Energy Market Dynamics - Australia

 

What is still happening to the energy supply market across Australia?

1.  Huge  multinational energy corporates pay less in wholesale prices for gas and electricity resources from Australia, than retail consumers do within the nation - partly due locked in long term contracts allowed.

2.   Aging coal plants that are due to close soon are symbolic of socio- political issues in regions that have prospered in the past but now struggle economically to face a changing future.

3.    Renewable energy sources are not enough at this stage to replace coal  and traditional ones in sustaining supply to an inceeased population.

4.  The energy market in Australia has been totally outsourced by the Canberra Federal government to so called free market players in the form of only a handful of wholesalers like Aus Grid and Endeavour Energy - allocation has been made for monopoly by geographical areas.

Only the Western Australian state government has been wise and practical enough to ensure their domestic customers get enough supply before allocating supply to overseas wholesalers.

Just like any wise government would take care of its own people first.....

5.   Wholesale private players within Australia then farm out energy supply allocation to retail players like Origin, AGL, Energy Australia, etc.
Such retail players are huge in domination of the domestic market, have become agressive to consumers in utilities  and also said to have interlocking non- Australian interests.

There is an unwillingness by government in Australua to implement measures like price ceilings and caps on charges for essential goods and services. 

7.   Like for mortgage loans, consumers can choose between variable and short term fixed rates for daily supply and usage.

The few players at wholesale supply level already make it possible for them to likely and allegedly squeeze retail players fighting for profit margins in a market for essential utility needs of everyone.

8.  Australia is a major producer of energy resources, yet its residents do not enjoy the benefits of such bounty, due to potential
and alleged market manipulation, lack of strategic and forward looking planning by governments,  poor political leadership for many years and alleged strong interlinks between big business and those in power.

9.   No critical reserve of gas and electricity resources are maintained nationally as part of disaster planning and national strategy.

Note that Australian national emergency reserves in petroleum are kept in the USA. Makes one think!

10.   Although it is easy for retail customers like me to change energy providers (portability without exit penalties), most properties in Australia are not built in an energy efficient way.

#yongkevthoughts

Thoughts on Singapore - On the Cusp of the Future

 

Every society has its
downs and ups. Do we recognise, sharpen and utilise our inherent advantages - and do we counter our disadvantages?

Size of territory, the lack of available natural resources and geopolitical risks can be set off by strategic planning and implementation, quality education for the public, technological value add and having an embedded practical vision for a nation.

Governance can be betrayed by divisive politics, short term manipulation, obsessive diversions, pervasive corruption and undue foreign influence.

Does your goverment cloud you with petty issues, falling standards, band aid solutions and lack of initiative?

Singapore is not just economically rich, but has societal attitudes borne out of its unavoidable deficiencies.
It has developed as a beacon of refuge from instability and as a captivator of talent ignored or under appreciated in other places. 

Singapore does walk on a tightrope between competing interests.  Its colonial heritage, future socio-political development and dependence on an open market are all two edged swords of opportunity and crisis.

Taxes can be low but costs of car ownership and properties prohibitively high.  Spatial freedom can be a challenge for visitors with loads of open space and lower populations from nations with too much land.   Singapore is a world critical transport hub by air and shipping, due partly to its location.
Will it be caught up in a war not of its making but due to its geographical and trading eminence?

#yongkevthoughts

Threesomes with a Difference

 

Singapore is surrounded by a peninsular, islands big and small, trading routes, channels and seas. It is an island itself, albeit with reclaimed land fringes, but it is also an island beyond the geographical meaning of the term.

Singapore thrives on differentiation.  Its dynamics, governance drivers and ability to grow thrive on offering something which its neighbours cannot, to the same degree.

Myanmar just had a military coup.  Vietnam is communist, together with Laos.  The Phillippines and Kampuchea have had more tumultous experiences in politics.  Thailand and Malaysia are technically constitutional monarchies in varying forms.  Timur-Leste and Papua New Guinea became fledging democracies after independence, but have not reached maturity in governance.  Indonesia is a federation of several cultural regions that has so much land size and population in comparison to the city state of Singapore.

So what captivates the rest of South-east Asia to offerings by Singapore?  Reassurance, relative stability, better reliance and constant progress - just like Switzerland to Europe.  Not just in being a transport hub, infrastructure provider, banker, shipping safety harbour, medical and education excellence provider, a place with good social cohesion structure,  technology facilitator, military capability displayer and strategic planning thinker - Singapore is ever the middleman, broker and trader.  As long there are transactions to be churned and there are problems elsewhere,  there is commission, value add and profit to be made, as Singapore beckons the talented, the visionary and the adventurer.

Both Indian and Chinese cultures have significantly infused the South-east Asian make up for umpteen years, before the arrival of Islam and Colonialism added further layers of social and political influences.  Today's Singapore can be said to be a microcosm of this historical accumulation and interaction - and yet the thinking and actions of its leaders and society stand apart.

