it’s hardly the stuff of ‘the government I lead will respect every one of you every day’ and ‘together we can end the climate wars’.

If nuclear is not on the table, and Australia is to achieve a target of 82 per cent renewables energy generation by 2030, then what ideas are not ‘dumb’?

Here is my latest article in The Spectator's Flat White, Where’s our energy Plan B, Chris Bowen?

"When asked for an example of countries with high levels of renewables generation that did not have high electricity prices, Mr Bowen said he did not ‘accept the premise of the question’."

Australia has no energy policy Plan B, writes Michael de Percy: https://t.co/yFRQaYquDZ

— The Spectator Australia (@SpectatorOz) May 14, 2023