As was made obvious on the ABC’s Insiders program on Sunday (23 June), Peter Dutton has gone full Trump – say anything to own the headlines, positive or negative doesn’t matter, truth and facts don’t matter.
There is no Coalition nuclear power “plan”. There is a Coalition political strategy to flood the zone with misinformation, mislead voters about the causes of our “cost of living” problems, and fuel uncertainty over energy policy.
It is a perfectly safe strategy, as Donald Trump has demonstrated.
The wild assertions are designed to be matters of faith, not fact. Figures can be concocted to claim whatever the perpetrator wants to claim. The lies can’t be definitively buried – the faith disproven – for so many years down the electoral track that it doesn’t matter.
Fossil fuels conspiracy
The common conspiracy theory attributed to the Dutton opposition attacking the renewables rollout and promoting nuclear power is that it’s a ruse to extend the life of fossil fuel generation, summarised neatly by Sydney Morning Herald/Age columnist Shaun Carney.
“The key to understanding Dutton’s crusade for nuclear energy is the deep belief, shared widely in the Liberal and National parties at the parliamentary and membership levels, that the theory of anthropogenic climate change and the consequent need to shift to renewables to avoid an existential threat, are bulldust – part of a global left-wing plot. The calculus is simple: It must be wrong and should be thwarted with whatever argument comes to hand.”
There is certainly that – just ask Matt Canavan – but the more immediate driver, the one carrying any remaining LNP members who might understand science, is to win an election.
Election goal
The tactic for doing that from opposition is to ask focus groups what most worries/angers them, feed that worry/anger back to the electorate, blaming the government for it, and propose a simple-sounding answer to the problem.
As HL Mencken taught: For every complex problem there is an answer that is clear, simple and wrong.
Being wrong doesn’t stop such an answer being effective politics.
The complex problem worrying/angering people is getting ahead, making financial ends meet aka “the cost of living”.
Neither the LNP or Labor has a simple answer for that.
The AFR reports Peter Dutton over the weekend telling the party faithful “a Coalition government would deliver a back-to-basics economic plan to rein in wasteful spending while delivering lower taxes and supporting small business”.
That’s the good ol’ LNP team song, always rousing in the clubhouse but meaning nothing much outside it. It’s not the simple answer for the focus groups.
Cunning pitch
The cunning bit of the LNP’s nuclear pitch is that it focuses the cost-of-living blame on energy prices and entices Labor to play on the LNP’s preferred ground.
That’s already worked, Prime Minister Albanese volunteering that he’s happy to debate nuclear every day from here to the election. That would suit Peter Dutton just fine – he has his simple answer.
We’ve been collectively telling ourselves energy prices are a big problem for so long, just about everyone believes it. Yes, we’re paying more now for our electricity and gas than we did back in the good old days, but energy costs are no longer the key inflation driver.
People on lower incomes and those being tortured on the mortgage rack by higher interest rates feel the pain of their energy bills acutely because there is no avoiding them. Their lumpy nature also makes them stand out more when the bank account is empty.
Unlikely reality
The unlikely reality is that, having surged in the 2022-23 financial year, energy inflation isn’t as evil it’s commonly portrayed and, come the federal and state energy rebates next month, will be less so.
Republished from The New Daily on June 26, 2024.
Michael is the contributing editor for The New Daily. Journalist, commentator, speaker, rugby follower, would prefer to be skiing.
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