>The Gillard government held a cabinet vote on gas reservation but discarded the idea, succumbing to arguments that it shouldn’t interfere with free markets, even though there would be a near monopoly on gas production.
Well that’s one problem the Gillard government left Australia resolved (at least some time after 2027.)
NDIS next.
InPrinciple63 on
>Finally, after years of kowtowing, the federal government has announced moves to correct the market failures that, for so long, have been allowed to fester and infect the economy.
Those aren’t market failures: maximum profit is how markets work as a feature, not a flaw.
Government should look to its own policies in not only handing Australia’s natural resources to private enterprise for free to exploit and sell the people back their own resources, but to subsidise private enterprise profit as well and turn a blind eye to their impact on the environment, including indigenous culture.
This has been repeated in mining in general and now in renewable energy, anywhere Australias natural resources are being utilised, they are handed to private enterprise to exploit for their profit, the people’s needs are secondary considerations.
>A third option, and probably the most efficient — to apply a tax to exports — was never really considered.
Because the objective was never to impact the most important aspect of this situation, the profitability of the private enterprise.
>It was a mistake that created a ludicrous contradiction. Australia, one of the world’s biggest exporters of liquefied natural gas (LNG), was suffering from gas shortages.
That is little different to exporting oil but having to import more for local consumption, exporting hardwood chips but importing timber, exporting the best crayfish but importing others to meet local demand, exporting cherries but leaving the lesser quality ones for the local population, etc. It’s all symptomatic of exporting the best natural resources for profit whilst the local population gets the leftovers or even has to import to meet local needs at full market prices.
It should always have been Australias natural resources for Australians first and export the surplus later, not export the best resources for private profit and leave the dregs for Australians or worse, import those same resources at market prices to meet local demand, except that wasn’t the policy direction the Australian government took or is taking even now.
2 Comments
>The Gillard government held a cabinet vote on gas reservation but discarded the idea, succumbing to arguments that it shouldn’t interfere with free markets, even though there would be a near monopoly on gas production.
Well that’s one problem the Gillard government left Australia resolved (at least some time after 2027.)
NDIS next.
>Finally, after years of kowtowing, the federal government has announced moves to correct the market failures that, for so long, have been allowed to fester and infect the economy.
Those aren’t market failures: maximum profit is how markets work as a feature, not a flaw.
Government should look to its own policies in not only handing Australia’s natural resources to private enterprise for free to exploit and sell the people back their own resources, but to subsidise private enterprise profit as well and turn a blind eye to their impact on the environment, including indigenous culture.
This has been repeated in mining in general and now in renewable energy, anywhere Australias natural resources are being utilised, they are handed to private enterprise to exploit for their profit, the people’s needs are secondary considerations.
>A third option, and probably the most efficient — to apply a tax to exports — was never really considered.
Because the objective was never to impact the most important aspect of this situation, the profitability of the private enterprise.
>It was a mistake that created a ludicrous contradiction. Australia, one of the world’s biggest exporters of liquefied natural gas (LNG), was suffering from gas shortages.
That is little different to exporting oil but having to import more for local consumption, exporting hardwood chips but importing timber, exporting the best crayfish but importing others to meet local demand, exporting cherries but leaving the lesser quality ones for the local population, etc. It’s all symptomatic of exporting the best natural resources for profit whilst the local population gets the leftovers or even has to import to meet local needs at full market prices.
It should always have been Australias natural resources for Australians first and export the surplus later, not export the best resources for private profit and leave the dregs for Australians or worse, import those same resources at market prices to meet local demand, except that wasn’t the policy direction the Australian government took or is taking even now.