Friday 31 August 2018

Low-cost, printable solar panels offer ray of hope amid energy gridlock

Extract from The Guardian

Australian physicist says technology could make signing up for energy accounts as easy as a mobile phone subscription

An Australian physicist is leading a push to pioneer a new type of low-cost solar energy he believes could make signing up for energy accounts as straightforward as taking up a mobile phone plan.
In May last year, the University of Newcastle professor Paul Dastoor used organic printed solar cells to power screens and displays at an exhibition in Melbourne.
Less than one millimetre thick and held down with double-sided sticky tape, the panels are similar in texture to a potato chip packet and can be produced for less than $10 per square metre.
Dastoor has been working on the technology for more than a decade, but has now begun a 200 square-metre installation – the first commercial application of its kind in Australia and possibly the world.
“The low cost and speed at which this technology can be deployed is exciting as we need to find solutions, and quickly, to reduce demand on base-load power – a renewed concern as we approach another summer here in Australia,” he said.

Organic printed solar cells on sub-millimetre thin plastic sheets being installed at the pilot project
Organic printed solar cells on sub-millimetre thin plastic sheets being installed at the pilot project. Photograph: Newcastle University

And as Canberra is again gripped by energy policy inertia, he said the commercial pilot was an example of industry and academia “just getting on with things”.
“If we reflect on where we’ve come from in the last decade and what we’ve seen in the last couple of weeks in Canberra, one of the things this project highlights is that universities and industry are coming together to just to get on with things and that’s exciting.”
The printed solar technology is not as efficient as the silicon-based one, and degrades much faster.       
But Dastoor believes its low production and installation costs would make it competitive.
“The point of this technology is that if you look at it in terms of raw efficiency numbers, it’s much lower than typical silicon cells [and] it doesn’t last as long but actually those aren’t the important numbers,” he said.
“The question is how much does the energy cost? These materials are so cheap to make, manufacture and install that when you calculate the total cost of energy when manufacturing at scale, it’s going to give you a competitive product.”
Dastoor said it would be easy for companies to sell energy “plans” for consumers to sign up in the same way they do with mobile phones.
The commercial installation was completed in a day by five employees, and a lab-size printer can produce hundreds of metres of the product in one day.

the panels are similar in texture to a potato chip packet and can be produced for less than $10 per square metre
The panels are similar in texture to a potato chip packet and can be produced for less than $10 per square metre Photograph: Newcastle University

“The caveat to that is I’m obviously not sure exactly how the commercial reality will manifest, but if I was going to guess I would say that this technology is one that does not last an extremely long time [but] is also likely to improve rapidly,” he said.
“Both of those factors are similar with what we faced with mobile phones [so] I think it points to a model where you will simply have all of that done for you – it will be some sort of plan with constant upgrade and replacement.
“The cost to produce it is so low and to roll out another set of solar cells is going to be extremely easy. I think over time our current picture of how we view solar energy and cells is going to fundamentally change.”
The pilot installation is due to last six months, and is the final stop before the technology becomes more widely available in the next few years.

Crop losses to pests will soar as climate warms, study warns

Extract from The Guardian 

Rising temperatures make insects eat and breed more, leading to food losses growing world population cannot afford, say scientists

