Bowen's Lattes, Beijing's Payday

With the world’s parasite class of freeloaders, grifters and spivs jetting intoTürkiye for an all-expenses-paid junket at COP31, the UN’s 31st annual climate conference, it was hardly a surprise to see queues snaking out of the Australian Pavilion. Chris ‘Blackout’ Bowen was shouting the coffees. The federal government’s beverage contract for the pavilion and delegation office totaled $32,100.95. Naturally, Australian taxpayers are picking up the tab.

Talk about rubbing our noses in it. Australians are thinking twice about buying a takeaway coffee as they juggle the groceries, the mortgage and the power bill. Half a world away, Labor has found thirty-two grand to keep the lattes flowing for the freeloading climate conference crowd.

If Bowen thinks that’s a good use of public money, let him explain it to a pensioner opening their next electricity bill.

Meanwhile, Beijing must be laughing at Bowen and his ridiculous entourage.

In 2025, China, with its population of 1.41 billion, consumed 20% more coal energy per capita than Australia. That's right, PER CAPITA. That’s 18,093 kilowatt-hours per person in China, compared with 15,029 here.

Now look at what Beijing is doing on top of that. While Bowen lectures Australians about the future of energy, China is adding coal-fired capacity on a scale that dwarfs our entire eastern coal fleet.

While Bowen lectures us about how cheap renewables are, China has 533 gigawatts of coal-fired capacity in its development pipeline. To put that 533GW in context, Australia’s National Electricity Market has roughly 20 gigawatts of coal capacity. Beijing’s pipeline alone is more than 26 times the size of the entire coal fleet on our eastern grid. China commissioned 78 gigawatts in 2025 alone, nearly four times that Australian fleet.

That pipeline comes on top of roughly 1,270 gigawatts already operating in China. Of that fleet, 410 gigawatts are nine years old or less, and another 575 gigawatts are between 10 and 19 years old. Nearly a thousand gigawatts of coal capacity are under 20 years old. Much of that fleet could be around for decades.

But of course, don’t ever expect the ABC to publish these numbers so Australia could have an informed debate on the subject. And don't ever expect the ABC to ask Bowen about these numbers.

The following emissions graph shows the scale of the contrast: China’s annual carbon dioxide emissions from fossil fuels and industry have soared, while Australia’s remain a small fraction of Beijing’s total.

Utimately, Net Zero is not just an economic suicide note, it’s a wealth transfer mechanism which enriches China and impoverishes Australia.

China dominates the global supply chains for solar equipment, wind turbines and lithium-ion batteries. Beijing can keep building coal plants at home while Labor's regulations force us to buy equipment from China, which makes us uncompetitive. And at the same time, Labor denies Australians the freedom to use our coal to create wealth, but are happy for that very same coal to be shipped off to China. What sort of treacherous government looks at that arrangement and calls it an industrial strategy for Australia?

Then there’s Labor’s New Vehicle Efficiency Standard, which is nothing other than an escalating Carbon Tax on petrol and diesel cars. And who’s best placed to cash in on Labor's scheme? Again, it's China, which made 70 percent of the world’s electric cars in 2025. Beijing couldn’t ask for a better salesman.

But the wealth transfer doesn’t stop there. Net Zero pushes up the cost of energy in Australia, so our industries can’t compete against China, and they move offshore, taking jobs and wealth creation with them.

The coffee tab tells you how casually Labor spends your money. The real bill lands when an Australian factory shuts, its workers are handed redundancy notices, and the next round of investment goes offshore.

Unless Australia wakes up quickly to the scam of Net Zero by voting out Labor at the next election, the damage to our economy and standard of living will be irreparable.

At the next election, vote Labor out before it hands Beijing another slice of Australian industry and sends us the bill.

“Great nations are never impoverished by private, though they sometimes are by public prodigality and misconduct.”
― Adam Smith