Hey, kids, let’s play ‘Blackout’!

In happier and distant days, Victoria liked to describe itself as ‘The Garden State’ — a descriptor that fairly evoked, if not the entire landscape from Murray Bridge to Mallacoota, certainly the quarter-acre clatter of Victas on any given weekend morning. Alas, that two-stroke soundtrack is out of fashion these days, with sundry academics and town planners warning of ‘sprawl’ and what they seem to believe is the soulless solitude of our cities’ outer suburbs. According to the prevailing theories advanced by those who presume to tell the rest of us how to live, high-density inner-city living is just the shot.

And they might just have a point! When the next big blackout hits, as happened recently in wind-powered South Australia, it will be just a short stumble down a darkened apartment block’s hallway to borrow a candle from better-prepared neighbours. Victoria’s energy minister, Lily D’Ambosio (left), would no doubt approve, as she appears to have a remarkable ability to discern wisdom in the most errant nonsense. Click this link and you’ll hear her refusing to concede that South Australia’s troubles have anything whatsoever to do with its reliance on so-called renewables. Indeed, she sees that state as a model to be emulated as Victoria consigns coal to history and pins its hopes on bird-mincing wind turbines.

Now Ms D’Ambosio cannot be entirely stupid. Even allowing for Labor’s gender quotas, one does not slither to the top of the pre-selection pole without having at least a few clues. So where could a minister whose responsibility it is to keep her state illuminated get such silly ideas?

Look at the picture atop this post. It is the young, eager and fresh-faced staffers she took on a recent outing to the LaTrobe Valley, where she announced that a large and efficient, coal-burning power station will soon be shut down. The unit produces more than 20% of the state’s power, so you might imagine that an adequate replacement would be needed.

Well you would think that if you happened to be in receipt of the adult counsel that sometime Quadrant contributor Alan Moran offers in his most recent post at the Catallaxy blog. Click the link below to read the sort of sage counsel that Ms D’Ambrosio is making it her ministerial imperative to ignore.

Then again, perhaps she is just too busy taking her advisers for Happy Meals at McDonald’s.

— roger franklin

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