Rising global temperatures mean pests will devour far more of the world’s crops, according to the first global analysis of the subject, even if climate change is restricted to the international target of 2C.
Increasing heat boosts both the number and appetite of insects, and researchers project they will destroy almost 50% more wheat than they do today with a 2C rise, and 30% more maize. Rice, the third key staple, is less affected as it is grown in the tropics, which are already near the optimal temperature for insects – although bugs will still eat 20% more.
Rising heat stress on crops is already expected to cut cereal yields by about 10% for 2C of warming, but the new research indicates rising pest damage will cause at least another 4-8% to be lost. With 800 million people chronically hungry today and the global population rising towards 10bn, increasing pest destruction will worsen food security.
“For many, many people in the world there is already a shortage of food, so it is not like we can afford to spare [more],” said Prof Curtis Deutsch at the University of Washington, US, who led the work. “A lot of people in the world, the most vulnerable, can’t afford to give up anything.”
The UK is the worst affected of significant wheat producers, with pest losses expected to more than double from 5% to 11%, and Canada will suffer the biggest increase in maize losses, from 6% to 10%. The world’s biggest growers will also see a major impact, with China’s wheat losses rising 50% and and US corn losses going up by a third.
Action by farmers to try to avoid new pest losses is unlikely to be successful, said Prof Rosamond Naylor at Stanford University, US, and one of the research team. “Increased pesticide applications, the use of [resistant] genetically modified crops and practices such as crop rotations will help control losses from insects. But it still appears that under virtually all climate change scenarios, pest populations will be the winners.”
The research, published in the journal Science, started with well-established knowledge about how rising temperature affects insects. “Warmer temperatures increase insect metabolic rates exponentially [and] increase the reproductive rates,” said Deutsch. “You have more insects, and they’re eating more.” The team then added data on today’s pest losses and used a range of climate change models to estimate future losses – all showed significant damage.
Overall, losses were found to increase by 20-50% for 2C of warming above pre-industrial levels and 40%-100% for 4C. The latter will be reached this century if carbon emissions are not cut soon. “The overall picture is, if you’re growing a lot of food in a temperate region, you’re going to be hit hardest,” said Scott Merrill at the University of Vermont, another member of the team.
Europe’s breadbasket is among the hardest hit, with 11 nations predicted to see a rise in pest losses of 75% or more. “France will get a double whammy,” said Merrill, as it is a top five producer of both wheat and maize. Another big wheat producer, Russia, will see losses rise from 10% to 16% with 2C of warming. Across the globe, an extra 200m tonnes of grain are expected to be eaten by insects in a 2C warmer world.

Wheat ear flowering aphids on wheat plant.
Wheat ear flowering aphids on wheat plant. Photograph: Fornaciari Massimo/AGF//UIG via Getty Images

The research was deliberately conservative and so did not allow population explosions of pests to take place in the computer simulations, as it’s difficult to model how these develop, but such explosions cannot be ruled out.
Deutsch noted that warmer winters have led the pine bark beetle to kill off forests across North America: “They just come out gangbusters in the spring. You can see the damage to space.”
“It is an example of what can happen when you have huge tracts of land that are essentially single crops species with one major pest,” he said. “That is similar in many respects to what agriculture has produced – miles and miles of a single plant.” He also said insect population explosions are seen in fossils from warming periods in the Earth’s past.
Markus Riegler, at Western Sydney University in Australia and not part of the research team, said the new work was the first global analysis. “The results show that insects will cause significantly increased grain loss across many regions of a warmer world,” he said. The work used data on 38 insect species but Riegler said the results should be verified for more pests in future.
“The substantial increases in pest damage forecast call for action on climate change [emissions] and adaptation,” he said. “Everyone must be involved in change: farmers, industries, policymakers and wider society.”

Power companies hit back at minister, saying policy vacuum led to steep bills

Australian Energy Council CEO rubbishes Angus Taylor’s claim market misconduct behind high power bills

