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Opposition Leader Angus Taylor is launching his first attack in Australia’s Climate War 3.0, switching the Liberals’ focus from nuclear energy to coal power, declaring that fossil fuels are an essential element of cutting power bills.
“I announce that a Coalition government will work with coal-fired power plant owners to keep them running as long and as hard as possible to get electricity prices down,” Taylor said in his budget in reply speech on Thursday.
His emphasis on coal power is a marked shift from the Liberal’s energy policy in the 2025 election, which pledged to drive down emissions with nuclear power, and marks a new era of fossil fuels, following the opposition’s decision in November to ditch its commitment to achieving net zero emissions.
The Coalition’s policy is now the polar opposite of that of the government, which is committed to net zero by 2050 and boosting the share of renewable energy in the electricity grid to 82 per cent by 2030.
Energy Minister Chris Bowen pointed to the findings of the Australian Energy Regulator, which has stated for several years that ageing coal plants are a key factor in power bill rises because they are increasingly unreliable and costly to operate, as well as CSIRO findings that renewable energy supplies the cheapest electricity.
“When coal breaks down your bills go up,” Bowen said. “Angus Taylor’s uncosted plan to sweat coal will leave Australian households to foot the bill.”
The government announced on Saturday it had secured three more additional fuel import shipments this week, increasing the nation’s fuel stockpiles by several days.
Experts warn if the Iran war drags on, and continues to disrupt oil shipments from the Middle East, fuel supply will decrease and prices will rise.
There is currently the equivalent of 44 days of national average petrol consumption in the country, 36 days’ worth of diesel and 35 days’ worth of jet fuel.
Taylor’s positioning on coal is an escalation from the position under former Liberal leader Sussan Ley, who released an energy policy that committed to prevent “premature closure” of coal plants.
The opposition leader’s energy policy, like his hardline stance on immigration, is increasingly similar to that of One Nation, which has called for new coal plants to be built with public funds. Taylor is seeking to claw back ground after a crushing loss to Pauline Hanson’s party in the Farrer byelection.
Taylor would not confirm if public funds would be needed to keep coal plants running, when asked for details of his plan on Friday, but he declared Bowen’s focus on renewable electricity generation was “energy madness”.
“If we are going to make sure we have affordable, abundant energy in this country, the single fastest and easiest way to do that is to keep the existing [coal] generators,” he said.
“We’ve got to keep those generators running hard and Chris Bowen, of course, has decided that he doesn’t want any of that and that’s why we’re paying 40 per cent more for electricity prices than when Labor came to power.”
The first climate war ramped up under former prime minister Tony Abbott, who dismissed renewable energy objectives and opposed the then Labor government’s emissions trading scheme in 2009.
However, Abbott signed Australia up to the Paris Agreement with a commitment to net zero. Conflict between the two parties ebbed when Malcolm Turnbull took over in 2015 and introduced the National Energy Guarantee, which encouraged investment in renewables.
Climate War 2.0 gained pace in 2018 when then prime minister Scott Morrison ditched the National Energy Guarantee and declared electric vehicles would “end the weekend”. Morrison lost the so-called 2022 climate election to Labor, who campaigned on a platform of more ambitious renewable energy and emissions reductions targets.
Peter Dutton replaced Morrison in 2022 and in 2024 he pledged to invest $331 billion in a national rollout of nuclear power plants. While Dutton was critical of the government’s focus on renewable energy, his plan for emissions-free nuclear power was still aimed at reducing global warming.
However, the opposition lost a swag of seats in the 2025 federal election. It holds just nine of the 88 metropolitan seats, according to Australian Electoral Commission categories.
Taylor’s Climate War 3.0, with its emphasis on coal, signals a focus on outer metropolitan and regional electorates, where he will argue that wind and solar farms are unwelcome developments that destroy farmland and drive up electricity prices due to the costs of new transmission lines that will be built to link them to population centres.
Coal currently supplies about 50 per cent of electricity and state governments have moved to ensure it keeps running until there is enough renewable replacement.
The Victorian government has an undisclosed deal in place with EnergyAustralia to keep the Yallourn plant running until 2028.
NSW offered to underwrite the operation of the Eraring plant but the owner, Origin, has not required the assistance.
Queensland’s government has said coal will be needed for decades, and committed to support plant maintenance.
Coal plants are typically shutdown by the owners when they are 44 years old. The average age of a coal plant on the eastern seaboard is 38 years. The Australian Electricity Market Operator expects nearly all coal plants to exit the grid by 2035.
The default power bill price has increased by up to 16 per cent in Victoria and up to 27 per cent in NSW, depending on the location, since the Albanese government was elected.
The regulator said the increases were driven primarily by a spike in coal and gas prices due to the energy market crunch created by Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, as well as coal plant breakdowns.
The default bill is set to fall 3 per cent in Victoria and 8 per cent in parts of NSW over the coming financial year.
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Mike Foley is the climate and energy correspondent for The Age and The Sydney Morning Herald.Connect via email.From our partners
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