" Why buy oil from Middle Eastern and Russian regimes that hate democracy, and why buy stuff from China when they're getting so antagonistic?"

Wow!

Let's not buy from any regime antagonistic to democracy? Solar panels, oil, wind turbines, electricity towers, TVs, phones, white goods, etc etc etc.

Somehow we'll build 'em all here!

I don't know what sort of fantasy-world Max exists in, but I prefer to remain in the real world.

Climate activists blame fires, floods, and droughts on human causes, as though they are a recent occurrence. In 1857 the Mains streets in Penrith and Richmond NSW had six feet of water flowing through them. The area of Berkshire Park which is above most flood levels has deposits of sand from pre settlement folds. The weather changes and is influenced by the sun, currently the sun is 4 seconds closer to the Earth according to timekeepers.

"But Albo is allowing exploration for more oil and gas when we know we shouldn’t burn the oil and gas we’ve already developed!"

You brain must be packed with baked-beans.
All I'm hearing from you is continual brain-farts like your mind is common-sense intolerant.

How do you think the food is produced.
Do they not use oil and gas in the tractors.
How does it get to the supermarket?
Do trucks not use oil and gas?
How do they build the supermarket?
Does it not contain steel made from coal?
Is your food not wrapped in plastic?
How do you respond to these discussions on your computer?
Is your computer not made from plastic and from mining?
Is it not powered by fossil fuels?

You'd be dead in a fortnight if it wasn't for fossil fuels you dimwit.

Maybe you conveniently forget these facts as a result of your climate religion
- Which prevents you from keeping your feet on the ground and seeing things realistically.

If you are so opposed to the burning of oil and gas and use of coal.
then put your money where your mouth is and stop using or benefiting from things that were borne from their use.

I could suggest you go buy a tent and a bow and arrow, but guess what?
I'd bet even they're made with the use of fossil fuels.
No candles for you, they are derived from petroleum.
Without oil and gas, you'd have to go back to harpooning whales.

I love oil, gas and coal for the improvement in quality of life they have allowed me to enjoy, but that doesn't mean that I'm not open to better ways of doing things that are better for the environment.

I support things that are better for the environment 'but I won't cut my nose off to spite my face' like you.
Now go have your Sunday breafast of mealworms and house-crickets and lab grown frankenslop that you feed yourself through a tube with.
- Don't you dare eat anything that's been produced with the help of fossil fuels.

Life without Petroleum
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Po4UOfb7goU

[Cont.]
"In fact, they hate western democracy. Think of Russian gas. Think of Middle Eastern oil. If we believe in Democracy – why are we funding these regimes that don’t?"

More brain farts.

Which is it you care about 'Climate Change' or 'Democracy'
FYI, I support Russia.

I'm sick and tired of this gang mentality against other nations.
India has the right attitude, staying neutral and doing what's best for its people.
I don't care if we buy oil, gas and coal from gay-hating misogynistic cannibalistic pygmies who have a fetish for burning tyres and murdering female members of their own tribe to eat.

I want the best deal for our country and it's citizens wherever it comes from, I don't care if it comes from Russia, Iran, Venezuela or Saudi Arabia.

Do you understand that in order to bring into reality all the things you support like dam upgrades and electric trucks requires a plan, and investment.
Where is that money going to come from?
The money printer or foreign investment with strings attached?

Again, what's it going to be?
Lower wages?
Lower energy costs?
Lower transport costs?
- Or increase taxes?

How do you plan on making the things you want a reality?

"If you believe in a ‘free market’ for energy – why do we give $11.6 billion in government subsidies to fossil fuel companies?"

Same could be said for renewable subsidies, if we're making arguments about free markets numbnut.
- You can't have your cake and eat it too.

Why are you asking me when I don't make the financial decisions?
What about the 100 million in interest our country is paying daily?

Don't be so narrow minded.
Maybe some of those subsidies actually help our exports...
Money that might be used to assist our transition to a better way of doing things..
- To help pay for the things you want.

Mhaze, it's not a trope but understanding history. I'm not bothered by your response enough to go and read his original paper - as far as I can remember he was talking about conventional oil because at the time that was the only oil in consideration. "Unconventional oil" is a term he may or may not have used at the time - I don't care. That category of resource wasn't even in consideration then - just as today's deep ocean oil we're getting at wasn't in consideration then because the technology wasn't around then. Before you quibble with definitions be aware the American National Academy of Science accepted his paper!
In the meantime the peak oil movement has had another rise and fall in the work on predicting the much harder *global* peak oil. ASPO's Campbell and Laherre predicted in Scientific American in 1998 that global peak oil would happen in 2005, with decline beginning in 2010. These are not frenzied greenies but lifetime oil men. What happened?
"An important problem, here, is what’s to be intended exactly as “oil”. In the oil industry, it is customary to class liquid hydrocarbons into two categories, “conventional” and “non-conventional.” This classification has historical origins: in the early times of the industry all oil was referred to as “crude oil.” Still today, crude and conventional oil are considered synonyms and are defined as “relatively light, flowable oil found in fields” [7]. “Non-conventional” oil, instead, includes a wide range of substances, such as high density “heavy” oil, “deepwater oil”, “polar oil,” and everything that can be turned into a liquid fuel, from shale oil to the oil obtained from coal processing."
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2214629618303207

But ultimately I just don't care about who claimed what, when and where. Peak oil is taught as a geology 101 subject. What will really blow you away is the Export Land Model – how fast a rich oil producing nation can switch from exporter to needy importer.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Export_Land_Model

We need to electrify everything we can and move to renewables, fast, for our own energy security. Enough with supporting tyrants