Day 248: 'Policy black hole'
An introductory weekday newsletter from Schwartz Media. Counting the days since Australia had an energy policy.
Good morning and welcome to day 248.
Today in summary: the Coalition is set to release new costings on Labor’s carbon emissions policy, which Labor rejects; Labor’s policy of new gas pipelines for the NT and Queensland pleases business, displeases environmental groups; and Australia needs to act fast to cash in on growing battery demand, an expert says.
— Sophie
Today’s policy spin level: 💨💨🌪️🌪️🌪️
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The Australian this morning reports that analysis from the Coalition of Labor’s emissions reduction policy, which assumes carbon emissions will cost A$62 per tonne in future, shows the policy will cost Chevron A$1.6 billion and Alcoa A$867 million by 2030. The paper’s story last week on analysis by Brian Fisher costed Labor’s policy at A$25 billion, based on a future carbon price of A$50 per tonne. The West Australian reports Labor’s plan will cost WA businesses up to A$22 billion, and the national cost could be between A$29 billion and A$56 billion, based on analysis the government will release today.
In a press release last night, shadow minister for climate change Mark Butler said the modelling was based on “ridiculous assumptions” and was “weird, wacky and wrong.” Butler also appeared on RN Breakfast this morning, where he said the “scare campaign” about Labor’s policy costings was coming from the Liberal Party and a “certain section in the media”, not business.
Labor’s A$1.5 billion gas pipeline funding announcement yesterday is popular among industrial energy users, the AFR reports. It quotes spokespeople for lobby group Energy Users' Association of Australia and the Australian Workers' Union supporting the plan, while fossil fuel activists oppose it.
Bill Shorten said yesterday that if the party is elected in May, it will scrap the A$5 billion Northern Australian Infrastructure Facility and replace it with a development fund, with A$1.5 billion earmarked for pipelines in the Northern Territory and Queensland.
Australia risks missing out on becoming a battery materials processor and manufacturer, according to Queensland University of Technology’s Peter Talbot, reports the AFR. It quotes Talbot, who is contributing to the new Future Battery Industry research centre, as saying:
“If we want to have control of our own industry now is the time. We’ve got a chance to grow the industry in Australia and keep the money in Australia, and the other offshoot satellite industries here.”
The Commentariat
In the AFR, economist Craig Emerson says the Coalition is “paralysed internally” on climate change, and criticises reporting by News Corp based on Brian Fisher’s modelling.
“Instead of a conventional benefit-cost analysis, Dr Fisher’s has been a cost-cost analysis. Is it realistic to assume there is no chance of Australia achieving valuable technological breakthroughs in renewable-energy production for export to a carbon-constrained world?”
Meanwhile, the AFR’s own editorial says both Labor and the Liberals are “trapped in a policy black hole” on climate change.
“The election campaign reflects the deep contradiction of Australian climate policy. On the one hand, there’s a swell of opposition against the proposed Adani coal-export project that would deliver first-world power to poor Indian households. On the other hand, the election supposedly is about the cost of living pressures led by rising Australian power bills as a result of botched climate change policy.”
Three more things
The share prices of energy stocks on the ASX - Woodside, Santos, Oil Search and Beach Energy - rose yesterday based on expected increases in oil prices, the SMH reports. That belief is driven by the US announcing an end to exemptions on Iranian oil sanctions for eight major oil buyers.
Executive pay at Woodside and Santos has been questioned by proxy advisory services ahead of both companies’ annual meetings next week, the AFR reports. CGI Glass Lewis “took issue with aspects of Woodside's new incentive scheme”, the AFR reports, saying executives should be rewarded for longer term results, and said the chiefs of both Santos and Woodside are overpaid compared to their peers.
China is focussing on developing its hydrogen energy and fuel cell industry, reports Reuters, while Bloomberg reports China is unlikely to build new coal plants in 2022 when regions in the country are once again able to as profitability is too low.