Power companies have blasted back at the new energy minister Angus Taylor, declaring the main reason electricity prices are high for Australian consumers is a decade-long vacuum in energy policy – not misconduct in the market.
Sarah McNamara, the chief executive of the Australian Energy Council, a group representing Australia’s major gas and electricity companies, told Guardian Australia the apparent shelving of the national energy guarantee as the prelude to last week’s bitter Liberal party leadership fight would exacerbate the very problems the new minister says he wants to solve.
She said a recent inquiry by the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission, which is the basis of the Morrison government’s current blueprint for power price reductions, did not find evidence of misconduct in the energy market.
“The very report the government is relying on also confirmed that divestiture powers were unnecessary in the current market, and we agree with that,” she said.
The ACCC’s recent report characterised divestiture as “an extreme measure to take in any market, including the electricity market”.
The competition watchdog said the wholesale energy market was highly concentrated, but there were more effective interventions than breaking up companies. The report said: “The ACCC does not believe it would be appropriate to intervene to unwind the way in which the market has evolved across the national electricity market.”
Notwithstanding that caution, Taylor used his first speech in his new energy portfolio on Thursday to recommit the government to pursuing heavy-handed interventions cooked up in the last days of the Turnbull government, including “last resort” divestiture powers to break up the power companies if they engage in price gouging.
Malcolm Turnbull, as one of his last acts in the top job, first attempted to rework the national energy guarantee (Neg), before putting it on hold, in the process committing the government to a package of measures focused on price relief.
“We need to re-establish this trust.”
But McNamara turned the challenge back on Taylor. She said power prices were high in the current market due to wholesale price volatility “because we’ve been existing in a policy vacuum for more than 10 years now”.
“We do not have sufficient levels of investor confidence to drive the kind of investment the market very badly needs,” she said.
“The Neg appears to be in limbo at the moment although the Energy Security Board will continue to work with the states on the reliability component. We seem further away at the moment that we were a few weeks ago from landing this important policy.”
She warned if the government couldn’t resolve the internal fight which led to the Neg being shelved, and get it back on the agenda, and strike a deal with Labor, that would “mean more of the same – a policy vacuum, that will see more volatility in the wholesale market, particularly as plant comes to the end of its natural life and there’s insufficient firm generation to replace it”.
“That is not good news for customers.”
McNamara said the energy industry had no issue with governments monitoring market behaviour and ensuring compliance with rules and regulations.
She also acknowledged that power prices “can be lower than where they are at the moment – but the missing piece of that puzzle is a national, bipartisan policy framework”.
She said Taylor was correct to point out in Thursday’s speech that perfect certainty wasn’t possible because current governments could not bind future ones, but she said “a bipartisan agreement on a policy does lend a certain durability to that policy which gives investors the confidence they need to be able to commit to these long term assets”.
McNamara said power companies were committed to measures making the market more transparent. “We’ve been working on them for a while.

“We understand people find the market complicated to engage with and we do want to make it easier for people to engage – but that work’s already under way, and that’s very different to suggesting misconduct in this market”. 

Samoan Prime Minister Tuilaepa Sailele hits out at climate change sceptics during fiery speech

Posted about an hour ago


Samoan Prime Minister Tuilaepa Sailele has lashed out at climate sceptics and urged Australia to make deeper cuts to carbon emissions to help save Pacific Island nations from the "disaster" of climate change.

Key points:

  • Mr Sailele says "greater ambition" is needed to stop impact of climate change
  • He warns geostrategic competition is creating uncertainty for small Pacific countries
  • Australia, New Zealand and the US have been scrambling to reassert influence in the Pacific

Mr Sailele told the Lowy Institute in Sydney that climate change posed an "existential challenge" to low lying islands in the Pacific, and developed countries needed to reduce pollution in order to curb rising temperatures and sea levels.
"We all know the problem, we all know the solutions, and all that is left would be some political courage, some political guts, to tell people of your country there is a certainty of disaster," Mr Sailele said.
"So any leader of any country who believes that there is no climate change, I think he ought to be taken to mental confinement. He is utterly stupid. And I say the same thing to any leader here."
The Prime Minister's intervention came as some Coalition MPs press the new Prime Minister Scott Morrison to abandon Australia's promise to cut carbon emissions under the Paris agreement.

New Foreign Minister Marise Payne is also expected to face questions about Australia's climate change policies at the Pacific Islands Forum leader's meeting in Nauru next week.
Senator Payne and Pacific leaders are set to sign the "Biketawa Plus" security agreement, which declares that climate change remains the "single greatest threat to the livelihoods, security and wellbeing of the peoples of the Pacific".
Several other leaders — including Fiji's President Frank Bainimarama and the Marshall Island's President Hilda Heine — have also called on Australia to do more to cut emissions.
Mr Sailele told the audience that "greater ambition" was needed to stop the destructive impact of climate change.
"While climate change may be considered a slow onset threat by some in the region, its adverse impacts are already being felt by Island communities," he said.

'Attempt to hide strategic neglect'

The Prime Minister also took a thinly veiled swipe at Australian anxiety about China's rise in the Pacific, warning that brewing geostrategic competition was creating enormous uncertainty for small nations in the region.
China's increasing presence in the Pacific has unnerved foreign policy officials in Australia, New Zealand and the United States, and all three countries have been scrambling to reassert their influence.
Both Senator Payne and the former foreign minister Julie Bishop have repeatedly said that Australia wants to be the "partner of choice" for Pacific nations.

