We live in an ever-changing world where uncertainty seems to be increasing.

We have major conflicts playing out in Ukraine and the Middle East.

Western countries are facing cultural stress largely due to the burgeoning rates of migration of Muslims from the Middle East and North Africa.

Our culture is also challenged by the left intelligentsia who decry European history and culture and have demonised colonisation. They are also challenging conventional Western cultural norms by their emphasis on identity politics which seeks to divide us on race, gender and other human attributes.

Overlaid over all of this is a fanaticism about climate change. In response to this we have progressively increased the cost of electricity and reduced the reliability of electricity supply.

As a result of these multiple threats Australia is floundering.

In the 1980’s and 1990’s Australia embraced globalisation. Tariffs on Australian products were progressively removed allowing us to benefit from cheaper imports. This undoubtedly improved our standard of living.

Free trade does indeed bring benefits but it only works when markets can function in a relatively unfettered way and we have reliable supply chains. But unfortunately this is not always the normal scenario.

Let’s look at a couple of topical examples.

Australia has just finalised a free trade agreement with the European Community. From all accounts the results of this agreement don’t provide many beneficial results for Australia. The prime reason for this is that the Europeans have always provided a particularly cloistered environment for their primary producers. This curtails the opportunity to reap significant economic benefits from such agreements.

Or take a look how Australia is faring with liquid fuels and fertiliser.  In the last twenty years, largely because of the environmental movement, Australia has become almost totally dependent on foreign suppliers of liquid fuels. Australia, in particular, is a very large consumer of diesel fuels. Our mining industry and our agricultural industry is heavily dependent on diesel. What’s more, because of the huge distances produce must be transported in Australia, our transport industry is also particularly dependent on diesel.

But with respect to importing liquid fuels, the current war in the Middle East has exposed how susceptible our supply chains are to interruption. And whilst we may have derived some short term benefits from emasculating our liquid fuels industry (with respect to both extraction and refining)  we are now vulnerable, not only in an economic sense but our very sovereignty is now at stake.

The curtailment of gas supplies in the Middle East has also raised other major concerns. Urea is the principal fertiliser used in Australia’s agricultural industries. Most of it is imported. Urea is manufactured from natural gas and those supplies are now under threat. Other products derived from gas which are now in short supply include plastics and pharmaceuticals.

The move to globalisation has caused other dilemmas.

Dominant amongst these is the pursuit of Net-Zero. Under this hypnotic globalist thrall, Australians have been persuaded to sacrifice our energy economics and security to the forlorn pursuit of ameliorating climate change. Because of this we have a nation truly blessed with energy resources which now endures some of the highest energy costs in the world in the vain hope that changing our internationally insignificant emissions will somehow have a beneficial effect on the world’s atmosphere!

Despite the Albanese Government insane pursuit of Net Zero and consequentially renewable energy, and despite the resulting huge increase in electricity prices and the ensuing decline in electricity system security, Australia is still reliant on fossil fuels which still provide 90% of our energy requirements.

There is a mood in Australia and other Western nations to retreat from globalisation back to nationalism. In the US this trend saw the emergence of Trump. In the UK it is being demonstrated by the rise of Nigel Farage. And of course in Australia it underpins the recent success of One Nation.

A countervailing force to this movement has been the insidious propaganda of the left which has permeated our learning institutions and various arms of government which seeks to denigrate the West, its history and democracy.  It seeks to influence people to be ashamed of our nation. It seeks to delegitimise Nationalism.

But current events have shown the dangers of relying on others to provide the essentials our nation needs to progress its economy and standard of living. It is inevitable that there must now be a move to secure greater self-reliance in critical areas.

But what must we do to secure such self-reliance? In an interview on Sky News, Housing Minister, Claire O’Neill ventured that the only way to achieve self-reliance was to accelerate our efforts to pursue renewable energy! It astounded me that she seemed to be serious!

Despite the government’s renewable energy zealotry and the imposition on energy consumers of massive cost imposts, our electricity grid is still predominantly supplied by fossil fuels. Only the most gullible renewable energy zealots could possibly imagine this might change for many decades.

And when it comes to liquid fuels our mining, agricultural and transport industries are still predominantly dependent diesel. There seems little likelihood that in the foreseeable future that is likely to change.

Then I heard Energy Minister Chris Bowen proclaim that whilst Russia and Iran might impact our supply of fossil fuels they could never deprive us of the benefits of the wind and sunlight that power our renewable energy plants. But he neglected to mention that our much vaunted renewable energy intervention is almost entirely dependent on China for the supply of photovoltaics, solar arrays, wind turbines, batteries and electric vehicles! So whilst Bowen ridicules the notion that we should be dependent on undemocratic, belligerent states like Iran and Russia he implies it is perfectly OK to be dependent on Communist China.

Our energy sovereignty seems hardly advanced by our move to renewables whilst this constraint in the supply chain remains!

But if we are to regain some self-sufficiency in energy then surely we should be seeking to develop more of the resources our nation has been blessed with, but governments have erected huge impediments to the extraction of more supplies of carbon fuels which are crucial to our long-term welfare.

Another weakness we need to confront if we are to protect our sovereignty is our manufacturing capability. It is another impact of globalisation and the high cost of our electricity that our manufacturing capability has continued to decline in recent decades.

The Albanese government claims it is addressing this issue with its laughable Future Made in Australia program. Manufacturing is severely impeded by our high energy costs, our excessive regulation, and uncompetitive costs of labour. The renewable energy fetish combined with the union domination of our labour force makes manufacturing uncompetitive in the international economy.

I suppose the question we now need to ask is will the government learn some lessons from this parlous situation we find ourselves in or will they continue to ignore the existential economic threats that confront us. So far the signals seem to be that they will treat this threat as some sort of aberration and continue on as usual.

Chris Bowen is already doubling down on his Net Zero renewable energy mantra.

But perhaps this is the future our climate change zealots have wished for. We certainly are seeing a curtailment in fossil fuel consumption. But predictably we are also seeing threats to our food production and higher transport costs which will inevitably lead to higher costs of for most produce. We are also witnessing the demise of Australian manufacturing.

The government seems to be wagering that a boom in critical minerals extraction will deliver us prosperity. But how realistic is this? There is surely some potential here but how long will it take before this promising industry is beset with all the restrictions our other extractive industries face? There will undoubtedly be environmental concerns, undue regulations and no doubt there will be discoveries of important indigenous cultural sites that prohibit mining. What’s more, the union movement reinvigorated by the Albanese government will demand their members are gifted huge benefits by those seeking to exploit these resources.

This seems to me to be a tipping point.

Will we continue to denigrate the use of fossil fuels and condemn our country to energy poverty?

Surely in the face of this existential threat we should resume exploration for oil and gas and encourage its extraction and refinement.

Surely we should be seeking to increase our coal fired generation.

Surely we should facilitate the use of nuclear as a long term low emission option.

Surely we should be seeking to use “coal to liquids”  technology to secure our liquid fuel supply as they have done in South Africa for decades.

Surely we should be seeking to manufacture more ethanol from agricultural waste and encourage the manufacture of bio-diesel.

Who knows that if we were smart enough to use our resources well and reduce electricity charges one day we might even be able to manufacture something!