Economics Writer<\/p>\n
July 11, 2025 \u2014 5.00am<\/p>\n
Millie. It may be unfair to blame you for the headline.<\/p>\n
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Indeed, it is not out of the question it was written by AI, or maybe someone in marketing as a favour for someone buying advertising space. But it is sitting alongside your name and sometimes in life that brings a perception of responsibility.<\/p>\n
Now at that point we could observe that in Australian society there is a phenomena called a \u2018Cost of Living crisis\u2019. While there are a number of contributory factors, any reasonable examination of them brings you quickly to the cost of energy. Energy for turning on lights and cooking or refrigerating food, keeping kids and families warm or cool, and then enabling luxuries like TVs, music, and computers, perhaps.<\/p>\n
Those of us at Macrobusiness know some things about energy prices that may not have traversed your thought spectrum. We will get to those. But first, with regard to that headline of your piece, the first thought which lights up is \u2018Read the room!\u2019<\/p>\n
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The reason for that is not such that you need to fear public opinion\u2014which countless surveys and an election indicate is held with some trenchancy by the public on the subject of energy\u2014but, as an editor to a tyro journalist, so you don\u2019t piss off potential readers with the headline.<\/p>\n
Use the contents of your skull. If you have a potentially unpopular message, why not try engaging readers with your headline and bringing them with you for a journey of discovery? If you aren\u2019t to convince them of the righteousness of what you posit, can you at least bring them far enough to think they could look at things differently?<\/p>\n
Have you done that Millie? Or have you enabled more people to look at that headline and skip past it, sure in the knowledge that Australia\u2019s mainstream media has a chronic credibility issue and is captive to corporate interests that are either Australian and do little but lose money or are global and contribute little meaningful return to Australia for the Australian bounty they exploit?<\/p>\n
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By the way, take a look at tax payments by Australian gas and electricity producers and compare them with the shareholder returns they declare and where those shareholders are, and compare those with the returns of people receiving electricity bills in Australia.<\/p>\n
How much have energy profits for large producers risen? How much have average electricity and gas bills risen?<\/p>\n
What do you reckon? And that\u2019s before we get a sentence into what you write!<\/p>\n
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Let us go back there\u2026\u2026.<\/p>\n
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Do you really think electricity prices should be higher, Millie?<\/p>\n
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Very few people would agree if I were to say our energy bills should be higher. But what if I told you you\u2019re already paying more than the number you see written on your bills every quarter?<\/p>\n
Those relying entirely on renewable energy sources such as the sun to power their homes might think they\u2019re spared. But even the most environmentally conscious among us are paying a higher price than what we see on paper.<\/p>\n
OK, the lede. The first sentence is a maybe. But it just underlines the idiocy of the headline. But that second sentence\u2014that too is going to lose people quickly. \u2018Already paying more than the number you are seeing written on your bills every quarter\u2019 and then followed with \u2018But even the most environmentally conscious among us are paying a higher price than what we see on paper.\u2019 Think about those lines a moment.<\/p>\n
Now there will be people thinking \u2018I pay what\u2019s on the bill\u2019 and there will be more thinking \u2018yeah those service charges are a complete rip off\u2019 and almost everyone will be unified at the point of thinking \u2018Nup, I don\u2019t pay any more than what\u2019s on my bill\u2019\u2014and \u2019they would all be 100% correct. You would have lost some of them there.<\/p>\n
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If you are going out with an unpopular message, don\u2019t make it vague or specious. Be fair to both yourself and the reader, avoiding dismissing or offending them in the headline.<\/p>\n
Confusion is almost as offensive as contempt. Most Australians would rather someone came out and told them they were wrong than tried to bullshit them. What you have done is offend with the headline and bullshit with the lede.<\/p>\n
We assume that the point you want to make, Millie, is that the economic cost of providing energy for people to use is greater than the cost factored into their bills. Why not just say that?<\/p>\n
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Then Rod Sims appears out of nowhere.<\/p>\n
