Tucker Carlson was shocked to learn of the rising cost of energy bills in Australia, despite the country’s wealth of natural resources.
The former Fox News host claimed the high price paid by Australian families was due to the country’s exports of iron ore and coal to China.
The right-wing commentator claimed Australia was selling coal to China to be turned into renewable energy which “we then buy back”, criticising the Albanian government.
“Whoever thought that hates you,” he said, speaking at the Melbourne Convention Centre on Monday night as part of the Australian Freedom Conference tour.
‘It’s not as if the accountants in Parliament looked at the books one day and said: ‘all these estimates we had for wind farms, they don’t actually add up: we’re selling our country’s resources to a far away country to do something that doesn’t work and we’re paying more for it.’
“The fact that there are high energy costs is reason enough to get rid of the people who run your country.”
Tucker Carlson was shocked to learn how high energy bills are in Australia, despite being a country rich in natural resources.
Almost all of Australia’s solar panels come from overseas, with the majority manufactured in China.
Chinese investors also own two of Australia’s largest energy companies.
Energy Australia, which has 1.7 million customers, is owned by China Light and Power Company after being sold by the New South Wales government for $1.4 billion in 2011.
And Alinta Energy, which has 1.1 million customers, was sold by its private owners to Chow Tai Fook Enterprises for $4 billion in 2017.
Although neither Energy Australia nor Alinta distribute electricity, both are power generators and retailers and own crucial assets such as coal-fired power stations, solar fields and wind farms.
Tesla CEO Elon Musk was also shocked by how expensive electricity was in Australia in a recently resurfaced 2017 interview.
“Wow! Really?” he said in disbelief when 60 Minutes host Liz Hayes told him that electricity had become a “luxury item” for many families.
“I didn’t know it was so expensive. Australia has so many natural resources that even if you go with fossil fuels, electricity should be very cheap,” he says.
Her shock turned to sadness when she was told that many people were worried about not being able to turn on the lights or cook.
“I wasn’t expecting that,” she said in a shaky voice before pausing for a long time.
“We will work harder,” Musk said, implying he hoped to make electricity cheaper for Australians through Tesla’s technology.
In the year to May, electricity bills rose 6.5 per cent, above the rate of inflation, according to data released by the Australian Bureau of Statistics.
The increase prompted the Albanese government to introduce a $300 rebate on energy bills for all Australian households to help combat the rising cost of living.
Starting July 1, households will see a $300 credit automatically applied to their electric bills, while one million small businesses will receive $325 off their bills.
Critics have slammed the move, saying such rebates only reduce competitive pressure on energy companies to lower their prices and may contribute to further price increases.
Tesla CEO Elon Musk was also shocked by how expensive electricity was in Australia.
Meanwhile, inflation jumped to 4 percent in the year to May, up from 3.6 percent the previous month, prompting NAB analysts to warn that any interest rate cuts could be delayed until after May next year.
During his trip to Australia, Carlson also addressed the country’s housing crisis, which he says is a result of immigration.
Carlson admitted he was shocked when he learned how expensive it was to buy a home in Sydney, even in suburbs far from the harbour.
He said he was looking at house prices because he was considering buying property in Australia, but soon realised that even someone with his bank balance could not realistically afford to buy a house in Australia.
“It was a lot more than I could afford and I have a decent job,” he told the crowd.
‘How can anyone live here?’
He said when he asked a Sydney local the question, he was told many had left the city altogether or ended up homeless.
“I said, ‘That sounds like a crisis,'” Carlson added.
“Why is this happening? Immigration. There is only one reason and that is the reason.”
“But nobody wants to say it like that because it sounds like an attack on immigrants. And that’s how they shut you up. They say, ‘Shut up, racist.'”
Carlson said he generally supported immigration, but if there wasn’t enough housing for a growing population, prices would rise rapidly.
“If your children find it too expensive to buy a house in the country where they were born, you are erased, that’s all. Your lineage is over and that’s what’s happening,” he said.
“If your children can’t afford a home here, then there’s only one person to blame: the people who run your government.”
Sydney’s median house price of $1.466 million is 12 times the median full-time salary of $98,218 (even with a 20 per cent deposit) and last year a record 547,300 migrants flooded into Australia.