By John Mikkelsen
Our Prime Minister in one of his frequently mundane news conferences recently reminded us that “we can’t turn back the clock” when it comes to issues like multiculturalism and economic reform.
Well maybe the PM in his DJ Albo guise had a couple of lines from his idol Taylor Swift’s Shake it Off in mind: “I never miss a beat, I’m lightnin’ on my feet, And that’s what they don’t see, mm-mm…”
At least he didn’t fall off the stage this time, but many of us are old enough to remember when we had incredible music from the likes of The Beatles, Deep Purple and the Rolling Stones. Or climb on board with Cher’s Turn Back Time to the Fabulous Fifties with Elvis, Gene Vincent, Chuck Berry and their contemporaries who set the scene for even greater times to come.
Music aside, before we embraced the concept of all-encompassing “climate change” in recent years, we produced and refined most of our own oil and fuel, our energy bills were among the world’s cheapest thanks to an abundance of reliable coal-fired power stations, our steel mills and aluminium smelters could run profitably without the multi- billions of dollars in government subsidies handed out recently, we manufactured our own urea to fertilise essential food crops, and we didn’t smother an area bigger than Tasmania with Chinese-sourced and more heavily-subsidised solar panels and wind turbines which are pushing power prices through the roof.
We also manufactured our own glass, plastics and paper, which are now also dependent on overseas imports along with our dwindling fuel supplies, the latter thanks to the on-going war in the Middle East which governments present and past should have foreseen as a powder keg waiting to erupt. And we didn’t have rampant antisemitism or any other huge racial divides creating traffic chaos in capital cities most weekends and culminating in the slaughter of 15 innocent Jewish citizens at Bondi on December 14 last year.
So sorry Albo, if we can’t turn back the clock by waking up to reality and diverting some of those $$$billions in subsidised green dreams to fast-tracking domestic oil recovery and refining or utilising known techniques for producing oil from coal such as South Africa does, or re-visiting the vast oil shale deposits near my old stamping grounds of Gladstone, we are all much worse off.
(Your new deal to secure some refined fuel from Singapore in exchange for our LPG is a tenuous stop-gap measure at best, as Singapore is dependent on crude oil imports mostly from the Middle East.)
Add the irrational ban on reliable nuclear energy now being increasingly adopted by other OECD nations, to that long list of fails.
The obsession which you and your Climate Change and Energy Minister Chris Bowen have with staying on track to the fabled goal of “Net Zero” was also highlighted recently by signing up to the new Euro Free Trade Deal which ties us to meeting our obligations under the previously mainly aspirational Paris Accord.
This was highlighted by Sky News Australia’s commentator Peta Credlin the same day that Bowen had adamantly denied it during an interview with her colleague, Kieran Gilbert.
“I pointed out that the EU trade deal could well be set up as a back-door way to enforce compliance with UN climate targets,” Ms Credlin said. “By God, Chris Bowen is slippery, isn’t he? Slippery – and either deliberately lying about what’s in the agreement, or wilfully ignorant of the detail. “If you look carefully at the DFAT website, the government’s own trade website, you will find this document titled ‘Australia-European Union free trade agreement – benefits for trade, environment and climate’. “And off the top, it says this, ‘for the first time in a free trade agreement, Australia (and the EU) has made a binding commitment to implement obligations under the Paris Agreement on climate change.’”
Google’s AI is in agreement:
“The concluded EU-Australia Free Trade Agreement (March 2026) includes legally binding commitments to implement the Paris Agreement on climate change. This makes climate obligations, along with labor rights, enforceable through the trade deal’s dispute settlement mechanism, representing a significant integration of environmental policy into trade law…
“Essential Elements” Status: The Agreement treats compliance with the Paris Agreement similarly to human rights obligations, incorporating them as “essential elements” of the deal.
Green Trade Incentives: The pact immediately eliminates tariffs on environmental goods such as solar components. ..”
Further to that Mr Bowen, it’s also confirmed on the European Commission’s own website:
“Boosting more sustainable trade through strong, enforceable provisions on Trade and Sustainable Development (TSD), including commitments to the Paris Climate Agreement, core labour standards, gender equality and environment.”
https://ec.europa.eu/commission/presscorner/detail/en/qanda_26_648
The trade deal was also strongly criticized by several key agricultural leaders. Google’s AI again:
Agricultural leaders in Australia have strongly criticised the newly announced free trade agreement (FTA) between Australia and the European Union (EU), signed in March 2026, labelling it a “subpar” and “appalling” deal that fails to deliver meaningful market access for local producers.
