The Coalition is spinning a line that climate action is economically bad. How are they getting away with it? | Zoe Daniel

During the last parliament I negotiated an amendment to the Climate Change Act to lock in Australia’s carbon emissions target as a floor – not a ceiling.
I did it to promote government ambition to exceed the target and, having covered the first Trump administration’s withdrawal from the Paris agreement, to provide a legislative buffer against backsliding by a future Australian government.
Only a party that had no intention of achieving net zero by 2050 would talk about repealing this legislation.
And I certainly wasn’t expecting it to become so contested so quickly, but we live in times where populist policy trumps people.

Related: The 48 hours that killed the Liberal party’s net zero promise

The Clinton era line of “it’s the economy, stupid” takes on new meaning now that cost-of-living worries are being used to sell incoherent policy to a stressed population via manipulated information.
And in this post-truth environment, fossil fuel interests are winning the hearts and minds of voters.
Those of us who laugh at the political dysfunction within the Coalition over this may live to regret our hubris. Because while the Nationals wag the Liberal party dog, the Labor party is failing to sell its own policies to the nation, and the rest of us who care about effective climate policy are being drowned out.
What’s amazing is that the Nationals – with less than 4% of the vote at the last federal election – have been able to get away with prosecuting such a fact-free, yet influential case that’s now dictating Liberal party policy and, to some degree, public sentiment.
Take Senator Bridget McKenzie opining without challenge on ABC Radio Melbourne last week that renewable energy and climate policy are economically negative for our country.
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Voices that cut through with facts and reason are few and far between. I can’t figure out if they’re cowed or just don’t know how to get into the fight.
There’s a useful article here that sets out the evidence (not opinion) that renewables provide the cheapest form of energy; that coal-fired power is much more expensive and that global gas prices have driven energy costs up over the last few years – not the renewables transition.
And yet, Sussan Ley has been allowed to spin the line that because of the push towards net zero there’s been a 40% increase in power costs since Labor took government.
It is absolute, unadulterated rubbish.

Just a reminder that if the Coalition hadn’t undermined all efforts to speed up the transition to renewable energy between 2013 and 2022, even as dozens of coal-fired power stations were decommissioned, we wouldn’t be here.
The removal of coal from the system combined with multinationals starving the east coast of gas at a reasonable price and the impact of international energy prices put massive upward pressure on electricity costs.
In a nutshell, that is why the transition is taking longer and is more expensive than it would have been if the Coalition had not been actively sabotaging effective energy policy since Malcolm Turnbull was toppled as opposition leader as far back as 2009.
Now they are at it again.
Google “what is the cheapest form of energy in Australia?” and you land on this very informative report from the Climate Council which says: “On average in 2024-25, the wholesale price for power from renewables (the price electricity retailers pay, which accounts for up to 40% of our power bills) was $74/MWh – compared to $135/MWh for power from coal and gas.”
The same evidence-based report sets out data from the Australian Energy Market Operator, the CSIRO and the Australian Energy Market Commission showing that gas is the big driver of price spikes in the grid.
And yet, the spurious misinformation that’s being pushed by the fossil fuel companies and their proxies, swallowed by the National party and now propagated by the Liberals is running wild around the countryside.
Labor has been slow to push back, while the renewable energy sector has shown itself to be at best weak, at worst useless, when it comes to rebutting big coal and big gas, which are successfully standing up a lie largely unchallenged.
I for one am not going to just sit here and let this stand, because the big risk is that this doubt-seeding causes even the most ardent supporters of net zero to start wondering: is it all worth it? Indeed, can it be done? Or worse, should we just give up?
To the Nationals’ eternal shame, it is regional economies who are most affected by climate change and stand to gain most from action to mitigate fire, flood, storm and drought.
Everyone is letting them down with lies, delays and failure to make the argument.

Related: Malcolm Turnbull accuses Liberals of ‘Trumpian campaign against renewables’ after party dumps net zero

People keep asking me whether this week’s events strengthen the position of community independents.
Probably. I’m not convinced urban voters in Goldstein and elsewhere will put a wobbly promise of cheap and dirty power at any cost ahead of their children’s future.
But I’m more sad than gleeful.
Because despite the immense opportunity that renewables offer us, environmentally and economically, about a third of Australians now want to get rid of net zero because they think it will make life cheaper.
There’s no evidence to show that’s the case. What the evidence does show is that the cost of doing nothing will be much higher.

Zoe Daniel is a three-time ABC foreign correspondent and former independent member for Goldstein