Australia has a wealth of energy reserves:
And yet our energy prices are among the highest in the world — so there is clearly some terrible policy or industry mismanagement happening here.
We produce a lot of energy, but Net Zero incentives are now causing most of it to be exported rather than benefiting our economy and lowering costs domestically:
Aside from residential power bills, energy is one of the primary input costs for most businesses and industries, and so has a flow-on effect making the cost of everything else much higher too.
Good news: this is a rare opportunity for significant improvement without downstream economic trade-offs. Making better use of our energy abundance will boost the entire economy.
Energy Policy Reforms
Much of this is simply getting the Government to step out of the way, stop meddling and let the market cause the right things to happen. We should move to:
- Free-market energy: renewables are well-established to stand on their own feet now, so remove all subsidies and restrictions and let the market decide on an optimal energy mix.
- Separate the cost of Net Zero on energy bills, add this back as a voluntary Net Zero contribution to everyone’s bill, which they can opt out of if they disagree or can’t afford to pay
- Lift the ban on nuclear: the government should not be picking winners here either, but should allow nuclear in the mix for energy providers (as we will for nuclear subs). Passively safe SMR technology is rapidly evolving as a flexible zero-emission source.
- Scrap the fuel excise tax. This is a highly regressive tax, given lower income demographic pay a larger share of their income on fuel and are much less able to afford EVs. Cheaper road transport logistics will also help business and reduce costs across the economy.
- LNG is a key energy resource, currently mis-managed. East coast gas reservation to ensure domestic requirements are prioritised over export, unblock permitting for new supply, ease pricing fluctuations for grid generation, increase/fix PRRT to ensure more of our common-wealth flows into the future fund to benefit future generations
- Battery production here in Australia: renewables need a lot of battery capacity, both up-front and for replacement over time. Australia ranks #1 in the world for Lithium production, and battery rare earth materials but we mostly just ship it overseas, then buy the higher-value batteries back. We should incentivise sovereign battery production and foster capacity as a central pillar of our energy industry, with high-tech automated production facilities and strong suppliers feeding into the local market.