Date Published 1 May 2025
Author: Robert Watson
with no AI assistance!
Reading Time: 21 minutes
Are you comfortable with Australian politics?
If you’re a proponent of clean, renewable energy and combating climate change,
you should despair about Dutton’s lack of policy, or even interest, in our
environment. You should also be a little disappointed in Albanese’s efforts so far.
The Labor Party and the Liberal-National Party Coalition have alternatively dominated
Australian politics for decades. They’ve become lethargic, out-of-touch and non-progressive.
It’s time to dismantle the 2-party system!
Our living standards and comfort depend some fundamental elements that have barely been mentioned during one of the most unmemorable election campaigns that I can remember. Without rudimentary changes to some long-standing policies, habits, priorities and traditions in our society, in the future we shall be looking back to this time with regret.
In this essay I am looking at just a few important elements and compare how each of the two major parties in this election – Labor and the Liberal-National coalition – have addressed them, especially from the point of view of climate change and the environment. Every one of these topics is relevant our environment, just as a changing climate and deteriorating natural environment are relevant to our living standards and comfort.
THE ELECTION CAMPAIGN
Anthony Albanese has now been Prime Minister for three years. Like him or not, you should know by now just what you’re getting. Albanese has risen to another level during this campaign and one would hope that, should he win on Saturday, albeit in minority government, his new-found energy and enthusiasm remains.
Peter Dutton on the other hand, started the campaign with a confidence gained by being reasonably successful with his Abbott-like negativity of almost every government policy – the one exception of course being the recent changes made to the election funding policy, which the conservatives helped Labor pass, to both their shames. As the campaign moved on Dutton’s inadequacies have been demonstrated often. His almost daily changes to policy, and his inability to release detail on some important policies is because the detail would be detrimental to his election prospects, or, the detail does not exist. His nuclear folly is dealt with later.
Both leaders and their main party spokes-people have concentrated on a “cheap tricks” campaign offering too many short-term and costly incentives to try and win votes. It’s time we had some long-term thinking and planning.
Issues such as tackling emissions that are the primary cause of climate change need bi-partisan and long-term strategies, both of which are lacking on both sides, partly because of three-year election terms, and mainly because of the lethargic, stale two-party dominance of Australian politics.
CLIMATE POLICY
Dutton has denied that his so-called climate policies will stop the decrease of CO2 emissions. It is quite obvious that just the abandonment of power-generating wind farms and reducing the development of solar installations would be enough on their own to have a detrimental effect on the level of emissions. When you then factor in the LNP aim to increase coal and gas exploitation, abandon incentives for people to buy electric vehicles amongst other anti-climate ideals held by the conservatives, Australia will be seen as a pariah by most of the world fighting hard to reduce emissions and fight climate change. Under a Dutton government there would be cuts and some elimination of funding for organisations such as the Environmental Defenders Office and ARENA (Australian Renewable Energy Agency), a government organisation researching and funding renewable energy technologies such as hydrogen and batteries. A Dutton government would again boost subsidies to resource companies to encourage more coal and gas mining, as well as so-called subsidies to conduct further research into redundant technologies like carbon capture and storage. [You can read more about carbon capture and storage in this essay at Rockflat CARBON CAPTURE & STORAGE – an expensive exercise in greenwashing]
The Albanese government was elected on the promise of reducing Australia’s emissions and tackling climate change issues. Their effort has been disappointing. While Albanese, Bowen, King and Plibersek campaign on some of their positive climate initiatives, on the negative side they don’t talk about, there have been 10 new coal mine approvals from May 2022 to December 2024. These new approvals will extract over 850 million tonnes of coal with total emissions over 2.4 billion tonnes! As at December 2024 there were an additional 32 projects for new and expanded coal mines awaiting approval1. Most agree that we do need to supplement the growing renewable energy supply with gas and some coal in the short-term, but we do not need any new coal mines.[Read more on Australia’s coal exports here Rockflat Irresponsible Exports Essay]
Mining, gas and oil companies are major financial contributers to both major political parties. The resource expoiters who pay a pitance in royalties, if any, and avoid tax with every possible twist and turn, join a fairly long list of political money contributers who would, without doubt, expect windfall returns from their political investment. In short, when a mining or resource company gives a financial donation to a political party, they are ‘buying’ a vested interest. For the miners the returns come in the form of grants and subsidies and sympathetic consideration of their proposals that are definitely not always in the interest of the Australian people. This practice has an acceptance granted only by the passing of time with no opposition from either side of politics.
