The Australian Coalition has packaged eight energy commitments into a single bill it promises to introduce within 30 days of election. The central claim: renewable energy targets and net zero legislation are driving up power bills, and scrapping them will deliver relief. The evidence for this claim is absent. The actual drivers of Australia's recent electricity price spike are well-documented: Russia's invasion of Ukraine sent global gas prices vertical, east coast coal mine flooding and generator outages compounded the problem, and wholesale electricity costs jumped roughly 20% as a result. Renewables were not a significant factor. Batteries storing cheap excess solar have, in some cases, actually pushed wholesale prices down. The political irony is thick enough to cut. At least half the policies Taylor and Canavan propose abolishing were introduced by Coalition governments. The safeguard mechanism — nominally capping industrial emissions — was Tony Abbott's creation. The mid-century net zero goal came from Scott Morrison and Barnaby Joyce. The nuclear energy ban dates to John Howard. The Coalition is now proposing to demolish its own policy architecture while blaming Labor for the consequences of global energy shocks. The vehicle efficiency standard repeal is particularly revealing. The policy has driven a substantial increase in EV model availability, including at the affordable end. Twenty-five percent of new car buyers chose an EV last month — more than bought a petrol or diesel car — and are enjoying measurably lower running costs. The Coalition frames this as reduced consumer choice. The buyers spending less on fuel would disagree. Global trends make the position look even more untenable. Renewable energy overtook coal as the world's leading electricity source last year. Solar capacity expanded 30% in a single year. Eighty-five percent of new power capacity built globally was renewable, and 90% of that was cheaper than the cheapest fossil fuel alternative. Global EV sales are up over 10% this year and expected to reach nearly 30% of total sales, with China leading. The Coalition plan asks Australia to swim against this current. The honest complexity is that replacing an ageing coal system is expensive regardless of method. A renewables-dominated grid may not bring prices down much. But CSIRO and the International Renewable Energy Agency data consistently show it will be cheaper than alternatives — and it cuts emissions driving escalating climate damage while positioning Australia for an industrial future as fossil fuel demand declines. The Albanese government has its own gaps: the renewables transition risks slowing, new coal and gas exports keep getting approved, and the PM avoided naming fossil fuels as the problem at Climate Week in New York. Taylor's Wednesday announcement went further than policy rollback. He implicitly dismissed climate change as a threat and argued all energy types, dirty and clean, should be equally available — a framing that treats the atmosphere as a matter of consumer preference rather than physics. The bill would also replace Labor's capacity investment scheme with one that could use public money to subsidise fossil fuels and nuclear generation, effectively redirecting taxpayer funds toward incumbent energy interests. The 20-year question answers itself. If this plan were implemented and sustained, Australia would lock in higher emissions, miss the cost advantages of the global clean energy transition, subsidise declining fossil fuel industries with public money, and face escalating climate damage costs with no industrial hedge. The plan is not evidence-based. It is ideology dressed as pragmatism — which is exactly what it accuses the other side of being.
