Will Victoria Become the Australian California?

According to news reports thousands of people and businesses are leaving California in the US to move to states like Texas and Florida. They are moving to escape from loony socialist governance, crime, dysfunctional cities, and associated high costs of living including taxes.

When I lived in Queensland from the 70s to 90s, people were moving from New South Wales, Victoria and other places to Queensland. We called them Mexicans. Most were looking for sunshine, less populated areas, and reduced costs of living, especially for housing. Taxes were never an issue since taxes across Australia are pretty much the same.

Between 1988 and 1991 I managed the business and computing department at the Bundaberg TAFE College and had, from memory, five people approach me about jobs in computing. Their stories were the same. They'd moved from Sydney to escape large cohorts of immigrants, too much traffic and high costs of housing. 

They could buy a decent house for $100,000 in Bundaberg and after selling their lower quality Sydney house for much more, live a lovely life near the Queensland coast. Unfortunately, they didn't do their homework regarding jobs. The region had very high unemployment and hardly any job vacancies at the time. 

Now we have a situation in Victoria where a socialist government has become more totalitarian than people want and has passed legislation that is, by any measure, apparently draconian. The state has become a Police State during the currently ongoing Covid-19 crisis and the legislation is a harbinger of things to come. People are worried.

I expect that there will be more than the usual number of people "escaping" Victoria's harsh regime for states with less oppressive regimes. Time will tell. Watch this space.

Robin

Californians think they pay for expensive electricity

As Western countries destroy their energy grids to satisfy the UN's socio-political policies, most of us complain about the rising cost of energy. Costs necessary for governments to subsidise unreliable, so-called renewable energy.

Without subsidies, nothing happens.

In South Australia, where we have killed off baseload power stations and achieved the only ever whole of state blackout (greenout?) in Australia's history, we pay more than most other people for each kilowatt hour we use.

From 1 July our charges are actually decreasing probably to give us the delusion that solar and wind and our huge battery, are providing us with clean, green energy.

Meanwhile, in California, people are whining about paying 18.5 cents per kWh, a tad more when converted to Australian cents. Still well below what we pay.

"In 2020, California’s electricity prices jumped by 7.5%, making it the biggest price increase of any state in the country last year and nearly seven times the increase that was seen in the United States as a whole. According to data from the Energy Information Administration, the all-sector price of electricity in California last year jumped to 18.15 cents per kilowatt-hour, which means that Californians are now paying about 70% more for their electricity than the U.S. average all-sector rate of 10.66 cents per kWh. Even more worrisome: California’s electricity rates are expected to soar over the next decade." (HREF)

This might be part of the reason why hundreds of thousands of people per year (2020) and 5.4 companies per week are leaving California. Only the wealthy can live in California. 

South Australia's price decrease from Origin Energy, one of our many power suppliers is as follows:

At least our Federal Government is now beginning to talk nuclear energy after decades of nuclear being outlawed.

While this debate goes on, China and India and many other countries steam ahead building High Energy Low Emission (HELE) coal, gas and nuclear energy installations.

Students of Modern History in the future will fall over laughing at how increadibly stupid we were in this era.

Robin