Source : the age
With an election due by May, Australia’s climate war is raging again. Climate and energy will be major battlegrounds as Opposition Leader Peter Dutton leads a brash, nuclear-powered campaign against the Albanese government’s ambitious renewables agenda.
Dutton’s nuclear energy plan – his only fully detailed, major policy released so far – raises more questions than it answers. States have refused to allow reactors in their jurisdictions, and the CSIRO finds nuclear more expensive than wind or solar.
The government and opposition will compete in the election campaign over their plans for renewable and nuclear energy. Credit: Bloomberg
Meanwhile, the government’s 2022 election promise to cut electricity bills by $275 a year went awry when a global energy crunch raised fuel costs and boosted average household bills to about $1600. Now, it must answer for patchy delivery of its bold plan to rapidly swap fossil fuels for renewables in the electricity grid.
The major parties will clash in five key battles, each with the cost of living at their core.
Renewables
Experts say the government’s key measure to cut power bills is not on track. They say its renewables rollout is behind schedule to reach its 82 per cent clean energy target by 2030.
The opposition will try to cast Australia as a global outlier focused solely on renewable energy.
Opposition energy spokesman Ted O’Brien said he would attack Albanese’s “broken promise” to cut energy bills, telling this masthead it is “symptomatic of Labor’s energy failures, which are making Australians poorer and the economy weaker”.
“An all-eggs-in-one-basket renewables-only approach … hasn’t worked anywhere else in the world,” he said.
But Climate Change and Energy Minister Chris Bowen boasts the government has nearly doubled the proportion of renewables in the grid to 40 per cent since 2022 and says cheaper clean energy will lower bills and deliver the bulk of emissions cuts needed for Australia’s climate goals.
“The cheapest and fastest way to meet our targets and secure our energy needs as coal retires is to roll out renewables,” Bowen said.
A sticking point for Bowen is that bill shock has led to two rounds of $300 household energy rebates in successive years.
Nuclear
The opposition has pledged to build seven nuclear reactors by the mid-2040s, slow the renewables rollout and “pour more gas” into the grid.
Bowen has criticised the plan, arguing it will take decades to execute, deliver the most expensive form of new energy and force Australia to rely on costly fossil fuels, which he says will raise power bills by up to $1200 a year.
Chris Bowen has slammed Peter Dutton’s signature plan to ramp up nuclear energy.Credit: Steven Siewert, Justin McManus
O’Brien’s costings of the Coalition’s nuclear plan, prepared by Frontier Economics, claim this vision to grow the grid is 44 per cent cheaper than the government’s renewable goals.
“Labor has isolated Australia internationally in pursuing an all-eggs-in-one-basket renewables-only approach,” he said.
Climate action
The government created history in 2022 when it legislated Australia’s commitment to reach net zero emissions by 2050 and committed to cut emissions by 43 per cent by 2030.
However, recent data from the Climate Change Department showed Australia’s annual emissions flat-lining, due to rising transport pollution caused by increased travel post-pandemic.
More recently, Donald Trump’s impending presidential term has disrupted international planning, and the government has delayed an upgraded 2035 goal, due by February, to sometime beyond the election.
Despite the bad news, Bowen can point to forecasts that his renewable energy plans will enable the government to reach its 2030 goal, and attack the opposition’s lower ambition.
The opposition also faces hard questions. Its party room is sceptical of climate goals, and Dutton has been cautious, declaring last year he would not commit to any emissions reduction goal ahead of the election.
Nevertheless, O’Brien can attack the government’s track record on emissions, arguing it “should be judged by its performance and not its promises”.
Cars
A culture clash over electric vehicles (EVs) is revving up as the opposition shifts gears from claiming clean cars would “end the weekend” to warning the government will make big, thirsty engines more expensive.
The government, on the other hand, last year unveiled major reform to drive EV sales: Australia’s first fuel efficiency standards, which limit the average emissions of a carmaker’s fleet of vehicles sold each year, imposing fines for breaches.
Branding it a “punitive approach”, O’Brien said this would increase the purchase price of popular vehicles with high emissions, such as utes and four-wheel drives.
“Under Labor’s plan, 99 per cent of all vehicles on the road will be EVs by 2050 and Albanese needs to explain how this will impact tradies, farmers and grey nomads,” he said.
Bowen is aggressively mounting his case for cleaning up Australia’s car fleet, arguing that EVs are increasingly popular, cheaper on fuel and growing in options. He refutes claims that his plan forces carmakers to raise prices.
“The Coalition must explain whether they will take Australia back by scrapping this overdue reform just to reheat [former prime minister] Scott Morrison’s scare campaign about ending the weekend,” Bowen said.
Household energy
The climate wars started over the nationwide electricity grid, but they will end in the family home as parties pitch to hip pockets.
Both parties are understood to be developing rebates for property owners who buy a battery and potentially funding some to install solar panels.
The Clean Energy Council found an average household with rooftop solar panels would cut its bill by about $1000 a year by adding a battery. Households in NSW and Victoria now pay about $1600 a year in power bills.
Batteries start at about $10,000 and, despite state schemes now offering modest assistance, extra financial support would be welcomed.
“The Coalition understands the importance of practical solutions like household batteries to improve energy resilience and affordability, and we’ll have more to say about this closer to the election,” O’Brien said.
Bowen is also hinting that more financial help could come.
“We’ve got more to do to help families further reduce their cost of living with solar panels and batteries and continue to put them in charge of their energy resources future.”
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