Of course, as Rod Sims, former chair of the country\u2019s competition watchdog and Superpower Institute director,\u00a0said in a speech last month<\/a>, we couldn\u2019t have gotten where we are without fossil fuels. Coal, oil and gas have helped propel us from city to city, country to country, and even earth to moon. Most of our day-to-day activities would be much harder \u2013 if not impossible \u2013 without them.<\/p>\n We are like peas in a pod with Rod there.\u00a0Then Sims gets joined on stage for Millie\u2019s article by Ross Garnaut.<\/p>\n But Sims points out there is no contradiction between enjoying what we have and wanting the world to move away from fossil fuels as fast as possible.<\/p>\n The problem is, humans are generally quite good at procrastinating. Despite the deadline to hit net zero emissions looming closer and clearer, we seem better at ignoring the threat of irreversible climate change than acting on it.<\/p>\n But as economics professor Ross Garnaut puts it, we did not move from the Stone Age because we ran out of stones. We have something to learn from our ancestors\u2019 drive to do things better.<\/p>\n There are a handful of people who still deny the science behind climate change. But there are also plenty of sensible people with reasonable concerns about the best way forward for Australia. Sims outlines several of these worries and why we shouldn\u2019t let them get in our way.<\/p>\n Advertisement<\/p>\n Now at this point Millie lifts the lid on climate change as a concept on the plate. That stanza tells us that climate change means we should be getting right out of fossil fuels, along with Millie\u2019s thoughts about procrastination inclinations of her readers, Garnaut\u2019s thoughts about societal advancement, and Sims noting the desirability of retaining some of the lifestyle and human technology gains enabled by fossil fuels while heading for the fossil fuel exit doors. All perfectly reasonable:-<\/p>\n Millie will take us to \u2018But\u2019.<\/p>\n Fundamentally, Millie\u2019s piece shares the same flaw as far too much of Australia\u2019s mainstream business media. It exists in a bubble where things outside the bubble might be disturbing or entertaining but they bear almost no relationship to things happening in Australia.<\/p>\n The only direct linkage in much of the economic commentariat\u2019s minds (and Millie\u2019s it would seem) is that the rest of the world backs their boats up to Australian ports, we load on the national bequest, they sail away, and leave us a tip for being so obliging.<\/p>\n Advertisement<\/p>\n The only other conceivable linkage is the cities full of foreign students who are so thankful and grateful for the chance to get a quality global education in Australia that they don\u2019t mind paying extortionate education fees and packing themselves into rental accommodation, if mum and dad can\u2019t buy them a house here, and will do the menial work ultra cheap to sustain themselves while here.<\/p>\n Much of Australia\u2019s mainstream media thinks there are no downsides to that model. House prices go up, people keep doing whatever it is they do, there are more people to do it for, and there are more restaurants. \u2018What is there to not be happy about?\u2019 is their thinking.<\/p>\n Unfortunately, that thinking is a cartoon depiction of Australia and the rest of the world.<\/p>\n Advertisement<\/p>\n Millie now takes us into just how crazy this thinking is.<\/p>\n First, the concern that the rest of the world is not moving to net zero, so Australia taking action is pointless.<\/p>\n But just because everyone else is sleepwalking towards a cliff, it doesn\u2019t mean we should follow. In fact, it\u2019s a good time to walk in another direction. It\u2019s also a myth to say no one else is trying or that we\u2019re all lacking in ambition.<\/p>\n As Sims points out, we often hear about China building coal-fired and nuclear electricity generation facilities at a mind-boggling scale. But last year, about 80 per cent of China\u2019s 429 gigawatts of new electricity-generating capacity (roughly enough to power 322 million homes) was solar and wind powered.<\/p>\n And the European Union has had enough appetite (or perhaps courage) to introduce a price on carbon.<\/p>\n Second, some people claim Australia only accounts for about 1 per cent of world emissions, so it doesn\u2019t matter what we do.<\/p>\n The clear moral argument is that we should still play our part. But Sims also points out that when we include exports (Australia is the biggest supplier of coal and gas combined in the world), our contribution to emission is more than three times higher.<\/p>\n Advertisement<\/p>\n The world (blue line) may certainly be walking off the cliff but Australia (brown line) isn\u2019t going to make a material difference Advertisement<\/p>\n Millie now introduces the rest of the world. It is sleepwalking towards a cliff and Australia should walk the other way. At that point two fundamental questions arise.<\/p>\n The first is:<\/p>\n Advertisement<\/p>\n \u201cShould, if we walk the other way, walk with such effort and intensity as to cause pain in our own society if the rest of the world walking off the cliff will take us with it no matter what we do?\u201d<\/p>\n The second is:<\/p>\n \u201cSeeing as Australia is a massive energy exporter\u2014see coal and gas exports\u2014and the rest of the world is using this energy export to power itself walking off a cliff, would Australia do more for preventing the world walking off a cliff if it were to itself achieve net zero, or if it simply ended all of it\u2019s energy exports to the rest of the world?