Just like that: 48% of Australians happy to pull out of Paris

The idea of Pulling out of Paris is barely discussed in Australia. Tony Abbott made it a national discussion for five minutes last week, but apparently that’s all it takes, or even less. After 30 years of non-stop agitprop and years of bipartisan rah, rah, solemn “history in the making” cheer, the truth is Australian’s mostly don’t give a toss. All we had to do was ask them.

It’s a loaded question framesd as “if pulling out could result in lower electricity prices”... Purists may protest that this overstates the result. Not so. If we had any kind of rational national discussion it would be obvious to all that the “could” is a wishy washy misleading and loaded term — seeding the possibility that pulling out might not lower prices. If people knew that no nation on Earth with lots of unreliables also has cheap electricity, even more people would want to abandon Paris.

By more than two to one, people want cheaper power, not Paris points:

Almost two thirds, 63 per cent, of voters also claimed that cheaper power should be governments’ priority with only 24 per cent believing reducing emissions should take precedence.

In any normal electorate this would be a seismic hot number. Even a quarter of Greens voters are willing to chuck Paris for cheaper power bills. And it’s clearly a dominant issue among One Nation voters. What better way for a rampaging Coalition to steal back centre right voters and win the centre left too? Except they won’t — Turnbull gave up this electoral gift and almost lost the last election, all he had to do was follow Abbott’s lead.

This revealing polling comes from The Australian, under the title:

The Minister for Energy and stuff spins on:

Mr Frydenberg told The Australian he believed the country had now “turned the corner” on prices.

“When it comes to energy policy, the Turnbull government has a laser-like focus on reducing power prices,” Mr Frydenberg said. “Everything we do is about putting the consumer first and helping create jobs across the economy. We have now turned the corner on prices, following a series of reforms to network, wholesale and retail energy markets. Wholesale power prices are down about 25 per cent from the same period last year, and retail prices came down on July 1 in Queensland, NSW and South Australia.”

Clearly that ain’t true. If they were putting the consumer first we’d be out of Paris already, and subsidies for unreliable energy would be over. Power prices are only “down” from their Olympic record levels. Lest we forget, decade after decade, $30/MWh.

h/t George

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