NSW Premier Chris Minns under pressure over council gas bans

Chris Minns is under pressure to stop local councils from banning gas in new developments after Sydney City Council voted to begin the process of requiring new residential developments to be all electric.

Sydney lord mayor Clover Moore is urging the NSW Premier to help homes and businesses across the state transition to renewable energy. Picture: NCA NewsWire / Damian Shaw

NSW Premier Chris Minns is under pressure to stop local councils from banning gas in new homes and businesses after Sydney’s City Council voted to begin the process of requiring new residential developments to be all electric.

Sydney lord mayor Clover Moore has urged Mr Minns to ban new gas connections statewide after the council voted 8-2 on Monday to “investigate the opportunities and challenges with amending the City of Sydney’s planning controls to require all new residential developments … to be all electric”.

Mr Minns has previously said he was not interested in pursuing a statewide ban on gas, following a decision by Victoria to ban new gas connections from 2024.

“We’re facing a situation where we need gas for industry,” he said in July. “We’ve also got baseload power that’s coming off in the next few years and not enough renewables coming into the system. So I don’t need another complication or another policy change when the challenges ahead of us are so serious.”

The NSW government has the power in some cases to override local council policy.

NSW Premier Chris Minns previously said he wasn’t interested in a NSW gas ban similar to Victoria’s model. Picture: NCA Newswire / Gaye Gerard

The Sydney city move comes as Waverley Council bans indoor gas appliances by requiring only electric ovens, cooktops and space heaters in new developments and Parramatta Councils is requiring all developments in its CBD to be all electric.

Business Sydney executive director Paul Nicolaou said switching from gas to electricity was complex for businesses, and while his organisation supported transitioning to clean energy, it could only be done while protecting businesses and communities.

“We must ensure businesses that want to transition off gas have access to meaningful government incentives,” Mr Nicolaou said. “At the same time, businesses that need gas should not be punished for continuing to use it. This should happen statewide, not council by council.”

NSW Opposition Leader Mark Speakman said “the attitude to gas bans in NSW should be a statewide approach. It’s inconsistent to have one side of the street where you’ve got a gas ban, and the other side of the street where you’ve got no gas ban.”

Regardless, “there should be no ban on gas at the moment”, he said, referring to the cost-of-­living crisis and adding that banning gas would “probably create more carbon emissions than save carbon emissions”.

City of Sydney chief executive Monica Barone will lead the council’s examination of the proposal, while Ms Moore was requested to write to Mr Minns, asking him to support and plan for the transition of homes and business to renewable energy on a state level.

Ms Moore said in a statement the upcoming ban was because of the growing climate emergency, calling recent fires in Europe and North America “a frightening indication of what we might expect in our backyard this summer”.

“We need to do everything we can, urgently, to lower our emissions,” she said.

“The City of Sydney is committed to net zero emissions in our area by 2035 – reducing fossil fuel use in our area is a key part of this.”

In its minutes, the City Council referenced a report from the Climate Council in 2022, that said households that switched to fully electric in Sydney could save up to $924 annually, with higher savings in other capital cities.

The council also referenced 350 Australia’s “Electrify Your Council” campaign, which works with and pushes for local governments across NSW to move to an exclusively electric model.