Liam Bartlett: Australia’s energy security has been sacrificed on altar of green politics amid Middle East war

If the war with Iran has done nothing else, it’s given us all a real-world, real-time lesson in what truly runs our lives.

A brutal reminder of which fuels actually matter and what government must do to protect the chain of supply and hence the livelihoods of its people.

But why do we need reminding at all? How can it be that such an energy-rich nation manages to find itself vulnerable in an energy crisis?

We have larger deposits of natural energy resources, through coal, gas and oil than almost any other country on the planet and yet, here we are, struggling to deliver to suburban bowsers around the country. How is that possible?

Of course, all of these are rhetorical questions because our road to the global fuel begging bowl is a one-way street to the office of energy minister Chris Bowen.

The myopic green dream of Mr Bowen and his co-cabinet ideologues has left us all exposed as they’ve driven us into renewables with the kind of zealotry usually reserved for religious extremists.

Indeed, the mad mullahs of the Iranian regime would be hard pressed to be more single minded and lacking in balance.

And as for truth? Well, for the past four years we’ve been told our power bills would come down by 250 dollars and that renewables were a cheap source of energy. Both whoppers that are right up there with assurances that the sun will always shine and the wind will always blow.

Bowen’s fanatical approach, aided and abetted by a conga line of true believers and latte-sipping Teal supporters is now set to send the country into bankruptcy.

Respected financial commentator Robert Gottliebsen has estimated the total cost on questionable green infrastructure could eventually mean a $1 trillion price tag spread over a minimum of 35 years.

Ironically that means the wokest are set to be the brokest because all those currently under the age of 30 will struggle to pay it back in their working lifetime. So much for progressive virtue.

But amidst the total lack of accountability and transparency, the minister also fails to disclose the human cost of creating our renewable energy grid and the danger of ceding control of it to the one country that has been allowed to dominate the supply chain; China.

In developing countries, like the Democratic Republic of Congo and Zambia, the extent of the misery created by Chinese mining companies is palpable.

We saw it up close during an assignment for 7NewsSpotlight and to say the conditions are appalling is to understate it entirely.

Health and safety regulations are non-existent with workplace deaths a common occurrence. Child and slave labour is used with impunity and environmental safeguards are a foreign concept.

The clear priority is to control the supply of the critical minerals that are essential for renewable energy components, either in generation or transmission.

China is then able to sell the resulting products like wind turbines and solar panels and batteries to countries like ours and eventually control most of our energy grid.

Without Chinese components or the minerals they’re extracting from these Dickensian hell-holes, our net zero future is dead. It’s that simple.

And I have to say, to witness the extent of their chokehold on two of the most crucial ingredients; cobalt and copper is to see a country truly weaponising poverty and environmental destruction to maintain a monopoly.

Yet somehow we pretend it’s clean and green and the end justifies the means.

Fortunately, until now, for Chris Bowen all of this has largely been out of sight and out of mind but those who experience first-hand, the other side of this have a vastly different perspective.

Like New York educated Zambian lawyer, Mehluli Batakathi, who is trying to represent hundreds of farmers whose lives have been destroyed by the toxic sludge from a Chinese copper mine.

He put it this way; “We’re at the tail end of the chain because you guys in your part of the world are talking about renewable energy, green revolution and whatever. But maybe it’s clean on your side but on our side, it’s definitely not clean. I guess we are carrying you on our shoulders and it’s quite heavy. We are paying a huge price. Some are paying with their lives.”

Mehluli is only telling the truth because make no mistake, virtually every single part of our so-called green energy transition contains minerals from this supply chain of wretchedness.

And while vast swathes of prime agricultural land around Australia are ripped up for new transmission lines and tightknit, hardworking farming communities are torn apart by heavily subsidised wind and solar projects that may or may not turn out commercially viable, the chief Chinese architects are laughing hardest and loudest.

As of last years official statistics, 57% of all the coal mined in the world was burnt by China while our coal industry domestically is treated like a leper.

Similarly, we are incapable of having a national debate about the merits of nuclear without scaremongering lies being thrown into election campaigns.

Meantime, China has announced plans to build 150 nuclear plants over the next 15 years. The policies of the Chinese Communist Party leave us in their wake not because they are smarter or have more resources but because their leaders, unlike Minister Bowen, ruthlessly put China first.

The great Australian paradox is we already have the world’s second largest reserves of cobalt, copper and nickel and the largest of lithium plus vast deposits of rare earths.

Our miners practise clean extraction, ethical standards and in many places, are shovel ready.

But we can’t compete with child labour, environmental destruction and billion-dollar false promises and a government that doesn’t truly support Australian investment in mining.

Indeed, Minister Bowen’s disastrous capacity investment scheme to promote renewables has even chosen to underwrite Chinese companies at the expense of home-grown projects.

Independent energy tsars tell us its possible for Australia to be self-sufficient but renewables have been prioritised over any fossil fuel opportunity, in either exploration or processing.

The clear result is national energy security has been hijacked on the altar of green philosophy and effectively, that means green handcuffs are now placed on the country’s energy independence.

If nothing changes, the future is clear. We certainly won’t have to wait for another war in the Middle East to experience our next energy crisis.