Andy Vesey
It
seems that Andy Vesey, the boss of AGL, is living up to his reputation
of being joined at the hip to the much loathed boss of Telstra 15 years
ago Sol Trujillo.
In an interview
with The Sydney Morning Herald on Thursday, Vesey reeled out the usual
boilerplate myths, lies, inconvenient truths and double speak about
governments interfering in the market and the associated sovereign risk.
Ordinarily
that argument would hold water if it wasn’t such a triple, double
standard but not this time and not from this renewables hustler.
Vesey said:
“..AGL will defy pressure
by the Turnbull government to sell its ageing Liddell power plant,
warning that interference in the market would raise issues of
‘‘sovereign risk’’ that could deter investment in new energy assets..”
So is
government interference in the energy market a sovereign risk or not?
Make up your mind because as the beneficiary of government interference
in the form of billion dollar subsidies for renewables to the detriment
of coal, Vesey and AGL don’t seem to have any problem or any great
concern at all about market interference and sovereign risk. It’s quite apparent that sovereign risk is just casually thrown into the mix as a means of frightening the horses.
How strange, unsurprising and how totally predictable.
We
can safely assume that if the subsidies ceased tomorrow on renewables
and switched to coal this rent seeking spiv, would switch from one
trough to the other without the slightest pang of conscience.
If Vesey, like many of the political class didn’t have double standards they’d have no standards.