TAXATION & SOVEREIGN WEALTH
On general taxation, Allegra Spender, a prominent Teals independent in parliament, has written about and made public addresses about tax and economic reform in Australia that would go a long way to addressing the convoluted and complicated Australian taxation system (for information, see references 2 & 3 below).
For this essay I mention only the taxation and royalties pertaining to our resource industry and the benefit that could be gained by all Australians.
The natural resources exploited and exported from Australia are the sovereign property of all Australians. For far too long inept management by all governments, and the power allowed to the resource corporations, has resulted in the loss of many tens of billions of dollars to the Australian people. Had John Howard’s coalition government started a single universal sovereign wealth fund in 1996 with the proceeds from fairly allocated royalties from the miners, Australia could have a fund today that would fund much of our social services, education and health, as well as helping to construct the infrastructure to manage renewable energy.
For every 100 billion cu metres of LNG exported from Qatar they receive approximately US$26 billion in royalties. For the same amount on LNG exported from Australia we receive US$800 million – about 3% of Qatar’s share of royalties4. Australia is being sold short by an entrenched 2-party political system that is too lazy and too risk-averse to do the right thing and legislate back to the people some of the multi-billions of dollars benefit that miners bank from our resources. Different politicians I’ve spoken to about this invariably say that if we charge higher royalties mining activity will decrease. An easy but erroneous explanation when you look at royalties being collected by other countries.
As far as taxation reform and the royalty system in place in Australia are concerned both major parties have been equally negligent. The only way to rectify these difficult issues is by agreement of bi-partisanship by the 2 major parties and thinking in terms longer than 3 years to fix the problem. A minority Labor government with support and coercion from climate-aware independents could bring some resolution, as long as there was longer than a 3-year term to do it.
NUCLEAR
The coalition nuclear proposal is a farce.
When the opposition environment spokesperson, Ted O’Brien delivers artificial time-lines, development costs and figures for the proposed nuclear development, I can’t quite work out whether he’s straight out lying, he just doesn’t know, or worst of all, he actually believes the data, despite overwhelming evidence to the contrary. When Dutton talks about nuclear and uranium it’s soon obvious he is also out of his depth.
There has not been one true or objective statement or paper from the coalition in support of their proposal, as they mostly talk about how expensive renewables will be and how much nuclear will save. Even as Dutton says, the $600 billion cost estimate being proffered by Labor is exaggerated, and we give them a generous 25% discount, the cost is still $450 billion and that is for only about 4% of our power supply!
Other than the cost, in dollars to the Australian community, and in the cost of neglect of a burgeoning renewables industry, the coalition has failed to mention, nor address the problem that our 15 still-operating coal-fired power station are on average 38 years old. The 13 power stations that have closed since 2000 had an average age of 42 years5. That means that on average the existing power stations have about 4 more years of life – not nearly enough to help supplement the power supply while we wait a minimum 15 years for nuclear and renewables in decline. As power stations age so their viability decreases, as does that of the power transmission infrastructure, also an integral part of Dutton’s nuclear plan that imagines a viability long beyond the realistic retirement age. [Recent Rockflat essay on nuclear here Rockflat Nuclear Viability Essay]
GAS
Australians are currently losing billions of dollars.
From 2016 to 2021 for every cubic metre of LNG (liquified natural gas) Australia exported we received less than 1 cent in royalties. In the same period, for the same amount of LNG exported, Qatar received over 26 cents in royalties4. More up to date figures are not available, however I assume that our governments generosity to mostly foreign miners has not diminished. This is scandalous!
Australia has a lot of gas and is either the largest or one of the largest exporters of LNG every year. Around 80% of Australia’s gas is exported and the gas industry pays absolutely no royalties on more than half exported gas. [See Rockflat essay on AUSTRALIA’S DISAPPEARING SOVEREIGN WEALTH]
With coal-fired power output on the wane, and because most of our gas is bound up in export contracts, Australia is now in the ludicrous position of having to re-import it’s own LNG from our own overseas customers who are able to sell it back to us because they bought at much lower prices than the domestic market in Australia pays. The reason this situation has occurred is because gas is touted as the back-up for renewables over the near future and the east coast of Australia does not have sufficient gas supplies, nor the transition infrastructure to bring it from Western Australia or Northern Territory.
As absurd as this position is, re-importing gas in the short-term will probably be cheaper than setting up infrastructure for transition within Australia. The sad side is that once again, our governments from both major parties have let this happen by not making another of those long-term, community-benefiting decisions. And again, the cost of incompetence will be to the detriment of clean, renewable power activation into the grid.
