Everybody’s a loser from Labor’s disastrous energy policies

Renewables growth has collapsed to near record lows. Picture: AFP

The chorus of complaints against Labor’s energy policies are finally growing too loud to ignore. Earlier warnings – from the gas industry since 2022 – were too readily dismissed as whingeing from an unpopular industry.

But the sources of dismay have now spread well beyond our resources sector.

Our manufacturing sectors, broadly based business groups and even the renewables industry itself are sounding the alarm.

Many businesses have felt compelled to hold their tongue for the last few years, fearful that any public critique of influential members of Labor cabinet could see them targeted for political retaliation.

But the scale of the damage being done is now too severe and being felt too widely across the economy, forcing the business community to stand up.

Australian businesses know they won’t be able to continue to compete like this for another three years unless we change course.

Energy and resources drive Australia’s competitive advantage. But Australia is no longer in shape to win in the economic arena any more. We are shedding economic muscle mass.

America under Trump 2.0 is charging ahead with an America first approach, unleashing their oil and gas resources, unburdened by climate policy.

China has been doing the same all along.

Energy Minister Chris Bowen. Picture: NewsWire / Martin Ollman

Under Labor, Australia is heading onto the field with self-inflicted injuries as our self-imposed regulatory overburden, approval hurdles, green lawfare and investment deterrence continue unabated.

A mix of focusing on headlines over substance, ceding too much policy space to the green fringe and an inability to deliver policy details has led Australia’s energy market to its current sorry state.

Prices are higher, breaking Labor’s promise of lower bills. Energy security risks are rising, forcing manufacturing to load-shed. Renewables growth has collapsed to near record lows. Fossil fuel investment has fallen. The government has lost control, despite assuming ever-expanding market powers. There is no confidence left to invest.

It has taken a special level of ineptitude to leave virtually everyone as a loser under our current energy polices.

Energy producers, consumers, taxpayers, fossil fuel producers, and the renewables sector are all disappointed. It is hard to discern who is a winner here.

The government remains arrogant and in denial about what it has done. Approvals for any type of major energy project or infrastructure have become more difficult, if not unworkable. This includes renewables projects.

Too many rushed interventions have decimated our reputation for investment. Labor has not only allowed, but helped fund, green lawfare against our energy projects, which amounts to economic terrorism against our ­economy.

Energy Minister Chris Bowen sticks by the 82 per cent renewable energy target, despite virtually everyone in the industry (including the renewables industry itself) acknowledging it’s not going to happen.

Australian Energy Regulator data shows renewables growth needs to almost double from levels of recent years to meet that target.

Yet renewable growth is in fact heading in the opposite direction; last year it dropped to lows not seen since 2017.

Bowen probably knows better, but appears more interested in saving face ahead of an election than acknowledging – let alone trying to fix – the problem.

As renewables growth has collapsed, gas investment has also been made unwelcome. Offshore wind isn’t progressing. Green hydrogen has proven nothing but hype.

The Capacity Investment Scheme has deterred more investment than it has incentivised so far. There doesn’t appear any plan to chart a path forward beyond these failures, or fix these issues.

Australian jobs are baring the brunt of our vandalised energy trajectory. Labor’s blue collar base has been deserted in favour of green activists. The government’s hoped for saviour, the green jobs boom, hasn’t materialised. It was never going to. Go no further than asking the Australian Workers Union, who work tirelessly for manufacturing workers across the country (and originally founded the Labor Party). Green jobs are fewer in number, with much lower pay and worse conditions, than jobs in the traditional energy-based sectors.

Australian blue collar jobs are dying in silence. There have been high-profile closures of energy intensive manufacturing, such as Oceania Glass (after 169 years) and Qenos. Many smaller manufacturers are closing due to higher gas and electricity costs.

Most of these business closures don’t make media headlines.

They just disappear silently. The blue collar jobs, and families and communities they support, suffer in silence in their wake. Perhaps their silence will be broken on election day.

Saul Kavonic is head of energy research at MST Marquee.