\u201d<\/p>\n Another way of looking at that same dynamic would be to simply pose the question:<\/p>\n \u2018Should Australian energy bill payers wear the pain for trying to prevent the world walking off a cliff, or would it make more sense for Australian gas and coal exporters to wear the pain through a levy or cessation of their exports?\u2019\u00a0<\/p>\n We could observe that Australian bill payers at least live here, work here, and pay taxes here. We bump into Australian energy bill payers every time we line up to check out at Coles or Woolworths, get into a crowded train or bus, or mix with the others at the local football or netball club.<\/p>\n We work with them, we have a beer with them, we go to church with them and they listen to much the same music as we do. They are us. We are them. Not always the most sophisticated or cultured, but often robust with humour and amongst the world\u2019s more reasonable peoples.<\/p>\n Exporters of Australian energy, on the other hand, are the scions of global capital elite\u2014the 1%\u2014who go to extraordinary lengths to avoid paying taxes to benefit Australia and will be gone the day the reserves they export are gone.<\/p>\n Advertisement<\/p>\n What do you think, Millie? Anyone else at Nine? Anyone anywhere else in the mainstream media?<\/p>\n That 8o% of new renewable energy China installed last year\u2014how does that compare with Australian energy exports to China?<\/p>\n That carbon tax the EU has implemented\u2014are any Australian producers of goods affected by that or is the impact on Australia greater through the effect on nations using Australian raw materials or energy? If the latter, should we be toning down carbon-generating exports?<\/p>\n Advertisement<\/p>\n And Millie, if the rest of the world doesn\u2019t follow the EU model, does that mean we should ease off inflicting pain on ourselves and prepare ourselves for the post-cliff world?<\/p>\n Right at the end there, Millie steps on something known as \u2018morality\u2019 which is another core failing of much of Australia\u2019s mainstream media. Millie\u2019s moral assumption here is that Australian bill payers\u2014her readers\u2014should bear the pain of carbon adjustment rather than bill payers in the rest of the world or large corporate interests in Australia (where they don\u2019t bear much pain anyway, and they profit from the pain not being paid by the consumers elsewhere and use Australia\u2019s polity and media to obscure their involvement in the pain Australia\u2019s energy consumers wear). No thanks, Millie.<\/p>\n The enormity of that moral position is that Australia\u2019s polity, Australia\u2019s bureaucracy, Australia\u2019s capital owners and their managers, and Australia\u2019s mainstream media\u2014by and large\u2014are united by it.<\/p>\n Advertisement<\/p>\n Millie proceeds into fairy tale territory:<\/p>\n From an economic perspective, we\u2019re also throwing away what\u2019s called our \u201ccomparative advantage\u201d. That is, because of our nearly bottomless supply of solar and wind, and our relatively small population, we\u2019re actually able to generate clean energy at a lower cost than most other countries \u2013 and sacrifice far less in terms of other things we could be doing with our time and resources.<\/p>\n Countries such as China, Japan, South Korea and India face a growing shortage of low-cost green energy to run their economies, meaning there\u2019s a big opportunity for Australia to step in as a supplier.<\/p>\n But Australia also has a chance to step up as a maker and exporter of goods such as iron and steel.<\/p>\n Right now, despite Australia having the ingredients \u2013 huge amounts of iron ore, the coking coal needed to turn the iron ore into iron (the metal), and the thermal coal and gas to power the whole process \u2013 most of our iron ore is shipped out to, and turned into iron and steel in, north-east Asia.<\/p>\n That\u2019s because all these ingredients are fairly cheap to ship and north-east Asia can produce things at a scale \u2013 and therefore low cost \u2013 we can\u2019t match.<\/p>\n But as\u00a0green\u00a0iron becomes more crucial in the quest for a net zero world, the costs of producing the stuff will change.<\/p>\n The renewable energy needed to create green hydrogen (the replacement for coking coal), and to power the process (instead of thermal coal) are expensive to export \u2013 as is green hydrogen. Sims notes exporting coking coal only adds about 10 per cent to the cost of producing iron, while exporting hydrogen instead would just about double the cost.<\/p>\n Rather than sending off all the ingredients, Australians could (and it will make more sense to) make the entire green product here ourselves. What we do now to build this capability will matter hugely \u2013 for ourselves, and for the world. By some estimates, Australia producing intensive green exports could slash world emissions by up to 10 per cent.<\/p>\n Millie, our current comparative advantage is the availability of cheap energy through our current coal and gas reserves. We are throwing that away by degrading our ability to burn the coal and sucking all of our gas out of the East Coast to give to the rest of the world at loss leader prices and subsequently looking at buying it back at global spot market prices.