About half of Australia’s $19 billion trade deficit is the result of oil imports. A first step towards cutting imports would be the development of a domestic ethanol fuel industry, writes Pat Byrne. Rodrigo de Rato y Figaredo, head of the International Monetary Fund (IMF), told the National Press Club in Canberra that Australia had…
Shortly after this issue of News Weekly was printed the sale of Snowy Hydro was cancelled by the Federal, NSW and Victorian governments. The privatisation of Snowy Hydro could create another Enron-style California electricity crisis and further undermine the reliability of timed irrigation water releases down the Murray and Murrumbidgee River system. Both concerns are a threat to Australia’s national interests, writes Patrick J. Byrne. At stake – in the current proposed sell-off of Australia’s great infrastructure project, the Snowy Mountains hydro-electric scheme – is strategic control of both the principal water system and the principal electricity market in Australia.…
As the global energy crisis deepens, Microsoft founder Bill Gates has put US$84 million into an ethanol plant, signalling to investors that ethanol is now big time, writes Pat Byrne. Bill Gates, founder of the Microsoft empire and one of the world’s wealthiest men, has put US$84 million into an ethanol plant, signalling to investors that ethanol was now big time. With oil prices now at record levels and set to stay high – compared to the US$20-30 a barrel that the world had become used to – and concerns over security of future supply from the Middle East, investment…
Australia imports $1.8 billion in seafood because government-sanctioned radical environmentalism is shutting down our fishing industry, writes Pat Byrne. Professor Walter Starck, one of the world’s leading reef ecology experts, has roundly criticised the Great Barrier Reef Marine Park Authority (GBRMPA) for its persistence in shutting down more and more of the Great Barrier Reef…