As far as I can tell lithium mines which are politically in favour use diesel trucks and get the rebate. If you take the rebate off coal miners then you'd have to take it from farmers and fishers as well. Meanwhile the cost of renewables subsidies is barely mentioned with current policy to provide about $25bn in annual support. Each wind turbine is said to get about $0.5m a year in the LGC subsidies which were supposed to be nearly phased out by now.

However the really big ticket items for renewables may be new transmission and storage. Millions are being spent on 'hydrogen ready' power plants which may not perform. Snowy 2 pumped hydro has gone from $2bn to $10bn in cost. Now farmers on sections of the transmission corridor want the powerlines underground at triple the cost. This will ultimately reflected in power bills which keep shooting up. Perhaps teals and teals-lite should incorporate this in their thinking.

It is a relief to read clear prose with facts provided.

Life in Australia more and more mirrors the outcomes of life in San Francisco, and the homeless continue to pile up on the streets to be ignored, or worse, blamed!

Our convoluted tax system is the most complex in the world. And because we refused to do real reform.

Fuel excise was a bastard idea at inception. And only made the tyranny of distance more of a factor in the cost of living and doing business here even more expensive and problematic. What we need is root and branch reform of the taxation system and energy policy as never are fit for purpose!

We need just one tax that's unavoidable to all who do business here and earn profit! And it cannot as now carry thousands of non-productive passengers. I'd settle for a transaction tax set at 15% and collected via the banks and electronic transfers and I'd back that with a cashless economy. To stop the cheats and avoidance.

I'd set it at 15% and allow current tax compliance cost which average 7% to be retained on the balance sheet. which would mean the tax imposition in real term would be just 8% adjusted. Energy currently fuels all our inflation and must be reformed or replaced.

I believe we need to transition to nuclear, i.e., MSR thorium ASAP and just export coal gas and oil. For which there's enormous market. Electric vehicles make a mockery of fuel excise which will fall on those with the least ability to change over!
Alan B.

The Fourth Industrial Revolution is the mad dream of Herr Schwab and his WEF billionaires who want all the wealth for themselves, with just a bit dribbling through to the rest of us via a 'living wage' - welfare in other words, keeping us subservient to the few who would control everything, particularly us.

With the help of Covid restrictions and climate lies and scare-mongering, the obscenely rich have become richer, and the poor have become poorer. The middle-class has been wiped out.

Given what the climate mania and biggest con mob for centuries is doing to the price and availability of electricity, there won't be any industry left, and the only revolution will be in the streets - that is if the political class doesn't beat all of the energy and spirit out of us, as they are quite clearly trying to do right now.

When I see Tony Soprano’s name on the ballot paper, only then will I vote.

That moment will be the exposure of truthfulness.

Don’t vote.