ADVANCE has already taken on the lies at the heart of Energy Minister Chris Bowen’s recent defence of the government’s Net Zero commitment in The Australian.

But there’s so much more he’s lying about that we couldn’t help but have another go.

Because while you’re paying higher prices for power, he's writing articles saying it’s all going as planned.

And we’re not going to cop that.

Let’s start with this whopper:

These cost savings [from renewables] are also true in Australia – hence why one in three homes has rooftop solar and why every day a thousand Australians have a battery installed into their home or business under Labor’s Cheaper Home Batteries program.

Are the cost savings in the room with you, Chris?

Because they’re not showing up on the bills for most Aussie families.

And yes, many homes have installed solar panels and batteries. But, as Bowen himself actually admits, these aren’t “savings”, these were government programs, paid by the taxpayer.

As always, every claim made about renewable energy being “cheaper” is hiding the fact that it takes enormous government subsidies to make it cheaper.

Bowen goes on to say:

And more large-scale renewables in the grid are insulating us from the worst of price spikes.

This is disingenuous. When Aussie power bills have tripled, you’re not doing us a favour by stopping them from going up more

And, in any case, it’s not true, because the price spikes have been caused by the fact that renewables are intermittent which makes it more expensive to respond to peak demands.

Finally, perhaps the worst and most offensive part of Bowen’s article:

And to the argument that Australia is only 1 per cent of emissions. Well, there are only eight countries in the world that contribute more than 2 per cent of emissions … Australia accounted for around 1 per cent of Allied troops in World War II. I don’t recall Menzies or Curtin arguing that this meant Australia needn’t bother.

Aside from being borderline disrespectful, this analogy makes no sense. Because you can point to battles fought and victories won by Australian troops, but the climate is not a series of discrete engagements, it’s a whole system, and Australia’s contribution will not make a difference.

It just won’t.

Especially not when China and India continue to increase their emissions.

As we wrote previously, the climate is not an accountant managing a ledger.

If we contribute 2 per cent to ending carbon emissions, we won’t get a few summers off from bushfires as a reward.

These arguments that we need to do our “fair share” must be called out for the fake arguments they are. 

The hard fact is that Aussies are paying the highest power prices they’ve ever paid. That’s the reality.

All this obfuscation over government subsidies and international climate action don’t change that fact.

But a refreshing change would be a government that stops this ideological crusade and gets back to basics.

Those Allied troops Bowen mentioned came home to Australia and built a prosperous, free, county because of our abundant cheap energy.

We can return to that, and it starts with ending Net Zero.

^{Image source: NT News. Chris Bowen is one of the ‘most erratic’ ministers in the government: Dutton.}