But Mr Sailele warned against "manipulation" of Pacific Island nations by any major power.
"The concept of power and domination has engulfed the world, its tendrils extending to the most isolated atoll communities," he said.
"The big powers are doggedly pursuing strategies to widen and extend their reach, inculcating a far reaching sense of insecurity."
Earlier this year, Mr Sailele hit out at then international development minister Concetta Fierravanti-Wells after she accused China of building "roads to nowhere" in the Pacific and burdening small nations with heavy debts.
The Prime Minister didn't name Senator Fierravanti-Wells in his speech, or single out Australia — but he made his attitude clear.
"Our partners have fallen short of acknowledging Pacific leadership," he said.
"Some might say there is a patronising nuance, believing Pacific nations did not know what they were doing, or were incapable of reaping benefits of close relationships with countries that will be in the region for some time to come.

"One has the tendency to be bemused by the fact that the reaction is an attempt to hide what we see as strategic neglect."

Fossil record points to 'major transformation' of Australian ecosystems in next 100 years

Extract from ABC News

If the world continues on a "business-as-usual" trajectory on climate change, global ecosystems including Australia's will undergo a "major transformation" over the next century.
That's the warning from researchers who have analysed hundreds of pollen and fossil records from the Earth's last period of significant global warming, which followed the last glacial maximum around 14,000 years ago.
The study, published today in the journal Science, found that ecosystems that underwent low levels of change were "concentrated in regions where the temperature anomaly was relatively small".
The researchers used their data to predict the amount of future ecological upheaval that would occur under warming scenarios of 1.5 degrees, 2.4 degrees, 3 to 4 degrees and 5 degrees, by the end of the century.
They found that under a warming scenario of 1.5 degrees — the target set under the Paris Climate Agreement — the chance of "large" structural change to an ecosystem was generally less than 30 per cent, but rose significantly as temperatures increased.
The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) predicts that average global temperatures will rise by more than 4 degrees this century under a "business-as-usual" carbon emissions scenario.
Earlier this month, former prime minister Malcolm Turnbull succumbed to pressure to dump plans to legislate Australia's Paris emissions targets.
Liberal backbencher Tony Abbott has recently been pushing for Australia to withdraw from the Paris Agreement despite signing Australia up when he was prime minister.
More than 40 scientists, including palaeoecology and climate expert Peter Kershaw from Monash University, analysed fossil and pollen records from nearly 600 sites around the world, including Australia, New Zealand and Oceania.
The international team used these records to indicate what types of vegetation existed in each region between 21,000 and 14,000 years ago.
For example, records made up solely of grasses indicate open grasslands, eucalypt and wattle pollen indicates sclerophyll forest and rainforest species are evidence of the existence of a rainforest.
They then compared these records with the vegetation composition and structure from the same sites in the Holocene (present) period.
"There's only a few parts of the world that haven't experienced these dramatic changes in vegetation and structure."
But some places were more heavily impacted than others, according to the researchers.
"These changes were particularly evident … in southern South America, tropical and temperate southern Africa, the Indo-Pacific region, Australia, Oceania and New Zealand," they state in the paper.

Business-as-usual scenario 'basically unmanageable'

The early Holocene climate is estimated to be between 4 degrees and 7 degrees warmer than during the last period of glaciation.
While that warming took several thousand years, "business-as-usual" carbon emissions are projected to warm up our climate by a similar amount over the next century.
"These estimates are roughly comparable to the magnitude of warming that the Earth is projected to undergo in the next 100 to 150 years if greenhouse-gas emissions are not reduced substantially," the researchers state in the paper.
They acknowledge that the study only focuses on temperature, and omits other potential variables.
Increased atmospheric CO2 for instance, may stimulate plant growth to an extent, and act as a mitigating factor on ecological disturbance.
But despite this, their forecasts are likely to err on the conservative side, according to palaeoclimatology expert Kale Sniderman from the University of Melbourne, who was not involved with the research.
"There is not really an analogue for that in the palaeo record. But it means that basically all the vegetation will be strikingly out of equilibrium with the climate and you really could expect a lot of death — a lot of species to go extinct."
Although some degree of warming is now locked into the future, the consequences are likely to be vastly different between a temperature rise of around 1.5 degrees, and some of the worst-case-scenario forecasts, according to Dr Sniderman.
"[This research] does try to quantify the difference in peril between those two situations, where one is maybe manageable on a global level, and the other is basically unmanageable," he said.
"Small amounts of warming have a very different effect."

