{"id":675472,"date":"2026-05-16T21:37:22","date_gmt":"2026-05-16T21:37:22","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/675472\/"},"modified":"2026-05-16T21:37:22","modified_gmt":"2026-05-16T21:37:22","slug":"angus-taylor-kicks-off-climate-war-3-0-in-shift-from-nuclear","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/675472\/","title":{"rendered":"Angus Taylor kicks off Climate War 3.0 in shift from nuclear"},"content":{"rendered":"

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Opposition Leader Angus Taylor is launching his first attack in Australia\u2019s Climate War 3.0, switching the Liberals\u2019 focus from nuclear energy to coal power, declaring that fossil fuels are an essential element of cutting power bills.<\/p>\n

\u201cI 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,\u201d Taylor said in his budget reply speech on Thursday.<\/p>\n

\"EnergyEnergy Minister Chris Bowen (left) and opposition leader Angus Taylor. Matt Davidson<\/p>\n

His emphasis on coal power is a marked shift from the Liberal\u2019s 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\u2019s decision in November to ditch its commitment to achieving net zero emissions.<\/p>\n

The Coalition\u2019s 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.<\/p>\n

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<\/a> that renewable energy supplies the cheapest electricity.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen coal breaks down your bills go up,\u201d Bowen said. \u201cAngus Taylor\u2019s uncosted plan to sweat coal will leave Australian households to foot the bill.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"Coal-firedCoal-fired power stations, such as Eraring in NSW, supply about 50 per cent of Australia\u2019s electricity.Dean Sewell<\/p>\n

The government announced on Saturday it had secured three more additional fuel import shipments this week, increasing the nation\u2019s fuel stockpiles by several days.<\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n

There is currently the equivalent of 44 days of national average petrol consumption in the country, 36 days\u2019 worth of diesel and 35 days\u2019 worth of jet fuel.<\/p>\n

Taylor\u2019s positioning on coal is an escalation from the position under former Liberal leader Sussan Ley, who released an energy policy that committed to prevent \u201cpremature closure\u201d of coal plants.<\/p>\n

The opposition leader\u2019s energy policy, like his hardline stance on immigration<\/a>, 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\u2019s party in the Farrer byelection.<\/p>\n

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\u2019s focus on renewable electricity generation was \u201cenergy madness\u201d.<\/p>\n

\"TheThe closure, and periodic reopening, of the Strait of Hormuz to oil tankers has played havoc with global prices.AP<\/p>\n

\u201cIf 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,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019ve got to keep those generators running hard and Chris Bowen, of course, has decided that he doesn\u2019t want any of that and that\u2019s why we\u2019re paying 40 per cent more for electricity prices than when Labor came to power.\u201d<\/p>\n

The first climate war ramped up under former prime minister Tony Abbott, who dismissed renewable energy objectives and opposed the then Labor government\u2019s emissions trading scheme in 2009.<\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n

Climate War 2.0 gained pace in 2018 when then prime minister Scott Morrison ditched the National Energy Guarantee and declared electric vehicles would \u201cend the weekend\u201d. Morrison lost the so-called 2022 climate election to Labor, who campaigned on a platform of more ambitious renewable energy and emissions reductions targets.<\/p>\n

Related Article\"Prime<\/a><\/p>\n

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\u2019s focus on renewable energy, his plan for emissions-free nuclear power was still aimed at reducing global warming.<\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n

Taylor\u2019s 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.<\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n

The Victorian government has an undisclosed deal in place with EnergyAustralia to keep the Yallourn plant running until 2028.<\/p>\n

Related Article\"Batteries<\/a><\/p>\n

NSW offered to underwrite the operation of the Eraring plant but the owner, Origin, has not required the assistance.<\/p>\n

Queensland\u2019s government has said coal will be needed for decades, and committed to support plant maintenance.<\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n

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\u2019s invasion of Ukraine, as well as coal plant breakdowns.<\/p>\n

The default bill is set to fall<\/a> 3 per cent in Victoria and 8 per cent in parts of NSW over the coming financial year.<\/p>\n

Cut through the noise of federal politics with news, views and expert analysis. Subscribers can sign up to our weekly Inside Politics newsletter<\/a>.<\/p>\n

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\"MikeMike Foley<\/a> is the climate and energy correspondent for The Age and The Sydney Morning Herald.Connect via email<\/a>.From our partners<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Save You have reached your maximum number of saved items. Remove items from your saved list to add…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":674542,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[64,63,44],"class_list":["post-675472","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-australia","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/675472","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=675472"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/675472\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/674542"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=675472"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=675472"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=675472"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}