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7 comments on Record oil price sparks call for petrol rationing
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Sahne Oliver comes across as the ususal talking head public face of AMP's economic gnomes but in this case I think I have to agree. The price will have to rise until the hurt is felt and there is serious "demand destruction". Joe Sixpack will simply give up his low paid job cleaning Shanes toilet and Shane will have to do it himself. Joe will turn to petty larceny to feed his family and Shane will need to start thinking about how to protect his clients investments from marauding mobs.
I think Bruces heart is in the right place, it's just that we are no longer a bunch of shell shocked convicts, accustomed to relying on our mates to eke out aliving in this god forsaken land. Now we are no better than a bunch of greedy yeast and rationing of oil would not survive past the first election after its introduction. Strangely I could see KRudd introducing it if we get an extreme shock. The legislation is already in place i.e The Liquid Fuels Emergency Act. Quietly amended last year. But can you imagine the chorus of opposition MPs coming out to salm the government for piss poor preparation and promising to get a rocket under the oil explorers and just find more of good old Aussie oil. The punters will lick their boots. But they won't deliver.
My rant for the day......
Tell us what you really think :-)
I like Bruce but I partly agree with Shane (although he's wrong about biofuels in the long run).
At heart I'm a free market fundamentalist - rationing just gums up the works from my point of view - rising fuel prices are good - they make everyone salivate for alternatives. Once you get into the shrinking pie mentality things really will collapse quite easily.
KRudd and co are looking to fire up exploration already, in the form of big tax breaks for explorers - see the next Bullroarer...
The question will be how the industry responds. Just like negative gearing , at some point you want to make a net gain on the investment and tax breaks or not you still have to be reasonably sure of finding the stuff in big enough quantities. I would have thought that $100 bbl would have provided enough incentive. Am I missing something?
I also can't quite reconcile KRudds greenhouse chest thumping with a committment to make coal mining and delivery to China more efficient meaning more of the stuff even faster (the so-called infrastructure bottlenecks); this oil exploration tax deal and the $500M Aussie Hybrid car which will save exactly zero in GHG emissions and do nothing for overall oil consumption in this country.
I didn't mean to imply any meaningful difference will be achieved - just that the appropriate political contortions are underway to avoid later undeserved scapegoating by the opposition.
And I certainly don't have any sense that Labor is going to be much better about greenhouse emissions than Johnny was - at this point they are just making lots of good noises but with no real promise of follow through - its business as usual for the coal industry...