In a thousand places, from Albany to Yerranderie, from the Bungle Bungles to Zeehan, around 16 million Australians have just ticked a few boxes that will determine which team gets to control its Federal Parliament for a while.

As to the future of the wind industry, the result matters little: without bi-partisan support, the LRET (on which the whole stinking rort depends) is as dead as the dodo.

Bill Shorten went into the contest talking up a ludicrous 50% target; wisely, Malcolm Turnbull didn’t say much at all.

Bankers, power retailers and investors aren’t going to place any bets on a weather driven ‘system’, with its existence wholly dependent on massive subsidies that have to outlast religion.

Plenty of government backed industries have seen the plug pulled without warning: just ask woolgrowers and car manufacturers. The only difference that arises from the election result is just how fast the whole debacle collapses: the demise of massively subsidised wind power is inevitable; its doom in Australia (as elsewhere) is a matter of when, not if.

Mindful of Yogi Berra’s adage about how tough it is to make predictions (especially about the future), STT is happy to go out on a limb and call this election a resounding victory for STT Champion, Nick Xenophon.

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Nick, South Australia’s favourite Greek, has been a lone-wolf in Australian politics for almost 20 years: sitting in SA’s Upper House from 1997-2007 and in the Federal Senate from 2008.

This time around, Nick has fielded candidates across the Country (under the banner the ‘Nick Xenophon Team’) – in both the House of Representatives and the Senate.

NXT should easily bag 5 Senate spots (perhaps 6) and a couple of lower house seats too.

Jacqui Lambie, Independent Senator from Tasmania will not only retain her spot, but is odds on to bring another on her ‘Jacqui Lambie Network’ ticket, Devonport Mayor, Steve Martin to Canberra with her.

In the last Parliament, Jacqui ran pretty close to Nick Xenophon; and has already stated her intention to follow Nick’s policy lead in the next Parliament.

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With 5-6 of his own and Jacqui Lambie plus 1, Nick and Jacquie will provide an insurmountable obstacle in the Senate, to whichever of the major parties takes control of the lower house.  (Bearing Yogi Berra’s warning in mind, STT predicts a narrow victory for the Liberal/National Coalition in the House of Representatives)

And that presents one almighty headache for the wind industry, its parasites and spruikers.

You see, Nick detests these things on economic grounds:

Nick Xenophon slams “reckless” CERES Project as an “economic kick in the guts” for SA

And on social and health grounds:

Xenophon calls it: ultimately, this is a question about excessive noise

While sitting on the Senate Inquiry into the great wind power fraud, Nick often led the charge; ripping into the wind industry’s parasites and their routine lies and propaganda:

Senate’s Wind Farm Inquiry Turns Up the Heat On Pac Hydro’s Malfeasance

Vesta’s Ken McAlpine Forced to Apologise to Dr Sarah Laurie for …. well, just being ‘Ken’

And he also helped Clive and Trina Gare get their compelling evidence across to the World, about being paid over $200,000 per year to host these things and, due to the turbine noise induced sleep deprivation they suffer, ruing the day that the developer, AGL ever set foot on their property:

SA Farmers Paid $1 Million to Host 19 Turbines Tell Senate they “Would Never Do it Again” due to “Unbearable” Sleep-Destroying Noise

After that Inquiry closed, the Senators on it produced a raft of recommendations, including a 5 year cap on a wind power outfit’s entitlement to receive Renewable Energy Certificates; that entitlement is currently legislated to continue until 2031, even for turbines that started operating way back in 2001. And the Senators also recommended that RECs would no longer be issued to projects in States that refused to adopt strict Federal Regulations on infrasound and low frequency noise:

Senate Recommendations Spell ‘DOOM’ for the Australian Wind Industry

STT hears that one of the first items on Nick Xenophon’s agenda is to have all of the Senate’s recommendations implemented and enforced.

Whether it’s Electricity Bill Shorten or Malcolm Turnbull in charge of the House of Representatives, it will be a wily and experienced political animal, who voters simply call “Nick”, that will run the Senate: and sensible energy policy is well and truly on his policy radar.

Time for a break

STT has been hard at this since December 2012. After picking up 29,270 followers, punching out 1,360 posts and clocking up more than 1,465,000 views, STT is putting our boots up for a while and taking a little break.

Thanks for your support and your efforts in helping to spread the word about the greatest economic and environmental fraud of all time.  Keep up the good work, keep giving the wind industry hell and we will see you all in a couple of weeks. We’ll do our best to get your comments up, but – with our editorial team going bush – it might take us a bit longer than usual.