<\/p>\n Our comparative advantage is comparative stupidity as far as much of the rest of the world is concerned. They bank on us sacrificing our comparative advantage to please them.<\/p>\n Advertisement<\/p>\n If we treat our future comparative advantage as we treat our current competitive advantage then we could consider paying the rest of the world to fellate their balance sheets. Is that what we want for tomorrow\u2019s Australians?<\/p>\n What Millie posits about wind and solar sounds great. But Australia has been trying to do more sophisticated stuff for about 200 years and has failed abysmally.<\/p>\n Millie seems oblivious to the idea that much of the rest of the world has wind and solar potential. They bump into much the same storage and transmission issues Australia does.<\/p>\n Advertisement<\/p>\n Given the same applies for the generation and transmission of hydrogen energy, there would be a case for placing money on somewhere other than Australia getting it right.<\/p>\n Given Australia\u2019s repeated failures to develop economic resilience and substance without selling out down the track, would you bank on someone somewhere else doing things via solar, wind, water, or hydrogen, or any green power really, or would you invest in someone in Australia doing it? And if someone in Australia did do it, would their concern be Australians at that point or a global market?<\/p>\n Sure, Australia could make \u2018green\u2019 steel or metals or even metal products down the track somewhere. But right here, right now, in 2025, Millie is talking about the exploitation of child labour in the Congo, toxic minerals processing in China, and shiploads more imports for the world\u2019s most expensive people on the world\u2019s most expensive land using the world\u2019s most expensive energy and internet to do things the rest of the world doesn\u2019t want, all tied in with the world\u2019s most outrageous energy bills. And the stupidity of Australian energy policy is central to that. Millie is supporting the most pernicious impacts of that for ordinary Australians.<\/p>\n Advertisement<\/p>\n Let us return to her.<\/p>\n Third, some people ask why Australia can\u2019t use nuclear energy or carbon capture and storage rather than renewables such as solar and wind power.<\/p>\n The Liberal Party\u2019s resounding defeat, while not purely down to\u00a0their nuclear policy<\/a>, was a sign the political appetite is just not there for nuclear. But nuclear and carbon-capture techniques are also very costly.<\/p>\n \u201cOf all the nuclear plants built since 2000 in countries such as the USA, the UK and France, projects have been much delayed and costs have around tripled those first estimated,\u201d Sims points out. \u201cNuclear energy costs are now three to five times that of firmed renewable energy.\u201d<\/p>\n The possible exceptions to this trend \u2013 South Korea and China \u2013 have more opaque costings for nuclear and have been helped along by heavy government subsidies.<\/p>\n While carbon-capture costs haven\u2019t yet fallen enough to be a realistic option in most circumstances, and nuclear costs have continued rising, the cost of solar, wind and batteries has fallen rapidly. Solar power in particular could, over the next decade, offer electricity at half the cost of the cheapest available today.<\/p>\n Millie returns with more whataboutism. Sure, Australians don\u2019t like the idea of nuclear. There has never been a need for it in Australia\u2019s past because we have and had abundant cheap energy. It is expensive to build from scratch, and it is the same stuff used to make nuclear weapons.<\/p>\n But Australia does have large uranium resources, and Australia does have geologically stable locations to build such facilities. If the transition need is so profound as to traumatise Australians through their energy bills, then couldn\u2019t it be the reliable base load to replace our coal-fired stations, built astride our existing transmission systems?<\/p>\n Advertisement<\/p>\n Is green solar and wind really cheaper? Is it reliable enough without building at scale multiples larger than what we have to cover for the risk of the cloudy day, windless days, or night? Then there are the questions about toxic solar materials processed in China and the child labour in the Congo, or the lifespan and replacement costs of solar or wind generation capacity and storage. Are they considerations? Renewables are also heavily subsidised.<\/p>\n Should there be considerations before inflicting bill pain on the people in the streets here?<\/p>\n Sure, we get the idea that the costs of global warming, which most of us accept is caused by human activity and particularly fossil fuel use, will embed major mitigation costs. But what about the costs of mitigation in comparison with the costs of our current transition trajectory?<\/p>\n Advertisement<\/p>\n Sure, we get the general idea that carbon sequestration is not meaningfully going to happen and will be humungously expensive. But what about a consideration of pros and cons comparison rather than the \u2018stop it or you will go blind\u2019 thinking we are served up as a fait accompli every day?<\/p>\n Millie is back with more.<\/p>\n The fourth issue people raise is that green products are expensive. But that is only if you ignore the cost of climate change. The harm to our environment and the possibly irreversible change to our planet are costs that are not reflected in the price we pay for products and energy generated using fossil fuels.