Turnbull critiqued for something foisted on him and forced to agree with, for party unity!?

Set up to fight for personal convictions against a theoretically loaded party room and Abbott, with a loaded deck? Like a spoiled kid who wrecks his favourite toy, rather than share with an older sibling?

Critique Malcolm, but who would you replace him with to improve the coalition's election prospects? Only Julie Bishop looks the goods/ likely to refuse what'S now a poisoned chalice?

Smoke and mirrors? but only if we're not serious about addressing climate change or adapting to it by literally drought proofing the wide brown land, using the brains we were born with and the power of the atom!

Therefore, recommend all the naysayers read, Richard Martin's, Thorium, super fuel, subtitled, green energy. Then Robert Hargreaves book, titled, Thorium, cheaper than coal, Or listen to them, Kirk Sorensen and Jam Petersen on U tube/google tech talks. If only to get the full unvarnished truth/facts.

Then understand, energy costing less than 2 cents per KwH could do if married to some visionary nation-building projects and deionisation dialysis desalination.

Or, how much more affordable, miracle cancer cure, bismuth 213 we could make, utilising WALK AWAY SAFE MSR's/thorium!

Yes I know we can make bismuth 213 using a particle accelerator and bombard radium with particles, using horrendous amounts of energy, at enormous cost, for few annual grams.

When we could make it by annual kilos in thorium burning MSR's. Creating SAFE, CLEAN, CHEAP energy as we do so.

Which is the more logical approach mine or the monstrously ill-informed GREEN recommendation?

A longish election campaign with the aforementioned speakers and their, already public domain, factual informative videos being used to counter misinformation and scurrilous antinuclear propaganda put about by folks whose knowledge is steam age at best! And expert at the smoke and mirrors stuff!?
Alan B.

Just two points should come to mind
1) a form of direct carbon pricing 2012-2014 actually reduced emissions
2) we should call the bluff of the 'renewables are cheaper' crowd and immediately revoke subsidies.
The net effect of simultaneous carbon pricing and no renewables subsidies may be difficult to predict. Most likely it would boost gas demand but the combination of local shortages and a carbon price would force the search for alternatives.

Gwh scale bulk energy storage will almost certain disappoint as it seems unable to make a return on capital. The white knight on the horizon is small modular reactors SMRs. They may not be ready until the 2030s. As coal closes we'll just have to pay top dollar for gas until then.

Great summation Alan.

Only a fool could fail to see the trail after you expose it for them.

Even if the often repeated lie of an increase of 2 degrees was true it is far better than Pensioners sitting in freezing houses while Government workers sit in offices paid by the tax payer. How badly we need a Trump who calls it as it is. Meanwhile China and India continue to build hundreds of coal fired stations. So good to see all the Drum parrots choking on their weeties this week.

No matter who we vote for a politician will get in. Julie Bishop? I hope not, I find her too blindly following US foreign policy. To make electricity affordable for pensioners, remove the access fee which is about 90 cents a day with my provider; just charge for consumption.

What a great idea, Newfie! An annual saving of $328 plus per year on each account. This is one pensioner who would be happy if that fee vanished without re-appearing in higher costs elsewhere.

If I am not using the connection to take power out of the grid, why should I pay to be connected to it? I can understand having to pay for the initial connection but I cannot see any reason, other than gouging, to charge daily for 'maintenance' of an existing connection.

I do notice that there are a number of loaded words, and sentences, and places where the author appears to have 'begged the question' by assuming that what he says is the case, while from my point of view, that is not necessarily so.

Thanks for that Has, As you say only fools would or could fail to see the blindly obvious.

Even so, coal is not dead, just tasked with fueling the nations transport options as extracted with flameless heat, CNG. And industrial gas. With the byproducts being hot top road pavement and residual carbon, which we need for highly profitable manmade graphene.

So no mines closed and coal-fired power station sites retasked as alternative transport fuel process plants etc?

Which should mean rather than costing us our thermal coal industry, we reinvent it to create even more jobs and save a packet on fully imported fuel. It's too easy!
Alan B.

Now that the Kingmaker Mathias Cormann has spoken (9.45am Thurs 23 Aug)

Turnbull has only a 30% chance of surviving a Leadership Ballot held

today or tomorrow.

Why is Mathias Cormann called a 'king maker'.
I must have missed that ceremony.