The Coalition's nuclear announcement is an absolute farce and no one should pretend otherwise.
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It continues a decade of Coalition energy policy omnishambles on top of the ongoing and outrageous economic mismanagement of our fossil fuel resources. It also continues the Australian political tradition of completely ignoring the need to rein in bipartisan support for subsidised fossil fuel expansion.
But let's start with the omnishambles. The Coalition is asking us to believe they can build seven nuclear reactors on time and on (an as-yet hidden) budget, when in government they couldn't even build some promised car parks. During an hour-long press conference, the Coalition revealed no more detail than a few of its preferred sites to build seven nuclear reactors, a vague timeline and a promise taxpayers would foot the bill entirely.
We should take a moment to bathe in the Coalition's hypocrisy, because there's enough to soak in 'til your fingers get pruney.
Peter "if you don't know, vote no" Dutton - who told voters there wasn't enough detail about the Voice to Parliament - offered no costings, no detail on the kinds of nuclear reactors that would be built, or where radioactive waste would be permanently stored, or how to secure the skilled workforce required, or how they'd overcome the state nuclear bans. And while the Coalition expects renewable energy projects to be commercially viable, it's nuclear reactors will be built and owned by the state.
As my colleague Richard Denniss observed, it's apparent conservatives don't hate big government spending, they hate government spending on people they hate - like the unemployed and clean energy companies.
They love government spending on things they like, such as private school subsidies, private health subsidies, fossil fuel subsidies and now nuclear.
Then there's the Coalition's stupidity. In the middle of a cost-of-living crisis they have chosen the most expensive form of new energy to build, while saying they'll put a cap on building the cheapest: renewables.
Describing nuclear as a way to deliver cheap electricity in Australia is like describing Donald Trump as a humble politician - it's a blatant lie. As former prime minister Malcolm Turnbull said, the Coalition's nuclear power plan offers the worst of all energy worlds: higher emissions and higher electricity costs.
"The Coalition is planning to intervene in the market to constrain the cheapest form of new generation and use taxpayers' money to build the most expensive form," he said.
Treasurer Jim Chalmers put it best and, more succinctly, labelling it the "dumbest policy ever put forward by a major political party".
He's right. It's a distraction, not a serious energy policy. It should be treated as such.
Any other political party making this announcement would be crucified by the media and experts. And rightly so.
Australia has an ageing fleet of polluting and unreliable coal-fired power stations that are all expected to mostly close over the next 11 years. This is a problem that needs to be solved today - not 15 years from now (if we're lucky). While it was in government the Coalition did its level best to undermine and strangle investment in renewables, so now Labor is playing catch-up on a lost decade in its first term of office.
The Coalition has had more than 20 different climate and energy policies in the past 10 years. Because there are so many climate deniers within its ranks, none last more than few days before falling apart, destroyed by internal divisions.
In fact, you could argue the Coalition's main achievement has been to destabilise investment in renewables and create uncertainty for businesses trying to make long-term energy investment decisions.
Who wins from that uncertainty? Fossil fuel companies.
READ MORE EBONY BENNETT:
Governments subsidise the fossil fuel industry to the tune of $14.5 billion a year. But gas companies, in particular, are reaping the benefits of poor policy decisions. Gas prices have tripled since Australia started exporting LNG. Now the gas industry is warning
Australia faces gas shortages unless we open new supply. What a joke. Australia has an abundance of gas - we've just chosen to export 80 per cent overseas - without charging any royalties on most of it. ACT senator David Pocock labelled it "daylight robbery" and described the gas industry as "leeches" - and it's hard to argue they aren't sucking Australia dry, both figuratively and literally.
Australia has 10 facilities that export gas as liquified natural gas (LNG). Six of these projects pay no royalties, either state or federal. These facilities represent 56 per cent of Australia's gas export capacity, meaning more than half the gas exported from Australia is given to the companies for free.
The monetary value of this gas is truly huge, as are its greenhouse gas emissions. In the just last four years, Australians have given away $149 billion worth of LNG, for free. On top of that, the petroleum resource rent tax is so broken that Treasury expects to collect $750 million less revenue from the tax over the five years to 2028. Only Australia could make less money from fossil fuels while prices are sky-high.
Gas companies are laughing all the way to the bank while Australians are struggling to pay for groceries and energy bills. Successive governments' deliberate failure to get a fair return on our fossil fuel resources represents billions of dollars in revenue that's missing from the budget bottom line. It's missing revenue that cannot be invested in a sovereign wealth fund (as it is in Norway), or used to increase living standards of Australians by funding public schools, public hospitals, renewable energy and other needed public infrastructure and services.
Basic economics says you should tax the things you want less of and subsidise the things you want more of - the Albanese government is at least doing the latter. But when it comes to energy policy, Australia's been doing it arse-backwards for decades. We operate a huge number of coal mines and gas fields and the plan, under both the Coalition and Labor, is to open more.
Australia's transition away from fossil fuels will only truly begin when we stop approving new fossil fuel projects. Until then, everything else is just a distraction.
- Ebony Bennett is the deputy director of the Australia Institute.