Quoting a
Michael West Media Independent Journalists article titled 'Ten and rising: Albanese government new fossil fuel approvals unveiled' written by Callum Foote and published on 2023/09/08:
"Fossil fuel projects approved by the Albanese government include:
- 30 August 2023: Approved the expansion of the Gregory Crinum Coal Mine in central Queensland for 11 years. Gregory Crinum is owned by Australian miner Sojitz Blue.
- 29 June 2023: Approved the nine-year extension of the Ensham thermal coal mine, owned by Japanese fossil fuel giant Idemitsu Kosan.
- 23 June 2023: Decided that the proposed Star coal mine did not require environmental approval, and could proceed as planned.
- 30 May 2023: Approved the Isaac River Coal Mine Project, owned by Bowen Coking Coal.
- 12 February 2023: Approved Santo’s Towrie Gas Development.
- 10 February 2023: Approved Santos’ Dorado Development in the Bedout basin. Dorado will be designed for liquid handling rates of 100 thousand standard barrels per day (KSTB/d) and gas reinjection capacity of 235 million standard cubic feet per day (MMscf/d) over 20 years.
- 6 January 2023: Extending the life of the Lake Vermont open-cut coalmine, owned by Jellinbah Group, until 2063. This decision does not increase the amount of coal that can be mined, only the period of time it can be mined in.
- 27 June 2022: Approved Santos’ ‘Van Gogh’ Petroleum Field Development project."
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This section added
November 2023
Edited July 2024
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Will Mr Albanese follow ex PM
Malcolm Turnbull in talking big on climate action but doing little? After a year and a half in office it is looking very likely.
In early November 2023 PM Anthony Albanese visited the Cook Islands for the Pacific Island Forum. He tried his best to convince the Pacific Islander peoples that his government was serious about reducing emissions; I wonder if he convinced anyone, considering his government's abysmal record to that point?
The Albanese government has approved many fossil fuel projects since coming to office.
In 2015, under the Abbott Liberal government Australia was ranked second last of 61 nations in climate change performance. In May 2024 the ranking had improved to 50th of 67 nations. Better, but still very poor.
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This section added
2024/02/09
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Renewable energy is displacing coal
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New solar power, coal-fired power station shutting down
This view at Port Augusta, South Australia, April 2016, nicely symbolizes the
decline of coal.
On the left is the new solar power-tower of Sundrop Farms.
The big smoking chimney is on the Northern Power Station, SA's last coal-fired power station; which was soon to close.
(The chimney stopped smoking on 2016/05/09.)
Further right are the two chimneys of the Sir Thomas Playford coal-fired power
station, which had already closed-down.
At the time this photo was taken, an average of around 33% of SA's power was
generated by
wind farms and another 5% by solar PV.
By 2024 more than 70% of South Australia's power was being generated renewably.
But the Albanese government is not doing enough toward replacing fossil fuels with renewables.
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While the Albanese Government has talked the talk on reducing emissions it is not walking the walk.
They have continued to open new areas for coal-seam gas developments and seem to be doing all they can for the profits of the fossil fuel industries.
As reported in AuManufacturing:
"In a long speech King repeatedly reiterated Australia’s determination to remain an exporter of LNG as well as coking coal into an indefinite future, spruiked the export of hydrogen produced from dirty Victorian brown coal, and failed to mention future green resources exports at all."
Ms King said:
“This fits with Japanese plans to greatly increase the use of hydrogen as part of a shift away from fossil fuels.”
Who does Ms King think she is fooling with this statement? Hydrogen made from fossil fuels is not 'shifting away from fossil fuels'!
It seems that neither Coalition governments nor Labor governments can do the ethical thing on emissions and climate change action. Both remain enslaved to the profits in the capitalist system and the political donations from the fossil fuel industries.
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2024/05/21
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David McBride exposed war crimes committed by Australian soldiers and poor command in Afghanistan.
In a gross miscarriage of justice, at the time of writing this section, David McBride is the only person on jail over the issue.
There has been talk about changing the law to protect whistle-blowers, but it hasn't gone beyond talk. It may be that the judge had no choice but to sentence Mr McBride to jail, but federal attorney-general, Mark Dreyfus, could have intervened and chose not to.
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This section added
2024/07/30
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The resources in and under the ground of Australia have enormous value and that value should be used for the good of the nation and the people of the nation. Instead the Australian and Western Australian governments are giving the resources to fossil fuel corporations including Chevron, Woodside, Shell, Index and Santos.
In a sane world the companies should have to pay, not only a fair price for the resources, but also a fee due to the climate damage the burning of the gas is causing.
An Australia Institute media release titled "Gas exports: 56% given to corporations royalty-free" included the key findings:
- No royalties are paid on 56% of the gas that is exported from Australia, including 73% of gas exported from WA.
- Over the last four years, multinational companies made $149 billion exporting royalty free gas.
- At least $13.3 billion in revenue could have been raised over the last four years had royalties been charged on royalty-free gas.
- No royalties are paid on gas supplying major facilities owned by Chevron, Woodside (Pluto), Shell, Inpex and Santos
- Royalties are only paid by the heavily subsidised North West Shelf and onshore fields.
The media release was dated 2024/05/30.
Statista reported that the value of natural gas exports from Australia in the fiscal year 2023 was around $92 billion. A simple calculation shows that if 10% royalties were to be charged on the 56% of this that is currently royalty free the Australian government would collect ($92b × 0.1 × 0.56) $5.2 billion. Looking at it another way, that is $5.2 billion that could be put into hospitals, roads, emissions reductions and a whole lot of useful projects, annually.
Some people, including many politicians, complain about the subsidies that are given to renewable energy, but as I've written on another page on this site, the subsidies, and gifts such as this, given to the fossil fuel industries are far greater.
These gifts to the fossil fuel industries are unethical to the point of being a betrayal of the Australian people.
It may be that the legislation allowing these gifts to the fossil fuel companies was passed by governments previous to the Albanese government, but there seems no indication that the Albanese government is making any effort to correct the situation.
Labor, under Anthony Albanese, and Liberal, under Peter Dutton, at the time of writing, seem to have agreed on a way to advantage themselves at the cost of the honest, progressive community independents and minor parties (including the Greens).
I intend to write more on this corruption of Australian politics once a reliable analysis becomes available.
Australia Institute: "research shows that poorly-considered changes to electoral laws can weaken, not strengthen, elections, including by concentrating financial power in major parties and excluding others, and giving incumbents an unfair advantage in the democratic process."