Albanese government’s plan to create 300,000 jobs at risk due to surging electricity prices

Labor’s promise to create hundreds of thousands of new jobs through its climate and energy policy is at risk in what’s been described as a “cruel hoax”.

Surging electricity prices are putting at risk Labor’s promise its climate and energy policy will create more than 300,000 jobs, most of them in regional areas.

Called Powering Australia, Labor’s climate policy assumes that by 2025 wholesale electricity prices will be 18 per cent lower than they were in 2021 and 26 per cent lower by 2030.

The policy pledged to create 604,000 new jobs.

But 306,000 of these jobs will only be created should the broader economy have access to clean, low-priced electricity.

“This is anticipated to create a further 306,000 induced jobs, underpinned by competitive advantages attributed to access to abundant, cheap electricity” which is assumed to be “able to support higher economic growth associated with increased mining, new manufacturing jobs, and a renewable-fuelled energy export sector.”

The Albanese government has promised its climate and energy policy will create more than 300,000 jobs. Picture: Kelly Barnes

But instead of dropping from the 2021 levels assumed in the plan, since July this year wholesale prices in the National Electricity Market have been more than three times higher in NSW and QLD than and two-and-a-half times the price it has been in Victoria.

And the market is predicting these high prices to stay in place until at least 2024-25 before easing by 10 per cent in 2025-2026.

The modelling is the same modelling it has used to justify the claim household power prices will fall by $275 by 2025.

Prime Minister Anthony Albanese has reiterated the promise to create the jobs even as power prices have kept surging.

Speaking in Gladstone in June he said told his audience “there is a massive investment of billions of dollars to come to make sure that Australia continues to be a country that makes things and that we make things right here in Central Queensland” adding “it’s no accident that our plan for Powering Australia, which will create 604,000 new jobs by 2030, will have five out of every six of those jobs created in regional Australia”.

Mr Albanese toured Rio Tinto's Yarwun Alumina Refinery in Gladstone in June. Picture: AAP

Opposition Leader Peter Dutton said the promise of 604,000 jobs had been exposed as a cruel hoax.

“On 97 occasions before the last election, the Prime Minister promised your electricity bill would reduce by $275 a year – yet in this budget, instead of going down by $275, Labor’s plan will see your electricity bill go up by more than 56 per cent over the next two years,” he said.

“Now we see that the other plank of the Prime Minister’s Powering Australia policy has a 306,000 jobs black hole.”

A spokesman for Climate Change and Energy Minister Chris Bowen said the Modelling of Powering Australia includes the jobs created by 2030 as a result of the whole range of Government policies being implemented, including direct and indirect effects and massive investment in renewable energy, particularly in the regions.

“We believe Australia can be a renewable energy powerhouse, and all Australians will benefit from the economic growth that will bring, including jobs in the mining and manufacturing sector as well as exporting renewable energy overseas,” he said.

Originally published as Albanese government’s plan to create 300,000 jobs at risk due to surging electricity prices