Following eight years of negotiations, peak industry bodies have argued that the deal severely disadvantages Australian red meat, sugar, and dairy farmers, with some leaders suggesting they would have been better off without it.
Key Reasons for Agricultural criticism:
Subpar Access for Red Meat: Beef and lamb producers slammed the agreement for failing to meet industry demands, with access quotas falling nearly 40 per cent short of what was requested. Cattle Australia chair Garry Edwards labelled the agreed export volumes “pathetic,” arguing that they “barely restore” what existed before 2019.
“One-Way” Trade Deal: The National Farmers’ Federation (NFF) expressed concern that the deal offers little for Australian exports while opening the domestic market to heavily subsidised European meat, cheese, and dairy products.
Failed Sugar Access: The sugar industry described the outcome as a “complete failure,” with access gains failing to match what competitors like Brazil secured in their EU deals.
Geographical Indications Restrictions: Dairy producers are frustrated by having to phase out the use of common product names like Feta, Romano, and Gruyere, while losing protection against imported European products.
Given all the above, I was amazed to have Question Time playing on the TV while I went about other tasks when all this was brewing, and totally expected the Opposition would try to haul Albo and Bowen over the coals for their duplicity. But no. apart from Labor MPs Dorothy Dixers and the customary back-patting, all I heard over several days from the Conservatives were repetitive questions about how many servos had run out of fuel and how many fuel ships were on their way here.
Apologies if I dozed off from the monotony and missed anything, but I think it was more a case of “look the other way or we’ll be reminded of signing us up to the Paris Accord back in 2016 under Malcolm Turnbull…”
And that’s true, the old Miserable Ghost himself at the helm. He also had the brainwave of committing us to the infamous Snowy 2 project using power to pump water uphill to generate less power when it runs back downhill. That has ballooned from an initial estimate of $2 billion to a current estimate of $12 billion, with some experts predicting it could be as high as $20 billion if it ever gets completed!
Good one Malcolm. No wonder your constant criticism of the party that turfed you from office but still accepts you as a member, doesn’t hold much water these days.
After all this, my mind has taken another trip back to a tune that I doubt is on DJ Albo’s dodgy playlist but which the Opposition could learn from – Bob Hudson’s 1970’s hit, The Newcastle Song and its chorus “Don’t you ever let a chance go by, Oh Lord, Don’t you ever let a chance go by… https://www.reddit.com/r/AustralianNostalgia/comments/1lv58mu/the_newcastle_songbob_hudson_1974/
John Mikkelsen is a former editor of three Queensland regional newspapers, columnist, freelance writer and author of the Amazon Books Memoir, Don’t Call Me Nev. (https://www.amazon.com.au/Dont-Call-Nev-John-Mikkelsen/dp/B09S244GP1/ref=tmm_pap_swatch_0?
The trubble with Australia’s governments is not that they don’t know what they’re doing. The trubble is that they DO KNOW what they’re doing.
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And they know how to fix it too. By doing the opposite. BUT THAT WOULD MEAN THEY WORK FOR US!
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Commenter: Father Time: You read my thoughts & recorded them so very accurately.. we must be soulmates.!!
Fraudulent carbon credits are being pushed for 15-minute cities. Nobody ever says “Australia has so many trees and plants that per capita they have more carbon credits than any other country in the world”. You will never hear that from these frauds and traitors. Instead we have $20 million squandered on advertising to tell us to pump our car tyres and drive slowly. Next they will be saying don’t drive more than 15 minutes in any direction. Then they will say cars with even number plate can only drive on even numbered days of the month, and odd numbered cars on odd days. Then they will say you have to do emissions testing every six months. Once everyone is in a new electric car they will turn on the full surveillance and accuse you of driving too much so you have to pay road user tax per km, so you will have to be GPS surveilled every minute of every journey and everywhere you parked. Now ASIO is involved, “Come in and explain to us why you parked at such-and-such address”, “Have you ever been to Russia”, “How do you know Winston Smith”, etc. The legislation is passed, you will have to go in for questioning, and you are not allowed to tell anyone you were questioned !?!?!?! This is the legislation apparently.
Australia needs a bill of rights. The orange party needs to repeal everything the Elbow government ever did. Their assets should be siezed, they are not working for Australia or even KC3, they are working for Globalists of Swissyland. Everything they do is for Global Elites of Swissyland. Sports fans will dream on, and the average punt does not “do” geo-politics or anything remotely connected.
Father Time said – “… We can get rid of the government…”
Indeed, that’s what Mr. Rope & Mr. Lamp Post are for.
