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Abbott wins this round: Turnbull pulls Paris Agreement from NEG, but still wants to meet it “for free”

Too little, too late, not enough

Turnbull has to go.

Faced with a possible and imminent challenge from Peter Dutton, a limping Malcolm Turnbull has done the barest minimum just to stay in power. He has capitulated, and won’t try to mandate the Paris agreement through law, but he still wants the nation to meet the Paris agreement. If he had pushed it through Parliament he would have faced a leadership challenge for sure, and pundits are saying it’s still likely. How long will Liberal lemmings allow him to lead and give up the easiest, well trodden and winning election strategy?

Tony Abbott is leading the nation from the back bench.

When will the Liberals grow a spine and dump the Paris agreement completely?

Most of the party is too afraid to even talk about how much warming humans may be causing lest they be called a “denier” for doubting that it is not exactly the same as an unaudited, unelected and unaccountable foreign committee says. The nation can’t even have a sensible public discussion on climate change.

As Andrew Bolt says Turnbull’s leadership is now terminal. His clumsy gambit to present the NEG as a done deal too early shows how non-consultative he is, how bad his judgement is, and makes those that defended it look like fools.

The new “Ministerial Agreement” arrangement may be worse because it probably suits the Deep State even better. Decisions about whether to proceed will be done by a Minister advised by unelected committees using models based on a bunch of assumptions about “the cost”. Turnbull has led the party for three years while electricity costs have jumped seismically and now he just wants to keep prices at this obscene level?

The Australian:

Instead [of being legislated in the NEG] the 2015 climate change commitment will be mandated through Ministerial order and only after advice from the competition regulator that it wouldn’t increase power prices.

A condition of the order would be that the advice would have to be tabled in Parliament.

 ABC viewers blind-sided by reality again

On Tuesday The ABC news audience heard what an unqualified success it was for Turnbull to get the NEG through the party meeting. It turns out this was a complete bluff — most of the party didn’t even know what was in the plan (the Labor Party got a copy before them). The ABC didn’t point out the obvious — that speaking up against it, or threatening to cross the floor was a major risk, so Turnbull’s gambit was that he might get the illusion of support and unity by railroading it past the party in a high stakes situation. Instead it took other journalists at The Australian and on radio — Ray Hadley — to ask the right questions and expose how deep the resentment was and how fragile was the “unity”. So fragile that three days after his big win Turnbull’s head was almost on the block. We pay a billion dollars for blind propaganda.

The NEG was not about electricity costs, it was (is) primarily about emissions:

The purpose of the NEG was first and foremost to lock in emissions reductions.  Fines for failure to cut emissions are ten one hundred times higher than fines for failing to provide electricity.

Daniel Wild, IPA:

The NEG is functional equivalent to the Renewable Energy Target, an Emissions Trading Scheme, an Emissions Intensity Scheme, and a carbon tax. It uses government regulation to support weather-dependent energy generators, such as wind and solar, at the expense of coal.

“Under the NEG, energy retailers could face a $100 million fine for not meeting their emissions reductions requirements, but just as little as a $1 million fine for not meeting their reliability requirements. This means the government is favouring emissions reductions over reliability by a factor of 100-to-one.”

“The goals of reducing electricity prices and carbon emissions at the same time are contradictory. The emissions reduction component will mean that energy retailers will be forced to acquire energy from higher-cost sources than what would otherwise be the case,” said Mr Wild.

Download the IPA Parliamentary Research Brief recommending that the Australian government dump the Paris Agreement and the NEG.

See Pat at comment #2:

Sky News: Turnbull’s NEG changes could make matters worse: Craig Kelly

Prominent conservative backbencher Craig Kelly says Malcolm Turnbull’s reported changes to the National Energy Guarantee could pave the way for a higher emissions reduction target under a future Labor government…
Reportedly, the 26 per cent renewable energy target will not be regulated and not legislated. Mr Kelly has told Sky News this change could ‘make the situation worse,’ as it would allow Labor to easily change the target should it win office.
https://www.skynews.com.au/details/_5823292272001   12mins 33secs: 17 Aug:

Facebook: Peta Credlin

h/t Beowulf, Graeme Campbell. Pat.

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