Why You Should Oppose the Australian Greens Too By James Reed
Of course, hating people is bad, but I think it is right to at least dislike, or better oppose political parties, which are doing harmful things. People are suffering, especially the working class, unemployed and economically vulnerable, people the Left should care about, because of skyrocketing power costs, and it is only going to get worse. But the Australian Greens do not seemingly care, as while in principle supporting lower power bills, a good thing, still oppose energy market intervention with price caps. Somehow this is supposed to compensate coal and gas companies, the great evils in the Green social cosmology. One would have thought that price caps would have nothing to do with that. These proposed price caps should be the first step in giving poor people some energy relief.
“The Greens are locked in a war of words with the federal government on whether proposed energy market intervention will compensate coal and gas companies.
Greens leader Adam Bandt says his party won't support the price caps designed to address soaring power prices, insisting asking taxpayers to compensate producers for any losses would be unfair.
But Prime Minister Anthony Albanese says there is 'nothing' in the legislation that compensates producers, with gas prices simply temporarily capped at $12 a gigajoule for 12 months and coal at $125 a tonne.
Federal parliament will return on Thursday in order for the government to pass its plan to lower rising energy costs for homes and small businesses and with the coalition opposing the move, Labor will need Greens backing to get it through the Senate.
Mr Bandt said his party would engage constructively with the government.
"We've been saying for some time this is urgent ... we're doing that in good faith and that's a different approach to what the opposition is taking where they're just saying 'no' to everything," he told ABC Radio.
"This question of whether the public at a moment where people are doing it tough, why should the public be asked to put its hand in its pocket to give money to coal corporations who have been making record profits, including off the back of a dictator's invasion of the Ukraine?"
The Greens have also argued power bill relief should be higher than the $230 per bill treasury analysis suggests.”
Well, increasing power bill relief beyond $ 230 per bill would be fine, but we have yet to see concrete proposals about how to do this.”
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