BATTERIES
Household solar energy has been wasted.
Solar energy generated by households peaks from the middle of the day when the sun is strongest. From the middle of the day is also the time when Australia least needs more power, so until recently, any excess of generated power went unused during this time.
Over recent years, at household, community and national level, battery storage is starting to have an impact on the storage of excess renewable power, with capacity more than doubling in the past three years and expected to grow seven-fold by 20306.
One of the most positive policy pledges from this election campaign is Labor’s pledge to make household batteries cheaper. It released as a cost-of-living measure, but is perhaps the only new one of significance for the environment. As far as cost-of-living is concerned it helps households with solar installations, and in time will also help those without solar and renters, as batteries reduce the demand on the grid and therefore puts downward pressure on prices. For the environment, it’s a win from day one because every kilowatt of stored solar or wind power reduces emissions from coal or gas burning.
The two main types of battery storage are broadly, household for homes and businesses to store excess solar power for later or emergency use, and battery peaker systems that are large batteries for storing excess power on the main grid. Gas-fired peaker systems that have been traditionally used on the main grid to boost power in short time, are being replaced by battery peakers that have an even faster response time at lower cost.
Labor’s battery policy is innovative and exactly what the clean energy system needs. The LNP coalition does not have a policy on batteries and battery storage and would in fact cause a slow-down in development if elected as they pursue nuclear and fossil fuel alternatives.
CHINA, USA + TRUMP
China and the USA have not had significant input or comment on Australia’s coming election, however due mostly to Trump there is a strong current of influence from both countries.
Australia’s tariff ‘punishment’ by Trump was minor and won’t have a huge direct effect on our economy. The punitive tariff of 145% imposed by Trump on China will effect China extensively, which will have a negative impact on China’s major trading partners, including Australia. Despite some of the distortions and exaggerations that will no doubt come from some senior conservatives, China is not to blame for any future diminishing trade figures between China and Australia – it’s all down to Trump. The last serious trade embargoes imposed by China on Australia was a result of Australia’s then Prime Minister Morrison’s blustering about China’s role in the COVID crisis. Again, not really a miscue by China, rather a brash attempt by Morrison to impress conservative allies with some anti-China rhetoric.
Trade with China will suffer as long as Trump’s tariffs remain in place. Trading deficits lead to shortage of money resulting in a slowdown in implementing clean renewable power energy in both China and Australia, some thing that would not be of concern to Trump nor more than a few Liberal and National Party members in Australia.
IT’S YOUR VOTE, MAKE IT REALLY COUNT!
As an proponent of a safer climate and clean, renewable energy there is nothing I can say to recommend voting for the Coalition. There’s just too much evidence that that the Liberal Party and even more so, the National Party would be damaging to our climate and our environment, which would ultimately be detrimental to our economy and standard of living.
Labor do much more ‘talking the talk’ than they ‘walking the walk’ on climate change and the environment, but Labor has started some strategies that will be good for the climate as long as they are maintained and accelerated soon.
We have one of the best and most free democracies in the world, but it can be better. Since we can’t have a parliament full of just Helen Haines’, Allegra Spenders’ and Kate Chaneys’, as well as more David Pococks’ in the Senate, the best option for solving the climate crisis and shifting to renewable energy as soon as possible is to vote for Teal or other middle-of-the-road, progressive independents so the Australian House of Representatives, and the Senate have a strong cross-bench that the governing party must consult and find agreement with.
Not just for the climate, but for progress in taxation reform, gambling reform, fair representation of women, fair and honest electoral reform, and housing reform measures, it’s time to start dismantling the tired old two party system in Australia.
References
1. https://australiainstitute.org.au/initiative/coal-mine-tracker/
2. https://www.allegraspender.com.au/4821/economic_reform
3. https://www.allegraspender.com.au/4821/tax
4. https://arena.org.au/too-big-to-tax-north-west-shelf-and-lessons-for-sharing-in-our-sovereign-wealth/
5. IEEFF https://ieefa.org/resources/delaying-coal-power-exits-risk-we-cant-afford Full version – ‘Embargoed-delaying coal power exits-Apr25.pdf’
6. https://www.climatecouncil.org.au/resources/election-conversation-guide-2025/
7. https://cleanenergycouncil.org.au/cec/media/background/resources/battery-storage-the-new-clean-peaker-report-2021.pdf