Why is 1.5 degrees important?

Limiting warming to 1.5 degrees by the end of the century requires "aggressive emissions cutting", which many countries are currently failing to achieve.
Australia's greenhouse gas emissions rose in 2017 for the third consecutive year.
The Paris Climate Agreement target was based on extensive modelling of different temperature-rise scenarios.
The IPCC predict "very high risks with additional warming of 2 degrees Celsius, particularly Arctic sea-ice and coral-reef systems".
But the effects of warming will not be uniformly distributed.
Southern and northern regions of Australia underwent the most change during the warming that followed the last glacial maximum, according to Professor Kershaw.
"During the Holocene at many sites you had an invasion of eucalypt and wet forest, and then you've got that changing into rainforest."
However, he said, changes were less extreme around the sub-tropical latitudes.
Worldwide, research has shown that animal distribution is already changing.
In the wet tropics region of north Queensland, a number of species are contracting higher up isolated mountainsides, according to tropical biodiversity and climate researcher Stephen Williams.
"Things like ringtail possums, we used to see them at 600 metres, now we haven't seen them at 600 metres for seven or eight years, and we can only find them now above 700 metres," he told the ABC earlier this year.
Extinctions are likely to occur for endemic species in that region as their habitat constricts to mountaintops.
"Our models predict that we don't really get any extinction until about one-and-a-half degrees, and that makes sense because anything that is here now has already survived one-and-a-half degrees in the past," he said.
"The extinctions don't really start to kick in until about 2 degrees, and then they start to accelerate rapidly beyond 2 degrees."

Thursday 30 August 2018

Angus Taylor signals further taxpayer investment in existing coal and gas

Extract from The Guardian

New energy minister says government still committed to energy-market interventions if needed

The new energy minister, Angus Taylor, says he’s not a sceptic about climate science, just the economics of green schemes, and he’s declared renewables are “in my blood” and have an important role in the energy system.
But while overtly backing solar and hydro, but not wind – a technology he’s long opposed – Taylor has also signalled he wants to encourage new investment extending the life of existing coal and gas plants, and upgrading ageing facilities, with an objective of boosting supply.
In his first major speech in his new portfolio, Taylor has recommitted the government to pursuing heavy-handed interventions in the energy market cooked up in the last days of the Turnbull government, including “last resort” divestiture powers to break up power companies if they engage in price gouging.
But while threatening to wield the big stick, Taylor also sent a clear message to power companies he would not use it if prices came down. “The simple truth is that if industry steps up and does the right thing on price, government can step back and focus on other things.”
The new energy minister said an underwriting program, where the government guaranteed finance for new generation projects, would also proceed.
The Australian Competition and Consumer Commission, the body that recommended the underwriting proposal to boost supply and competition, has made it clear it did not suggest the scheme as a lifeline for coal, which is what some government MPs want it to be.
In a clear nod to internal pressure, Taylor signalled on Thursday the government was intent on boosting supply, and that meant expanding existing plants, upgrading ageing “legacy” generators, as well as pursuing new “greenfield” projects.
“We need to encourage all of these,” he said. “It’s ironic that in a country with an abundance of natural resources – coal, gas, water and solar – we should be in this position.
“We need to leverage those resources, not leave them in the ground.”
Taylor backed Peter Dutton in last week’s poisonous leadership spill, and the former McKinsey consultant was critical of the national energy guarantee during the internal debate about the policy.
Thursday’s speech was silent on the fate of the Neg, and silent on whether or not Australia should withdraw from the Paris climate treaty, which is a live debate within the Coalition.
Taylor’s predecessor, Josh Frydenberg, pursued the Neg on the basis it would create investment certainty in the energy sector, but Taylor said on Thursday: “There is some naivety in the idea that governments can largely eliminate uncertainty, or should even try.”
“Parliaments or governments can’t bind future parliaments and governments – this would be a breach of the fundamental principle of parliamentary sovereignty.”
But he says his program to reduce energy prices, which includes default pricing for consumers, will be positive for investor confidence, and will create new incentives for investment. “Re-establishing the confidence to invest will be a central goal of these reforms.”
The new prime minister, Scott Morrison, is putting Taylor, an ambitious, conservative up-and-comer, under significant early pressure to produce an outcome on power bills. Setting the performance bar high, the new prime minister has dubbed him the minister for lowering power prices.
Taylor used Thursday’s speech to emphasise that his focus in the portfolio would be on reducing power prices. He said increases in power bills had “eroded the trust of Australians in the capacity of government and politicians to deliver affordable, reliable energy”.
“We need to re-establish this trust.”
The minister gave a nod to recent reductions on wholesale energy prices, which have flowed through to retail prices, noting that prices had turned a corner.
But while there is evidence from market analysts and analysis from the government’s energy bodies that renewables has led the price drop because of a big increase in supply contracted into the market courtesy of the renewable energy target, Taylor attributed the recent reductions to the government’s intervention in the gas market, and regulatory reforms, including forcing retailers to be more transparent about their pricing.
While coal proponents in the Coalition declare new coal investment means lower prices, the Australian Energy Market Commission has predicted prices will fall over the next two years because of the entry of 5,300 MW of new generation capacity into the national electricity market – most of it renewable projects.
But the AEMC has also warned that price reductions won’t last if governments don’t settle an energy policy that provides a stable framework, including incentives for investing in dispatchable power.

