Federal Labor must make crucial decisions on the future role of gas in Australia – and of the powerful fossil fuel lobby pushing against the progress of the energy transition – or risk missing the opportunity of a generation to electrify the nation.
In a speech to the Smart Energy Conference in Sydney on Thursday, Greens leader Adam Bandt said Labor was faced with a number of increasingly urgent calls on gas that would determine the speed of electrification in Australia, which he said had been turned into a petrol state.
The Albanese government is coming under increasing pressure, both politically and from energy industry experts and heavyweights, to throw its full weight behind electrification – of homes, businesses and transport – as a huge economic and climate action opportunity.
According to Rewiring Australia chief scientist and co-founder Saul Griffith, electrifying everything and powering it with solar will remove 40 per cent of Australia’s domestic economy emissions and save the average household $3000-5000 per year – a major plus in a cost-of-living crisis.
But as Bandt put it on Thursday, the plan to get electrification into people’s homes also requires a plan for getting gas out, and that is where political progress is getting bogged.
“Australia’s opportunity is to electrify our homes and businesses and export our renewable energy overseas,” Bandt told the conference.
“The opportunity of a generation, to truly stand on our own two feet, and to tackle the climate crisis.
“But we may be about to blow it.”
As the Greens leader explained, that’s because despite repeated climate science warnings against any new fossil fuel exploration; despite the natural decline of gas in homes and the obvious climate and economic imperatives to getting off gas, there’s still a huge pull in the other direction from Australia’s powerful fossil fuel lobby groups.
“We’re witnessing the last gasp of gas. And like a cornered animal, they will fight tooth and nail to slow down the electrification transition,” Bandt told the conference.
As RenewEconomy has reported, this bid to slow down what now looks like an inevitable transition away from gas has included an electrification “cost shock” media offensive, based on highly questionable modelling.
“So now, the Greens, together with everyone in this room and everyone who wants to see electrification fast-tracked, needs to push Labor again to make the right decisions at this crucial inflection point.”
Bandt says this includes decisions about the future of the gas code of conduct, the gas tax, new gas fields and the level of support for businesses and households to get off gas, all of which are expected to be made in coming weeks and months.
“Labor promised to end the climate wars. But the climate wars are not between the Liberals and Labor, or between us and Labor. They never have been.
“The climate wars are the people, and the planet, against the coal and gas corporations and their political representatives.
“It must now be all shoulders to the wheel to ensure Labor picks the right side, and stops trying to walk both sides of the fence.”
Bandt pointed to data that shows that in 2020 Qatar collected approximately $26.6 billion in annual royalties from LNG, while Australia exporting about the same amount of gas only collected less than $1 billion from the PRRT.
He said that in one year, 27 big gas corporations brought in $77 billion of revenue but paid no tax. “I’m willing to wager that in many years, each of you individually in this room may have paid more tax than many gas multinationals,” he said.
Research conducted by Daniel Bleakley, now lead reporter at The Driven, while at The Australia Institute shows that Australia has reaped little from its fossil fuel exports, in sharp contract to Norway which has ensured its citizens have gained from the profits.
This graph above shows the revenues from the oil and gas sectors (blue) for Australia (top left) and Norway (top right), and the government share of the revenue (orange).
“Australia exports 75% of the gas that we produce – instead of new gas fields we need to tax the profits of the big coal and gas corporations and use it to drive the transition,” Bandt said.
“We do not need new gas to “keep the lights on”, as Labor likes to argue. We are the world’s third largest exporter of LNG, and there’s already enough uncontracted gas in the system. We need more renewables.
“Gas is as dirty as coal. It’s not a transition fuel. It’s poison. But yet, gas still calls the shots.”
The rallying cry from the Greens follows a similar call, on Wednesday, from the independent member for Wentworth, Allegra Spender, to establish “a one-stop shop” for electrification” to help households navigate the laborious process of electrifying and installing EV chargers.
Spender – who formed part of a powerful crossbench that pushed the government to include a cap on emissions or an explicit objective that they must come down under the Safeguard Mechanism – also called on the government to deliver on its promise of implementing fuel efficiency standards for light vehicles.
“Every day without a fuel efficiency standard in place families will continue to feel the pain of sky high fuel prices; transport emissions will continue to rise; and the queue of people who want to go electric but can’t will get longer,” Spender told the Smart Energy Conference.
“So let’s not pretend the government are out of the slow lane just yet.
“At best, they’ve got the indicators on – looking nervously in the rear-view mirror for the thumbs up from the fossil fuel lobby.”
