‘My yoke’ has a particular meaning in our family. When someone repeats a story that someone has already recounted, we simply declare ‘my yoke’.

The origin of the expression goes back to a dinner in London in which a nominated person from each table was required to tell a joke. A recently qualified Japanese doctor told a joke using his relatively poor English but, sadly, no one got the punch line. We all clapped politely.

The next joke-teller used impeccable timing to recount his hilarious yarn and everyone fell about laughing. But the Japanese doctor became very agitated, yelling out ‘My yoke, my yoke!’ Evidently, his joke had been repeated, it’s just we didn’t know it.

Sadly, I find myself muttering ‘my yoke’ quite a lot of the time as I read a commentary piece on a topic I have on my enduring list, and which makes pretty much the same points that I intended to make. What a bummer, I think; I was going to write a column just like that.

Of course, there is no monopoly on good ideas, and I am generally pleased to think that other people have also decided that my chosen topics are of great interest. It’s just that when you are beaten to the punch, there is a degree of personal deflation involved.

I cheer myself up by assuming that, on occasions, I steal other people’s thunder. I’m the one who gets in first, so there. In any case, virtually all topics require a thorough going-over, perhaps bringing in some new information or a slightly different interpretation. I’m always on the lookout for hooks based on some recent event.

One example was Origin’s decision to pull out of its Hunter Valley green hydrogen project which had been expected to commence production in 2026 – as if. But the combination of no customers, high energy costs and technical difficulties – code for the company couldn’t get the process to work – forced the hand of the CEO of the publicly listed company.

Good on Frank (Calabria), I say, not least for giving me the opportunity to write again about the folly of green hydrogen and its lack of progress around the world.

So let me give you three recent examples of excellent pieces of commentary written by others – I won’t call them competitors because they are really my compatriots – which I admire. I just wish that I had got in first.

The first dealt with healthcare and climate change and the complete impossibility of achieving net zero emissions if standards of health care are to be maintained. I began to take an interest in this topic when I learnt that Bretty – remember him, Dr Brett Sutton AO, former chief medical officer in Victoria – had been spending his time looking at public hospitals and climate change prior to him assuming the role of Grand Poo-Bah in charge of health matters (and a great deal more) in Victoria during the pandemic.

It had never occurred to me that anyone would even ask the question: what is the impact of public hospitals on climate change? But then again, if you are the type who counts the daily farts of cows and worries about rising sea levels, then why not ask Bretty’s question.

But just walk into a hospital and visit a patient, particularly a very sick one, and you will realise that carbon-based products are everywhere. The machines, the tubes, the gowns, the gloves, the syringes – virtually all medical equipment is made of plastic and most of it is necessarily single-use and disposed of. And what makes plastic? Hydrocarbons, of course.

When it comes to pharmaceutical products as well, oil and gas feature prominently in their production. Were fossil fuels to be banned in the production (and development) of pharmaceutical products, we may as well just beam us back to the dark ages and be done with it. Life will be surely short and brutal.

Unsurprisingly, this stark reality is not putting our federal government off. There is some sort of task force working through the options to reduce the carbon dioxide emissions of health care, with that particularly unimpressive parliamentarian, Ged Kearney, involved. She is ex-ACTU and was a nurse once upon a time.

There is a proposal to phase out the use of Ventolin puffers which are the first-line response for asthma sufferers. Puffers are cheap, convenient and effective but they release emissions – bad. (I have one grandson with asthma, so I take a particular interest. He doesn’t go anywhere without his puffer.) Evidently, there is some powder that can be used as an alternative and involves lower emissions. But why would you bother?

Another theme I have had my eye on but was taken up before I could get pen to paper – OK, words in the document – is the need to take the politics out of energy policy. We have really reached a sorry state when B1, Climate Change and Energy Minister Chris Bowen bangs on every day about the ‘scam’ of nuclear energy and renewable energy being the cheapest form of electricity. It’s all about politics.

Notwithstanding the fact that both Microsoft and Google have signed deals for nuclear power to generate the electricity that their facilities require, B1 carries on like a devil possessed, screaming out about the evils of nuclear energy. He regularly instructs his department to issue contrived information – OK, propaganda – to support his unhinged comments.

The sad reality is that energy policy, including the development of our electricity grid, is far too important to allow low-rent politics to dominate the conversation. We really need to give politics a rest and allow the people who really know – the electrical engineers, in particular – to determine the paths we should take.

A final topic on which I have been beaten to the starting line is Victoria, although at least I have written about my home state quite recently – yes, don’t go there, it’s not that easy to just up and leave. Yes, Victoria, the broken state, the pothole state, has been the subject of several incisive pieces outlining its catastrophic budget position and the fact that businesses are either going broke or decamping to another state.

After years and years of flagrant government mismanagement, irresponsibly expanding and overpaying the public sector and overseeing a massive rise in the population through immigration, the chickens are finally coming home to roost.  But Dan Andrews Mark II – aka Jacinta Allan – shows no intention of changing tack. Indeed, she even made a trip to India recently promoting more Indians to come to Victoria because they are very welcome, at least by her government.

While the CFMEU is now under administration, don’t really expect the strength of the ties between the Victorian Labor government and the union to abate. Most decisions taken by the state government – think here the massively expensive Suburban Rail Loop and the enforced construction of high-rise apartments – are just payback to the CFMEU for their political assistance.

The upshot of being pipped at the post is that I need to stay on my toes. If I’m on to an important topic, get on with it. Minimise the ‘my yoke’ moments, Judith.