Politics & Council
27 November, 2025
Net zero strategy chaos won’t keep the lights on
NET Zero is not an absolute – but it is an important aspiration, writes Peter Walsh
But right now it is a strategy which is failing all Australians, and if we lose sight of the end goal of doing more about, and for, reducing emissions, because of those failures the potential damage could be even worse
Do we have to change the way we power our country – our lives, our industry and our future?
Absolutely. But it needs to be a managed process which keeps power affordable, keeps the lights on and industry running, as we get there.
That is the one absolute which must come out of the rhetoric, the divisiveness and the overheated emotion which is creating nothing but chaos and confusion around the way forward.
The latest Page Institute report on delivering a high energy Australia does not make encouraging reading about how successful we have been to date in addressing the long-term challenges we all face.
Since committing to a net zero strategy household electricity prices have soared 39 per cent – the default market offer set by the Australian Energy Regulator shows average power bills up between $576 and $806 per household.
The government cost – which means your taxes and mine – to net zero already has spending at around $140 billion and climbing.
Both the report and the headlines we are increasingly seeing show industry at every level in Australia is in retreat as energy costs makes operations unviable.
And at the same time as we have governments state and federal crowing they are reducing emissions, barely 5 per cent of that has come from cleaner technology, instead land use restrictions and changes (mostly planting trees on the best of our agricultural land) are making the difference.
Yet even here the environment we are all apparently trying to save is paying a horrendous price as vast areas of native bushland and productive farmland are being torn up and stripped for renewable energy zones.
Figures show we will need around 200,000 more square kilometres of prime agricultural, high rainfall country for the trees still required for the current net zero strategy – that’s three times the size of Tasmania.
The Page report, in line with all credible scientific evidence, shows Australia is responsible for barely 1 per cent of global emissions yet we are being dragged headlong down an accelerated path we can neither afford nor sustain at twice the pace of comparable economies – and more than four times the pace of global averages.
Why? If we want a genuinely technology-neutral framework to power our future, it needs to be competing on a level playing field so all power sources, coal, gas and nuclear and not just wind and solar or other unproven pipedreams, are available.
At a time when many of the world’s major economies are stepping back from the brink of net zero and its inherent short-term dangers, Australia should be in line with similar nations, not trying to outpace them in a rush of ideology and ego.
We need a clear strategy which protects our energy and industrial future – the Page report suggests an Industrial Sovereignty Fund to co-invest in critical value-adding capacity and securing Australian control of essential Australian assets.
It says we need to designate fuel refining, fertiliser, metals, data infrastructure and defence manufacturing and strategic industries vital to national resilience and to provide them with targeted exemptions and fast-tracked approvals under joint oversight by industry and federal Cabinet’s National Security Committee.
There is no prize for Australia to hit the net zero line first because we will have turned our economy into ashes to get there.
All this progress has to be funded by a mix of the private and public purses, but in an economy as small as ours, we cannot tax our way there, and if we continue to drive major investment out of our country with our out-of-control power prices, Australia will be the first major victim.
* Peter Walsh is the member for Murray Plains