The Thinking Man's Fridge

Well, the State Government, in all its wisdom, has finally come clean and released the figures showing that only 2.3% of the state’s gas usage is attributed to residential purposes. So when Premier Carpenter made his semi-presidential address to the nation of Western Australia last week, pleading with us to reduce our gas use by 10%, the overall impact was a potential statewide saving of 0.23%. Brilliant economics, and once again, missing the point entirely. Way to solve a problem.

Why does the State Government continually act in such a way as to serve a guilt-trip for every resident when it’s the piss-poor management to blame for every f*ck up we have? In summer, the power shortages meant we couldn’t use our air conditioners. Never mind the fact that residential power usage accounts for less than 10% of statewide energy demand. It’s still our fault. Go out and swim in your pool. But don’t fill it up, because we don’t have any water, either.

In summer water shortages meant we weren’t allowed to use our sprinklers to save our gardens, even though once again the residential demand for water accounts for less than 10% of overall statewide consumption. It got to the sad state that people were ENCOURAGED to dob in their neighbours if they saw them watering outside their allocated days so the Government could issue a fine. One poor bastard in Sydney died from a one-punch assault that began as an argument over watering the garden. What have we become!?! Don’t get me wrong – I only watered my garden three times last summer, and lost my lawn accordingly, but my choice to do so is a general appreciation of the shortage of the resource, NOT because my retarded Government bean-counters have given me a guilt-trip to make me change my ways. Admittedly, my choice may also have been because I’m the absolute antithesis of Don Burke, and am much happier looking at pictures of plants on my TV, but it’s still MY choice. And besides, when you go past a Council park during the night and the sprinklers are on every day of the week, it’s kind of hard not to get a mixed message.

And now, with the gas, once again it’s our f*cking fault. Never mind that the Government has rejected numerous plans for a second gas pipeline to serve the metropolitan area. Absurdly, Minister Roberts believed not enough consultation had taken place with the native title holders who would be affected, but she had the WRONG TRIBAL GROUPS! The two groups consulted had NO native title claim anywhere near the area, and the group WITH the native title signed agreements for the pipeline to be built. Once again – way to solve a problem.

So we can’t use our air conditioners, except in winter, and we can’t use our heaters, except in summer, and we can’t use our sprinklers ever because we don’t have enough water in summer and we don’t need them in winter… WTF!?! How did it get to this? What sort of piss-poor third-world nation are we turning into?

So I’ve finally worked out that WA does not stand for Wait Awhile. It clearly stands for What Appliances? As for the BOOM economy – Bastards Owning Our Money…