The far-right brought its pro-coal, pro-nuclear “reckless renewables” campaign from the bush to the suburbs at the weekend at Guildford, 27 kilometres west of Sydney. Barnaby Joyce showed up. As Murray Hogarth reports, there was more anger in the room than people, with less than 100, and it was all a bit weird.
THE NUCLEAR FILES: I don’t know what you did with your last Sunday afternoon, but I spent mine in the Australian version of Trumpland with a motley crew of ultra-conservatives, rural radicals, political malcontents, the Christian right, climate deniers and nuclear promoters.
Welcome to the bizarre world of the National Rational Energy Network (NREN), a campaign alliance united by a hatred of renewables, which professes to be a grassroots movement representing hundreds of organisations across Australia.
Although having just spent over four hours in their rhetorical patch, I’m far from convinced that NREN isn’t more astroturf than grassroots, a conveniently noisy stalking horse for the mining and fossil fuel lobby, with pro-nuke advocacy, their latest party trick.
Have I mentioned how much they hate renewables? That’s economy-destroying, koala-killing, reckless renewables in their world.
To borrow from US politics, it was all a bit weird. Like I’d been transported into a Trump supporters’ group. Instead of Make America Great Again, this was all about their Australian equivalent, with an eye to a federal election by May 2025 at the latest.
Renewables may not be eating our cats and dogs, but for this fraternity, they are killing our wildlife and our way of life, too.
Advance Australia’s new national spokeswoman Sandra Bourke was there, triggered by offshore wind farm plans near her coastal NSW home, promising a “massive nationwide campaign” up to the election, targeting “greens untruths” and the “dollars and destruction” of renewables.
This could just sound like bravado.
But Advance, the conservative answer to GetUp!, a year ago spent $10 million plus on its highly successful “Vote No” campaign in the Voice referendum, backing the Liberal-National coalition’s stance, and their side won, breaking progressives’ hearts.
So it’s at least worth paying attention to what this constituency is saying and doing.
With less than 100 people attending, despite weeks of event promotion, it was anger that filled the room.
Talking of the Coalition, the highlight of the afternoon was a surprise appearance from federal opposition frontbencher and former National Party Deputy Prime Minister Barnaby Joyce, whose wife, political journalist Vikki Campion, moderated, or arguably helped to inflame, two of the speaking panels, one rural, one political.
In a wide ranging impromptu address, Joyce canvassed the evils of foreign multinationals and domestic billionaires, economy-destroying renewables (aka “intermittent power swindle factories”, as he dubbed them), the decline of Pax Americana and the rise of China, clever Jesuit tricks, Jesus Christ and his 12 mates, global temperature reducing god complexes, beguiling political lobbyists, and a righteous call to take back the nation.
His parting words, anticipating his unscripted speech getting into the media, were:
You’ll all be crazy people, and I’ll be, you know, Barnaby, the hillbilly, but it’s all right because we’re going to win.
It all started in Guildford!
The first thing you notice at this mob’s events is a complete absence of any Acknowledgement of Country, much less an official Welcome to Country. They did start off by standing for the national anthem, although they skipped over playing the allegiance to the King (I’m figuring that Charles III is far too woke for them).
Later, one of the speakers, Sydney-based Liberal Party maverick and stirrer Matthew Camenzuli, deliberately disrespected First Nations Australians. Thanking the “current owners” of the land on which they were meeting, the Guildford Leagues Club in western Sydney.
It was petty and unfunny, a cheap shot. But Camenzuli was reading this particular room at the local pokie palace, located in the heart of the federal seat of McMahon, held by Labor’s Minister for Climate and Energy, Chris Bowen, and he was far from alone in attacking perceived political correctness.
None of this discouraged the coalition’s “Vote No” Indigenous torch bearer Jacinta Nampijinpa Price from sending a video message attacking renewables, lauding nuclear and targeting absent political rivals, saying:
Anthony Albanese’s renewables-only mission is nothing more than ideology and pandering to the Greens.
Never mind that Prime Minister Albanese’s Labor government continues to embrace gas in the nation’s energy future and is extending the life of major coal mines.
The audience and the speakers were predominately white, older and angry about a lot of things.
Renewable energy. Coal power plant closures. Anti-disinformation legislation. Foreign investors. Indigenous recognition. Transgender rights and the Gay Mardi Gras, and even gender rights for that matter. The cost of living. Chris Bowen and Labor. The Greens. The Teals. Net zero. Scott Morrison for committing Australia to net zero. The political system. The decline of Western civilization. The list goes on.
It’s hard to say why the first speaker, who didn’t fit the stereotype at all, was there to kick off the proceedings. Vietnamese refugee, now independent federal MP Dai Le had ventured out of her neighbouring electorate of Fowler, and she wasn’t reading the room well at all, confessing to supporting renewables, being non-committal on nuclear, and declining to attack the Teals.
Professing to be pro-gas didn’t win back any friends for Le. These were not her people.
Le left quickly after her speech and was attacked repeatedly throughout the afternoon over her pro-renewables stance, by the likes of Christian right stalwart Lyle Shelton of Family First, who’s plan for energy is coal-gas-nuclear.
The Australian Nuclear Association was there too, including promoting an event, for which the principal sponsor is the Australian Government through ANSTO, the Australian Nuclear Science and Technology Organisation.
All I can say is that the war on renewables and the pro-nuke insurgency can make for strange bedfellows.
strikes me that there is little room for a rational conversation in this space. I have a daughter with Anorexia and when she is in full flight, rational arguments get you nowhere. I believe it is the same with these people.
What motivates the majority of people? Money! The economics of renewables will win out. The LCOE is still with renewables and batteries are coming down the cost curve, with a huge amount of room for improvement. Even this week we se that coal plants are experimenting with shutdowns and fast restarts as the dogma of “baseload” is pushed aside. We need to be mindful of these folks, there are probably more of them than we realise, but they are on the wrong side of history.