Prime Minister Scott Morrison this week announced his plan for a 'gas-fired' recovery from COVID-19, but not everyone - including members of the Coalition - is on board.
If Labor were threatening to build a power station, the Liberals would likely be screaming “socialists”.
The threat is part of the go-with-gas policy unveiled by Scott Morrison this week, spruiked as driving a “gas-fired” recovery, especially for manufacturing. This sounds suspiciously like a three-word slogan that promises more than it is likely to deliver.Scott Morrison's new power plan criticised as 'part of the problem, not the solution' to climate crisis
Going back to Malcolm Turnbull’s time, the government conducted - and lost - a bitter battle with AGL over the planned Liddell closure. It exerted maximum pressure on the company to extend the life of the station, or alternatively, sell it, but to no avail. The Nationals Matt Canavan, who not so long ago was resources minister, says if a new power station is to be built in the Hunter region it should be coal-fired.
That pragmatism is reflected in the week’s other major energy announcement, for $1.9 billion investment in new and emerging technologies to lower emissions.Mr Morrison explicitly spelled out the government’s view that renewables, notably solar and wind, have boomed commercially and can take care of themselves.Backwards, with its support for carbon capture and storage which - leaving aside its problems as a technology - is an encouragement to fossil fuels.
Energy has been such a fraught area for the government that Mr Morrison is very aware of juggling the conflicting forces within his ranks.
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