So what abhors its neighbours about Singapore?   Perhaps the very same things that attracts them -  the better quality of life, its persistently stronger currency, its First World economic prowess.   Its sheer dependence on migrant labour in construction, house help and jobs its citizens will not do can cause an Achilles heel which makes it vulnerable to supply forces from its neighbours.

Singapore, small as it is, buys more arms than Australia, Indonesia or New Zealand.

Singapore has no home grown traditional royalty aristocrats to pander to.   It has maintained to a higher intensity the use of the English language and promoted the prominence of Mandarin spoken amongst its population.  Its leaders impose a strict political discipline for its citizens, resulting in a social order that contrasts with the waves of political instability of its neighbours.   Singapore's ensuing ability to hugely attract international business and talent belies its absence of natural resources.

Likewise, Australia and New Zealand can also empathise with how contemporary Singapore feels.
Both these two Antipodean countries find themselves different from their neighbours in the Asia-Pacific hinterland and ocean backyard.

The three nations have a Westminster based system of government.   They are the outcomes of British trading, military and expansionist initiatives from the 18th to the 20th centuries.   They have attained an economic status which is the envy of their neighbours, short of China, Japan and South Korea.   Each of these three nations were also built on the contributions of historical migrants.
They all offer a high measure of social stability, governance and economic wealth, but Singapore has the lowest taxes.

One lacks land size, another has too much and the third can be so remote from the rest of the world.  Both New Zealand and Singapore governments dare to stake their more independent positions in contemporary geopolitics. The Australian government continues to not seize an opportunity to assert its own refreshing values in international diplomacy and political moves.

In terms of wartime risks, Singapore geographically lies in a highly likely flashpoint, while Australia is most vulnerable in its exposed northern coasts and its affiliation with the South Pacific.

Nww Zealand has taken huge consistent steps to embrace its Indigenous heritage, when compared with its cross-Tasman neighbour.  Singapore is most conscious of balancing the implications of its multiracial population.

Singapore is what it is today, despite not having any natural resources.  Australia is blessed with many natural resources and yet its financial centres are behind that of Singapore.   All three countries utilise high levels of immigration to supplant population growth (before Covid 19).

Australia and New Zealand have proved to be bastions of relative stability, governance and reliability like Singapore.  They have attracted investors as places to park excess funds in search of higher returns, buy properties as back up refuges and place children for higher education.  Where people originate from nations with political instability but varying levels of economic opportunities, all  three countries can be heaven sent as lower risk alternatives for escape to in the worst of times.

#yongkevthoughts

Walls

Walls are not just physical structures, but also represent mindsets, preservations of what seems to have worked in the past and a telling inability to effectively embrace and utilise the best of changes.

Walls made of stone, metal or earth can only last as long as the materials offered by Nature and human handiwork. Nature is forever transforming. Humankind has progressed because of the evolving brain of Homo Sapiens to make the most of volatility, observe what is more stable and reliable and adapt better than others. Other related species have found limitations without embracing this significant ability, despite having larger sizes, apparently better physical prowesss and a longer track record of survival.

So when particular human tribes or cultures revert strongly to the circle of bandwagons mentality, it can be a decidedly portent sign of negativity and decline. The actual act of erecting walls, in the broadest sense of the word, has historically been more of a disadvantage than a benefit. The society that builds walls perpetuates in its own limbo - it can be compared to someone who needs positive change but is encouraged and emboldened to be trapped in his own debilitating comfort zone of bad habits and incriminating behaviour.

Hadrian's Wall, the Great Wall of China, the Wall of Ston in Croatia, the Berlin Wall, the Great Wall of Babylon and fortifications serving as outposts in dangerous territory of deserts and plains jump out of our school textbooks. The primary justification of strategic defence provides a psychological rationale for the construction of walls and accompanying moats. Often such physical manifestations just delay the arrival of the inevitable.

Is the real and effective enemy the barbarian waiting at the gate? Maybe the actual enemy is an inability to consider the new and seemingly unacceptable, to make use of the best offered by a seeming threat and to resolve internal dismay by seizing on an opportunity to learn?

We know that walls can be breached anyway in unexpected places. The Achilles heel of using a wall as a socio-political tool has been demonstrated by a top military commander willingly opening the gates to invaders in dynastic China. 

The man made wall is best seen as a temporary and interim measure to use when the builder is disorganised and refuses to adopt other more reliable methods. Walls of a cultural nature are echoed by strict interpretations of often a religious nature, the deeming of uniqueness behind the walls and strong restrictions in allowing foreigners coming in. 

The human penchant for building walls can also be seen in cyberspace, exercising extreme conservatism and building defences against inter continental missiles. Military strategy in the future must encompass a variety of holistic fronts and not just rely on a physical structure.

The greater ease of mobility, in travel, exchange of goods, virtual transactions and social engagement, implies that any one still believing in the usefulness of erecting walls, has a complex job ahead.