Nation’s winter tale of discontent

On a bleak day when the Australian sharemarket took its biggest tumble in two years and blackout warnings were issued, Energy Minister Chris Bowen offered Australians some extraordinary advice. Turn off outside lights, swimming pool heaters and filters, and stop any other superfluous electricity use, he urged. As darkness fell and temperatures dropped, householders in Queensland, NSW, Victoria, South Australia and Tasmania learned of the Australian Energy Market Operator’s warning of blackouts. In Queensland, state-owned transmission company Powerlink urged its five million customers, including 238,000 businesses, to limit their use of airconditioners, switch off electrical equipment at power points and turn off unnecessary lighting. In one of the most energy-rich nations it felt distinctly Third World. It should never have come to this. But it has. Effective short and long-term solutions are needed.

The causes of the crisis are complex. About a third of coal-fired power plants are out of action for maintenance or because they are old and broken-down. Consumers, energy companies and finance providers, conscious of climate change, all want to move on from coal. So upgrades and modernisation of power plants have been let slide. Gas supplies are inadequate to meet domestic needs and export contracts, especially with some states such as Victoria reluctant to develop their reserves.

Green rantings against gas, and calls for bans on new gas as well as coal projects, look more absurd by the hour. Sanctions that have stopped Russia’s gas exports, while morally right, have not helped. International demand for Australian gas has never been stronger. And finally, without better storage capacity, renewables such as wind and solar power, which are intermittent by nature, are not yet able to carry the baseload.

Mr Bowen said on Tuesday there was “no need to be concerned about blackouts in the immediate future”. He was not giving “a magical guarantee” but “everything that could be done is being done very actively”. The public will hold him to that. Like many new ministers, Mr Bowen is blaming his predecessors for the problem. But what matters is how the Albanese government moves to fix the predicament.

Qenos chief executive Stephen Bell is correct when he says the crisis has been brewing for a long time due to policy failures on both sides of politics. The future of his company and many others, as he says, depends on a rapid solution to soaring gas prices. Mr Bell’s company is Australia’s sole manufacturer of polyethylene and polymers, employing 550 full-time staff and 250 full-time contractors at its Melbourne and Sydney plants.

Soaring power prices are threatening companies, supply chains and jobs. During the election campaign, Anthony Albanese said he wanted “an economy that works for people”. The same applies to the energy system.