Ah, the queue of Q’s in that title.  Almost worth stopping there eh?  But that’d make little sense.  Quite unlike last night’s episode of Q and A.

Last night I had the pleasure of watching Adam Spencer, Neil de Grasse Tyson, Ranjana Srivastava and Beth Fulton lock horns on the panel.  Well, perhaps lock horns isn’t really a good descriptor.  How about get along like a group of mates over a beer?  Basically 4 people of scientific and mathematical backgrounds (a mathematician, an astrophysicist, an oncologist and a marine ecologist) answering questions fired at them by audience members.  And what a joy is was to listen to 4 POSITIVE guests on a panel.  No political avoidance of an issue, no bollocks, claptrap, dodging of questions, reverse psychology, yelling over the top of each other, etc.  Civilised discussion of interesting topics.

I enjoyed it immensely.  And I get the feeling Tony Jones enjoyed it too.

And how amazing it was to hear Neil Tyson speak on what the hell is going on with our Government’s policy towards Renewable Energy.  Yes ladies and gents, think back a few years to when we ratified Kyoto leaving only the Americans and Canada as the hold outs.  And now the Americans are looking at us in bewilderment.  What the hell happened?  Well, I guess you know what happened.  Kind of a rhetorical question really.  We got Abbott.  They got Obama.  Or to put in another way, they won and we lost.

So to the title, especially the Quando? bit.  Quando I believe means When in Italian.  So I say to the Australian people, WHEN?  When are you lot going to support renewables over coal with your vote.  Hmm?  Barnaby Joyce is out there trying to kick heads around to stop an enormous coal mine in his electorate.  And bloody good on him – the Liverpool Plains are some of the most fertile land this country has.  If they found a big coal deposit in Mosman would they dig it up?  Pig’s bloody arse they would.  The Liverpool Plains deserve to be defended as prime agricultural land.  And from what I see Barnaby Joyce is nobody’s Yes man.  There are plenty of things we don’t agree on I bet, but I respect the fact that he is going against the party line to not just make a stand for his electorate, but to defend local food production over a mega coal mine.  At least he is showing that the junior partner of the Coalition are not total pushovers.  There are some balls being displayed amongst them.  Hoorah.

However, they are still junior partners.  And they will NEVER have the numbers to be the Senior partner.  And consequently they will NEVER be in a position to dictate any sort of policy.  They basically get a chance to have a whine in the Caucus before being outvoted on anything and everything, no matter how sacred it would be to their electorates.  So they get thrown a bone or two occasionally before an election to make sure they can say they have a “seat at the table” on their election brochures.  Big deal.  They will NEVER get the big issues their way.

Joe Hockey doesn’t like Wind Turbines – they aren’t aesthetically pleasing to him.  The Mad Monk wants to lessen the Renewable Energy Target – it’s too much already.  Obviously not enough money flowing to him from coal.  What needs to happen to these pair of idiots is they should be put up in a swag together for 10 days and forced to live near the power station alongside Mt Arthur Coal Mine near Muswellbrook.  Then spend 10 days in a swag on a property near Goulburn living near to some wind turbines.  Obviously outside the legislated distance that they need to be from residential properties.  Then they come back and write an essay describing the experience and which was better.  And if they say coal, drop a Mine Truck on the pair of them because they would obviously be lying.

This country has greater renewable energy generation potential than most others across the globe.  But we don’t use it the way we should.  When are we going to wake up?  When do we meet our potential?  When do we remember that we used to think we were the clever country?  Quando?  Scusa, non parlo inglese.