Letter
Big oil earnings bonanza
Who would be Chris Bowen, especially now as the hounding from the further-emboldened fossil fuel hawkers and climate-change ignorers intensifies?
“We must dig, and we must drill” says Angus Taylor. Pauline Hanson wants more oil and gas production. The Murdochs and Rineharts of this world are all on board. Fossil fuel profits are soaring.
In 2019, such was the antipathy to our energy transition that the Coalition promoted the highly dubious hydrogen car and shamelessly denigrated EVs. Now those same nay-sayers simply double down in confected outrage that Labor is not doing enough to build oil security.
From 2012 governments oversaw refinery closures in the face of the ‘oligopolisation’ of oil - Australia was simply unable compete. But what was done to secure other energy sources?
In 2010 NRMA president Wendy Machin warned of our “she’ll be right mate” attitude to fuel dependence; part of the solution was fast-tracking the rollout of EVs, supported by renewables, and upgrading public transport.
Chris Bowen is having to keep his cool at press conferences, in the face of obsessive criticism and personal attack. Though his policies are “not always perfect”, he deserves support for his commitment to renewables, batteries and the EV revolution.
— Fiona Colin from Melbourne