Scott Morrison’s and Angus Taylor’s furious reactions to the Brookfield/Mike Cannon-Brookes attempted takeover of AGL and their threats to use regulatory mechanisms to block it will open a new front in the war of independents against so-called Liberal moderates in metropolitan seats.
Self-described moderates like Dave Sharma, Jason Falinski, Trent Zimmerman, Tim Wilson — who is a spear carrier for Taylor in the energy portfolio — and whoever the NSW Liberals eventually find to stand against Zali Steggall in North Sydney, will face a simple question in the coming election campaign: do they back the efforts of Morrison, Taylor and Treasurer Josh Frydenberg to derail a takeover of AGL that would significantly accelerate the removal of its unreliable, expensive and dangerous coal-fired power stations?
Because of the involvement of Canadian firm Brookfield in the proposal, Morrison and Frydenberg can shut it down without any recourse or need for justification via the Foreign Investment Review Board, which operates with no rules, transparency or appeal rights.
There’s also the threat of the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission (ACCC) assessing the competition implications of the deal. Who’ll be running the ACCC from next month? The government’s hand-picked chair, former apparatchik of the climate denialist Murdoch family, Gina Cass-Gottlieb.
Any Morrison intervention to prevent an earlier shutdown of AGL’s ancient coal-fired power stations would be consistent with its efforts to prop up the fossil fuel technology. Taylor spent much of 2021 pushing for a special CoalKeeper tax on households that would pay fossil fuel power stations to keep operating even when their electricity wasn’t needed.
But an intervention wouldn’t merely be about Morrison’s obsessive support for fossil fuels to appease the climate denialists in his party and the Nationals. It would also be another red flag to genuine liberals in the Liberals’ heartland.
Party insiders talk of a deep voter antipathy towards Morrison in traditional Liberal seats over his attitude towards women, his high-spending, high-taxing government, and his lack of actual Liberal values — or for that matter any demonstrable values at all.
An intervention to prevent the market, and investors, from responding to the challenge of rapid decarbonisation would be yet another signal that this purportedly Liberal prime minister has abandoned both liberalism and core Liberal values of supporting a market economy and minimising state intervention.
The fact that it would be done with the goal of preventing climate action would make it doubly bad.
That’s why the proximity of the election makes the play by Brookfield and Cannon-Brookes so complex for Liberals in once-safe metropolitan seats. Does an MP like Jason “death taxes” Falinski in Mackellar back state intervention to block a free market response to his own government’s failures in energy policy? For that matter, what will Frydenberg tell voters in his seat after he has committed to blocking a takeover of AGL to keep coal-fired power plants going for up to two decades longer than the market believes they need to?
Frydenberg might also have to explain why he talks up Australia’s eagerness for international investment, but blocks investment if it doesn’t accord with his government’s pro-fossil fuel agenda. Call it “fossil risk”.
And remember that each coal-fired power station is responsible for scores of deaths a year from particulate pollution. AGL’s Bayswater coal-fired power station is responsible for 40 deaths a year, according to a 2018 study, along with an array of other health impacts.
The price of any state intervention to keep the plants operating comes with a human, as well as a climate, cost.
Should Morrison, Taylor and Frydenberg stand back and let the market decide? Let us know your thoughts by writing to letters@crikey.com.au. Please include your full name to be considered for publication. We reserve the right to edit for length and clari