Renewables forecast to halve wholesale energy prices over four years

Extract from The Guardian

Analysis shows 7,200MW of renewables added to grid after closures of coal-fired plants

While the Morrison government has identified lowering power prices as a key early priority, a new analysis says wholesale prices will almost halve over the next four years because of the technology many Coalition conservatives oppose – renewables.
The latest renewable energy index compiled by Green Energy Markets confirms analysis by the Energy Security Board that wholesale electricity prices are on the way down because of an addition of 7,200 megawatts of extra large-scale supply from renewable energy.
Tristan Edis from Green Energy Markets says the political debate in Canberra is lagging behind practical developments in the national electricity market. The national energy guarantee was scuppered in part because government conservatives were concerned the mechanism didn’t do enough to reduce power prices, and because of claims that renewables were inflating power bills.
“What I think is extraordinary given recent political events is that we’ve actually turned the corner on wholesale electricity prices and they’re now headed downward and will continue to decline substantially over the next few years,” Edis told Guardian Australia. “This doesn’t seem to have sunken in at all in our political debate.”
The new analysis charts movements in prices in the energy market. It says prices began to rise when large amounts of supply were withdrawn from the market in South Australia with the closure of the Northern power station, and because of the closure of the Hazelwood plant in Victoria.
It says new investment in large-scale renewable energy projects during that period had stalled because of Tony Abbott’s efforts to wind back the renewable energy target. “It was only after prices began spiking upwards with the announced closure of Hazelwood that we saw significant commitments to construct new large-scale renewable energy supply.”
The analysis says price reductions have followed more renewable projects coming on stream. “Prices have since continued to decline in anticipation of increasing amounts of renewable energy supply reaching construction completion and contributing power to the grid.”
Edis says the trends in the market aren’t connected to Canberra’s debate about coal versus renewables – “this is a simple case of economics 101” – meaning that when supply is withdrawn, prices rise. “It seems we’ve dumped a prime minister based on completely false pretences.”
Morrison has told his newly appointed energy minister, Angus Taylor, that his pressing priority is driving power price reductions. The national energy guarantee that proved catalytic in Turnbull’s demise is on ice, and the new prime minister has split the environment and energy portfolios in recognition of the Liberal party’s difficulty reaching a landing point on an energy policy that includes emissions reduction.
Taylor, a conservative and former McKinsey consultant, has previously campaigned against renewable energy projects – a posture that has alarmed people in the renewables sector and environment groups.

