“It’s all about markets.” That’s the constant refrain of the federal Coalition government every time it announces a new intervention on Australia’s energy sector. “Our focus is also squarely on harnessing the power of new technology and allowing natural markets to operate,” prime minister Scott Morrison said last week. Except that it’s not. The Coalition’s lack of any overarching energy policy, its grab-bag of market interventions, including its transmission-for-fossil-fuel-deals with NSW, where Morrison made those comments, have had the opposite effect. Investment is stalling, the government’s chosen technologies are not new at all, and prices are forecast to rise because of it – just as the rush of new renewables had finally begun to have a dampening effect.
Welcome to Taylor-ball. It’s the new energy game devised by energy minister Angus Taylor. Liberals have long claimed a deep attachment to markets, except when it produces outcomes they don’t like. That at least partially explains the $US5 trillion of annual fossil fuel subsidies identified by the International Monetary Fund. In Australia, Taylor has discovered that the best way to control the energy market is either not to have one, or seek to control all the levers. Hence […]