In Australia, we are in the middle of a Federal Election at the moment. It should be the case that the current Coalition government gets voted out, but they have the support of the Murdoch Empire and most of the media, despite their amazing incompetence, forceful suggestions of corruption and total disinterest in facing the problems of climate change.
We also have a variety of odd politicians competing. One of whom, is Clive Palmer a mining magnate, who has spent a lot of time in court…. It has been alleged that Mr. Palmer has budgeted $80 million for his parliamentary campaign, based on being Australia’s Donald Trump. This budget is plausible given that it is more or less impossible to avoid his adverts on the road, in the paper and on youtube, and has been for months.
The big questions we should be asking are: “Why is Clive Palmer spending all this money to get elected?” and “What’s in it for him?”
A plausible answer is that he is probably trying to get the huge Alpha North coalmine going in the Galilee basin near the proposed Adani Carmichael mine. Alpha North is as big as the Carmichael mine, and the Carmichael mine will probably destroy the Great Artesian Basin which inland Australia depends upon for its water. Two such mines make this almost a certainty. Adani has already been promised unlimited water access.
If Adani can get up, then his mine should be approved (after all he has the advantage of being ‘Australian!’), and he gets the rail line he needs which will have been built for the Adani mine to work.
If Adani is rejected, then he can still agitate for the money and infrastructure to get his mine going.
He apparently wants the coal mine to support a massive coal fired power station which he also wants to build in Queensland. This is despite Queensland already having more energy than it knows what to do with, but it would lock Australia into coal.
He can also probably challenge any attempts to get decent royalties out of mining companies, or to tax mining companies at a reasonable (non-zero) rate.
This is especially the case if his party holds balance of power in the Senate which is quite likely.
If any of this is true, the massive investment in his party has been worthwhile for him.
Tags: Disinformation, economics, technology
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