The energy crisis is all about politics rather than supply

Australia relies more heavily on coal for its electricity than almost any other country in the world, yet we have some of the most expensive electricity in the world. Tony Abbott blamed the carbon tax for the rapid increase in the price of electricity, but its removal did nothing to stop the wholesale price of electricity from nearly doubling.

The May issue of The Monthly.

Australia is producing record amounts of gas, and soon we will become the world’s largest gas exporter. Yet the gas industry has told us that we have a “shortage” of gas. It assures us that the only solution is to allow even more fracking of coal seam gas on even more farmland. It’s the environmentalists who get the blame for high energy prices.

And despite the fact that the Turnbull government claims to be both short of cash and committed to tackling climate change, the Coalition plans to subsidise Adani’s enormous new export coalmine. Why are environmentalists opposed to it? You guessed it: because they are trying to ruin the economy.

It is often said that the Australian energy market is “broken”, but the market is working just as it was designed to. It’s not the market that is broken but the politics of energy.

Read the essay from The Monthly by Richard Denniss - “The energy crisis is all about politics rather than supply.”