John, I disagree with your premise about the thinking of our two potential leaders. They are much more limited than you suggest.

Both of them are rank opportunists. As politicians, their first thought is about themselves, how to promote themselves, how to grab total power and hold onto it, how to advantage themselves and their underlings, etc.

The fact that both potential leaders represent either the Big End of Town or The Low End of Town does not bode well for them having thoughts about what is best for our country in any area.

The fact that the Liberals won't release their costings and cuts and there are only a few days left shows how contemptuous they are about the electorate. I just watched Abbott at the Press Club. He grinds out cliches with a monotony that cannot be matched by anyone. The Liberals, of course, will advantage business and the rich during their tenure. It is their trademark!

I agree that there are major issues in Australia which need to be addressed but neither Abbott or Rudd, both ego-centrics, are unlikely to produce positive results.

God help Australia!

As soon as I hear someone babbling on about global warming I know they are not up to it, or are part of the fraud. It is so overwhelmingly obvious with all the recent data, that CO2 is very much a minor bit player, in all but plant food, sensible people should drop it now.

As we see that salesmen are the easiest to con with a good sales pitch, perhaps scientists are the easiest to con with a good science fraud. I hope so, as I don't like the idea that so many scientists are stupid or rip off men.

If in doubt refer to the old cliché, "the stone age didn't stop because they ran out of stones". The same will apply to the hydrocarbon, & nuclear ages.

So stop trying to use a dead horse. You can't ride one of them to victory, or anywhere much else. Try talking the fact that every extra person in Oz reduces the wellbeing of almost everyone already living here in almost every way.

Get the population to understand that & the politicians will stop the flood of immigrants to save their jobs. Stop flogging the resource thing too, it is a non event, in fact & to the public. There are enough resources in the sea to supply a thousand times the current requirements, When we need them, we'll go get them.

I have no idea if PESTs hot rock is going to supply the answer to energy. What I am sure of, is just like every thing in the past, when a need is identified, someone will respond, & get very rich doing it.

Some have asked for Coulter to substantiate his predictions - these are contained in the article - the Club of rome report from 1972 was dismissed as being alarmist - forty years later we find that their projections were accurate.
Tombee argues that 80% of Australians want growth. He is half right - 80% of Australians want to enjoy a good quality of life. However, since 1974 our GDP has kept steadily increasing whereas our quality of life has been decreasing. You do not need Lawn and Clarke's peer reviewed study to believe that just talk to someone who was an adult in 1974 - we may have more gadgets but we have to work longer hours and assume a greater debt in order to enjoy the sort of quality of life that we would like.

Great article John. I've just been at the National Press Club listening to Tony Abbott "grinding out the cliches" and it was a truly depressing experience. Twenty minutes of the carbon tax with no thought about why the carbon tax was implemented in the first place. (Sorry Hasbeen, climate change is real and happening now and largely man-made.) Once Abbott stopped talking about carbon tax he got onto the need to build all these new roads. Absolutely no awareness of the likely price rise in petrol because conventional oil is being replaced by expenive unconventional oil with very low EROIEs. And then there is the unsettled state of affairs in the Mid-East. Should the US decide to strike against Syria after all, one form of retaliation by allied states would be to reduce oil exports. Analysts say the price would go straight to $125 barrel (from the current US$116 in London) and possibly to $150. Let us not forget the GFC coincided with oil reaching $147 barrel. That will mean collapse of the oil price as demand collapses and then there is not enough money to extract the unconventional oil, most of which requires $100 or more/barrel to make it worthwhile. Oil resources may be seemingly infinite, but very much finite when we talk about affordable, extractable reserves. Transport is 86 per cent dependent on oil so we had better relearn how to ride a bike and how to grow much of our own food.

Oh Dear, here we go again.
The arithmetic does not listen to the optimists.

Here is a bit of a shock for those of you who think technology will save us all.

The increase in shale oil production will delay the final transition
from the plateau to decline by wait for it.,.,.

TWO WEEKS !

The worry about AGW is a waste of time because there is not enough
fossil fuels to generate that much co2.

I agree the politicians are the greatest obstical to the adoption
of realistic programs. I have spoken to two MHRs and they both go
through the motions of listening and commenting, but that is where they switch off.

Our rescources are not unlimited and are getting more expensive and
indeed are getting close to the point of unafordability.
I agree that we stand virtually no chance of getting action to
mittigate the effect of energy decline.

Complex systems theory shows that if no actions are not taken to
mittigate the effects of decline a society collapses very fast indeed.

Bazz, according to this article South Australia has an estimated 437 TRILLION cubic feet of gas reserves:

http://www.smh.com.au/business/mining-and-resources/australias-shale-reserves-among-worlds-biggest-20130611-2o15z.html

If you think this is only going to last two weeks, you will need to show your working. A mistake of five orders of magnitude is a little hard to swallow even from an AGW alarmist.