<\/p>\n People living in floodplains and farmers facing longer and worse droughts might see these costs most directly, but many of us don\u2019t see it in our everyday lives.<\/p>\n Putting a price on carbon helps to capture this cost. It might drive up the price of some of our goods and services \u2013 especially over the short term \u2013 but it helps reflect the full consequences and guides businesses and customers to push for cleaner alternatives.<\/p>\n The government providing subsidies \u2013 such as payments or grants \u2013 to generators of renewable energy and makers of green products could also achieve a similar aim.<\/p>\n Yes, green products are expensive. They are competing with products fuelled by fossil and the vast bulk of buyers only concern themselves with the price on the invoice.<\/p>\n Advertisement<\/p>\n The climate isn\u2019t issuing invoices yet and when it does, could we assume there will be some good with the bad? Or is it all bad? And if it is all bad, wouldn\u2019t that open up an opportunity and market for someone to cash in on? Isn\u2019t that how capitalism works?<\/p>\n As for Millie\u2019s thoughts about carbon prices and their short-term price impacts, what is she saying? Should we cease flying or boating in Danish ham, foreign wines, and Kiwi kiwifruit, and kids toys from China and tell someone to make them here? In a nation importing just about everything used in daily life, would our position vis-\u00e0-vis global warming get a boost from ending imports? Millie, is that what you are saying?<\/p>\n If we are about placing a price on carbon, shouldn\u2019t that price be for all customers, starting with the biggest customers, which happen to be foreign buyers in the case of Australian gas?<\/p>\n Advertisement<\/p>\n And that throwaway line about subsidies, Millie. Would that lead to new products or would global capital simply turn those into a teat to extract some more from Australian taxpayers?<\/p>\n And for a conclusion, we are back to not recognising where we are.<\/p>\n Just as gas and minerals have played a huge role in Australia\u2019s economic development, so can exporting green energy-intensive goods. Research by the Superpower Institute\u2019s research lead Reuben Finighan shows the potential export revenue from these goods could amount to roughly the same size as all Australia\u2019s current exports put together, and six to eight times larger than the country\u2019s combined coal and liquefied natural gas export revenue.<\/p>\n That\u2019s if we invest about 5 per cent of our economic output \u2013 or gross domestic product \u2013 every year for the next few decades. It\u2019s another bill to foot, but as Sims points out, about the same level of investment as when Australia leapt on the Chinese minerals boom two decades ago. We\u2019ve done it before so we can do it again.<\/p>\n Advertisement<\/p>\n Millie, the gas and minerals are great, but they aren\u2019t the society you see around you. They aren\u2019t your readers. Your readers and the society around you exist inside a bubble enabled by those minerals and gas. That\u2019s great too, but the risk is that prices spike or collapse or the commodity ends and then the society around you has to have another strength.<\/p>\n Economists will tell you that any economy is best when it is using the people in it to do something productive\u2014meaning it produces a good or service that the rest of the world wants, or it produces the same for Australians, which replaces a good or service otherwise imported from the rest of the world. Your current Australian society isn\u2019t going within a bull\u2019s roar of doing that.<\/p>\n Then on top of that, especially if you remember the resources providing our lifestyle are finite, your current Australian society is importing people at a globally unheard-of rate to distribute the largesse enabled by those resources ever more thinly\u2014but that\u2019s a subject for another day.<\/p>\n Advertisement<\/p>\n The real next issue arising from your piece is that Australia has been trying to move on from being a quarry or feedlot for more than 200 years and has never done it. In that time, it has sold itself all sorts of narratives about where it is going\u2014the latest is green energy hub, and the thinking espoused by Rod Sims and Ross Garnaut.<\/p>\n Rueben Finighan\u2019s very good research for the Superpower Institute says Australia \u2018could\u2019 create a market. Certainly it could. But numerous others regularly note Australia is unlikely to \u2013 for reasons ranging from labour costs to distance from key markets<\/a>.<\/p>\n In the Houses and Holes economy we have in 2025, maybe we could have articles about parallel universe rainbows up the backside we could export as well.<\/p>\n Advertisement<\/p>\n \u2026\u2026.and that brings us to another concern with your piece Millie. And that is your journalistic values.<\/p>\n![](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/07\/CO2-emissions-2023.jpg\")
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\u2026..unless Australia bans energy exports<\/p>\n![](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/07\/CAT_2024-11_Graph_FossilFuelExportsIcebergEffect.png\")
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