Don’t fall for false war over net zero
Last Sunday the National Party announced a new energy policy. Liberals should welcome the debate about ensuring we build Australia’s clean reindustrialised future for small business with more jobs, affordable bills and a lighter environmental footprint.
But it is important we pick the right battlelines. Net-zero has become absurdly values-laden. Oppose it and it is code for climate denier. Support it and it is code for economic suicide. Neither are true. Binary isn’t the answer. Nor are all net-zero targets equal.
A legislated net zero target is anti-democratic because it empowers activists to fight climate policy in courts, not parliament. It also elevates emissions reduction as a policy priority above other considerations like electricity prices and reliability.
Opposing an aspirational target is akin to opposing a target weight to shed kilos. It is why the Coalition road map to net zero acknowledged there was no linear path and included technologies yet to be developed.
Since then the promise of green hydrogen has collapsed. So there are legitimate questions about timeframes for achievement. Institute of Public Affairs polling found 58 per cent of Australians believe we should “pause its commitment to the policy … to avoid blackouts”.
The Albanese government and the teals have conceded energy reality through their own actions.
Trigger warning for teals: months after legislating a net-zero target teal MPs Zali Steggall, Monique Ryan, Sophie Scamps, Kate Chaney and Zoe Daniel voted with the government for new coal and gas subsidies to put downward pressure on energy prices.
The founder of Climate 200 doesn’t want to talk about this fundamental betrayal of trust and integrity by his candidates.
The National Party didn’t vote for these coal and gas subsidies. Nor did the Liberal Party. Perhaps it is why the founder of Climate 200 is so miffed I said the Liberal Party isn’t Nationals-lite.
Australians are highly pragmatic about energy. The Lowy Institute’s 2025 poll shows the overwhelming majority of Australians understand we need an energy mix – even projecting out to 2050.
Their poll shows 95 per cent accept there’s a role for renewables, 89 per cent for gas, 68 per cent for coal and 66 per cent for nuclear.
When Australians go to flick a switch they want the light to come at a price they can afford. Of course they don’t want environmental damage to flow, but it is a deferred consideration.
Australia’s electricity grid has problems of price and reliability that have been compounding for years. There hasn’t been sufficient new investment in baseload electricity generation for twenty years. And building new baseload energy will take time.
Neither public nor private investors will back new coal generation. Scrapping net-zero won’t solve this.
Only the Queensland state government owns coal generators. They have stuck with a net-zero target, are extending the life of existing coal generators, but not building new ones.
They are not alone. The Victorian and NSW Labor governments talk renewables, but have secret contracts to extend the life of coal generators.
Even China has a net-zero target by 2060 and is building new coal generators.
Until we get new supply costs will rise, particularly with the increasing demand resulting from data centres and demand from artificial intelligence.
The problem facing Australia’s energy system is one of urgency.
That’s why we need gas. The problems facing gas are state and federal Labor governments that have created uncertainty because they said they’d scrap gas, but reversed it once physics and economics got in the way.
The opposition of Labor to new gas has a material impact. During their period of opposition the global demand for new gas generation has increased dramatically and the timeframes for the new generators is four to five years.
But it is only a part solution. This is why we must lift the nuclear moratorium to build the next generation of baseload energy generation.
Gas and renewables will help bridge the divide between our coal past and present, and our nuclear future.
That is where the Albanese government, the Greens and teals are failing everyone.
They promised lower emissions, lower prices and lower unreliability. They’ve delivered less reliable power, higher prices and higher emissions.
They’re peaking economic problems through a renewables-only capacity investment scheme that is driving up costs and unreliability.
Their energy policy is compounding energy constraint, unreliability and price increases, and is undermining investment in energy-intensive manufacturing. It is a plan for deindustrialisation.
It can be fixed.
While the party is resolving its position, a Liberal solution should focus on urgently building energy abundance. We need to design the necessary financial and policy instruments to mobilise private capital and get more energy into the grid.
Any mechanism should be technology neutral. It should be guided by factoring in the whole price of electricity (distribution and network costs, storage and emissions), not just the cost of generation.
Minimising public risk and cost can be achieved through reverse auctions to maximise private investment and generation output. More importantly, a Liberal solution can build Australia’s clean reindustrialised future and deliver net-zero price increases and net-zero outages, and that’s the pathway to achieve emissions reduction too.
Tim Wilson is the federal Liberal member for Goldstein.
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