What’s the penalty for Treason, folks?
What’s the penalty for premeditated mass-murder?
What’s the penalty for systematic Genocide?
What’s the penalty for knowingly, willingly, maliciously and malevolently DISMANTLING and DEMOLISHING and DESTROYING an entire Nation?
If you struggle to answer those questions, if you can’t fathom what the appropriate PENALTY is or even if there SHOULD be any penalty AT ALL, then that means you’re OK with all of it.
And if that’s where you’re at, then STFU and stop bitching about anything and everything because that’s your CHOICE.
For the hopeless romantics and daydreamers and reminiscers trapped in the nostalgia of a comfortably predictable procedural past, there’s “petitions” and “letters” and “notices” and “voting”. For Liberty-minded REALISTS looking to a future unblemished by merciless sadistic totalitarian Luciferian ARSEHOLES and utterly ruthless relentless remorseless sold-out paid-off baby-eating PSYCHOPATHS, there’s Mr. Rope and Mr. Lamp Post.
Just imagine the increase in employment and energy abundance if the government got out of the way and allowed Aussies to start working to produce REAL energy. Lots of jobs, lots of energy, lots of income from exporting energy. Crikey, it is so obvious that it all has to be a ‘conspiracy theory’.
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Mikkelsen does not realise a number of things, like the fact that governments are CONTRACTED SERVICE PROVIDERS, only, and that their agreements are BS because we have not consented to them, so they are invalid. These are agreements between corporations, not lawful effing governments.
https://rumble.com/v77rezq-australian-fuel-supply-crisis-a-breach-of-contract-heres-why..html?e9s=src_v1_cbl%2Csrc_v1_upp_a
…and applies to ALL the services-health, housing-everything you can think of in terms of services that we pay our taxes to fund.
See this, which is one I did, and explains the BREACH explicitly. I don[‘t know why people are not TWIGGING, because these are the absolute facts of the bloody matter: we have been betrayed:
https://rumble.com/v2yf678-homelessness-equals-governmental-breach-of-contract.html?e9s=src_v1_s%2Csrc_v1_s_o&sci=9593938b-9811-4dc1-8787-45dd696a1526
A necessary profanity: for F’s Sake!!!
Our country is screwed by too many corrupt & evil minded politicians happy to lie endlessly & cripple & destroy our country.
In regards to sugar for which I have had a working relationship with in FNQ starting in the 90’s the yo yo effect of international market pricing and the unreliable CC levels(sweetness content that floored in the late 90’s ) I reckon cane mills would be far better off producing molasses for Australian livestock seeing it is cheaper to produce and has a guaranteed domestic market for feedlots and as a dry feed supplement during floods and draughts making for a much quicker return on their investments.
“The era of Global Boiling has arrived!”, lol!
“we can’t turn back the clock” when it comes to issues like multiculturalism and economic reform.
– of course we can turn back the clock on these issues. You can turn the clock back on any and all issues if you wish.
Don’t you just love this arrogant PM telling us something like that with no reasoning for it and no evidence for his statement.
He just declared it like it was some obvious truth that we would all just accept… until we didn’t.
Until someone called bullsh*t on it and said why not?
Of course we can turn the clock back on these issues and problems that the government caused.
We can get rid of the government. Then we can send all these multi cultures back where they came from.
We can stop pandering to them and giving them free money and housing and let real Australians have a fair go at buying a house.
We can stop the gravy train so that Australian is no longer the immigrant paradise. We can stop importing violent 3rd world desdsh*ts and start to ensure that civilised white European types who originally built this country with real life skills and the motivation to work come here.
Of course we can turn the clock back on economic reform. The government is the ones who destroyed the economy in the first place so clearly they have no idea how to fix things.
So we just turn the clock back to economic policy that worked in the past.
We can turn the clock back on these insane “climate change policies” like massive solar farms and wind mills that only work according to fickle weather. They have now been exposed as ideologue pie in the sky wishfull thinking of sh*t for brains, incompetent politicians by this latest oil crisis.
Australia’s wide open spaces and economic prosperity relied on cheap energy like coal, natural gas’s etc of which we had in abundance.
We need to turn the clock back to when we used to “drill baby drill”.
We can turn the clock back on every failed and mismanaged government hare brained scheme that we want to… and we should because they are destroying our country.
Finally we can turn the clock back to a time before we had Albo and his commie goons or Morrison and his covid cabal.
All of them a blight on Australia.
All traitors.
It’s time to turn the clock back NOW!
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