Wednesday 29 August 2018

The ‘prosperity doctrine’ and neoliberal Jesusing, Scott Morrison-style

When Scott Morrison announces that he’s standing behind you, you might want to make sure his hands are empty.
It was only a week ago that then-treasurer Morrison was hugging Australia’s Liberal party then-PM Malcolm Turnbull at a media call and pledging allegiance to his embattled captain. Asked if he himself had any leadership ambitions, the member for Cook responded: “Me? This is my leader,” and embracing the man, “I’m ambitious for him.”
Turnbull had survived a leadership vote against rival Peter Dutton, 48-35. Less than a week later, Turnbull was finished and Morrison’s slimmer margin of 45-40 had seen off Dutton and he became PM.
Morrison’s established political character is thus. As immigration minister in the Abbott government he took to Australia’s brutal policies towards refugees and asylum-seekers with vim. In 2014, he was condemned for his “callous disregard” for detainees – video surfaced of him “directly threatening” those seeking sanctuary from fatal persecution elsewhere. As social services minister in 2015, he convinced the Greens to support an over $2bn cut to the pension in a welfare-shredding spree. He opposed marriage equality and refused to vote with the popular will after the resounding “yes” vote in the postal survey.

"Morrison is a proud and public worshipper at the Horizon Church, which, like Hillsong, is Pentecostal"

He is a neoliberal and as treasurer he has governed neoliberally. Wage growth in Australia is stagnant, underemployment is rife. One of his earliest speeches was to condemn welfare recipients as the “taxed nots”, yet the policy he was most committed to pursue was the $65bn tax cuts for corporate Australia, including $17bn for the banks – the banks that are now recommended for criminal charges, from a banking royal commission Morrison described as a “populist whinge”.
Who is such a person to lead this country? Well, if his own propaganda’s to be believed, a very holy man. Morrison spoke of his “personal faith in Jesus Christ” in his 2008 maiden speech, in which he also thanked pastors Brian Houston and Leigh Cameron of what has been described as a “money machine”, the Hillsong Church, for their “great assistance” to him. Citing Houston as “a mentor”, Morrison is a proud and public worshipper at the Horizon Church, which, like Hillsong, is Pentecostal, and similarly an “American-style mega-church ... where the gospel of prosperity is preached in an auditorium that can accommodate over 1,000 evangelicals” as described in a 2012 profile of Morrison in the Monthly.
Drilling down into what constitutes the “prosperity doctrine” of these Protestant sects provides some context for neoliberal Jesusing, Scott Morrison-style. Walking away from materialism is something we humble Catholics understand as a “counsel of perfection” – Christ’s instruction in Matthew 19:21 is literally “If you want to be perfect, go, sell your possessions and give to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven. Then come, follow me.” But the theology of megachurches like Morrison’s inverts these values. Here, the message is that earthly riches result as a recognition of God’s favour. It’s an apologia for wealth and privilege and delivered with some pomp – as I learned when I spent a year hidden in his mentor Houston’s Hillsong congregation.
Yes, in a collection of carefully chosen pastel outfits, I squatted among the Hillsong faithful for a year, researching a “Christian drag” act cabaret. To hear Morrison espouse his own faith associations is to be reminded of megachurch marketing techniques – the deliberately chosen, good-looking “greeters” deployed to lead the nervous and the lonely to their seats, rock stadium theatrics concurrent with a “collection plate” that took your credit card details, and hand-on-heart gestural sermonising of the prosperity doctrine’s seductive heresies. The biblical pretext cited for material wealth as a sanctification of a blessed elect was provided by bible passages like Joel 2:23-25 and Proverbs 3:10 that my own tradition reads in the precisely opposite way.
The idea was to parody my discoveries, but there’s little one can add to scripts that read “Speak your faith, start seeing miracles ... Owner of your first home! Best-selling author ... Businessman who is prosperous and fruitful! Speak it into being! Speak it into being! Speak it into being! Amen!” – which is authentic Hillsong, by the way. An arena-show marriage of God and mammon was affected with triumphal choruses, syncopated clapping, marching drums, and always – always – the exhortation to consider wealth as an earned blessing of niche piety, something within reach if more donations were handed over, more church-brand merchandise bought. At a service’s conclusion, business directories were handed out. The encouragement was strong that God’s favour should remain in-house.
“You cannot serve both God and money,” said Jesus in the Sermon on the Mount. “The best form of welfare is a job,” said Morrison as treasurer, when shown that his own 2015 budget punished the poor most of all.
The political corpse of the last person to enjoy a similar pledge from Morrison is presently rolling down the Parliament House hill with multiple stab wounds. Australians have every right to analyse just what informs our unexpected – and unelected – new leader’s gall.

Van Badham is a Guardian Australia columnist