There are no prizes for Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese and Climate Change and Energy Minister Chris Bowen strutting the world stage, telling the world what it should do and what they will do on climate change. Someone wrote that for him.
Just look at the mess we are in. Our major defence programs are in disarray and every one of our major defence programs is in disarray or scheduled to deliver capability, so far into the future, that it is in the realm of science-fiction. Last year, our prime minister told 34 OECD members, “I firmly believe we can solve the biggest challenges of our time while laying the groundwork for long-term economic security and shared prosperity.”
But Albo told 34 OECD members, last year, that, “the fight against climate change must be at the heart of global cooperation; our goal is for Australia to be a renewable energy superpower.” Australia’s electricity generation contributes only 32 percent towards greenhouse gas emissions. Transport is 18 percent and agriculture is responsible for 14 percent of greenhouse gas emissions.
I wonder if Albo tells these glad-handers that not one of our services, Navy, Air Force, or Army has strategic strike power. Does he tell them that every one of our major defence programs is in disarray or scheduled to deliver capability, so far into the future, that it is in the realm of science-fiction? And if we don’t lease a submarine and continue to pretend that we can make them in Adelaide, we won’t get one before 2040, at the earliest.
But back to the Netherlands and a bloke by the name of Geert Wilders. This is a man who has campaigned against immigration, the European Union, Islam, and climate change. He has been in the parliament since 1988 and was part of the Centrist VVD Party before setting up his own Party for Freedom in 2006. Since that time he has encouraged an alteration of Europe’s political landscape, seen in Italy, Germany, and France or referred to by Hungary’s Viktor Orban as the “winds of change.”
Mr. Wilders does not have enough seats to form a majority in the Parliament, without other parties, parties who have kept him out of the government for more than a decade. But the scale of his victory has strengthened his hand in negotiations. He is a firm backer of Israel and advocates shifting the Netherlands Embassy to Jerusalem, and argues that “Israel is fighting for its existence against the forces of hate, barbarism and terrorism.”