There is no “think tank” in Australia that has done more harm to households than the industry-captured Grattan Institute.
On the two critical economic inputs over the last decade – energy and immigration/housing – Grattan advice has consistently favoured sponsors over Australians.
Despite the destruction this is causing to the economy, the so-called “institute” continues to be taken seriously by media and policymakers, neither of which recognise the industry funding behind its recommendations.
The East Coast Gas Cartel is sponsoring the Grattan in the area of energy through Origin Energy.
The Grattan’s energy analyst is a former Origin executive and his policy recommendations have catastrophically favoured the the cartel over the national interest.
For instance, in 2013, it was Grattan who stridently argued that east coast gas reservation was a bad idea, despite every other exporter in the world using it.
Grattan also lobbied for Western Australia to abandon its highly successful domestic gas reservation policy:
As unfettered exports handed monopoly control of local gas supply to a cartel, prices have increased ever since.
The apocalyptic blunder derailed the energy transition and led directly to the energy wars that have killed governments, hollowed out manufacturing, and cost households hundreds of billions in higher bills and interest rates.
If the Grattan had recommended that the Hells Angels be handed control of Australian energy, it would have done less harm. At least they are patriots.
What was the “think tank’s answer to its energy armageddon? That Aussie households be taken off gas, or, the Grattan argued, the energy transition it had already destroyed would fail.
This is nothing more than a gigantic political distraction, delivering next-to-no reduction in carbon emissions while costing households billions more:
In a submission to a review of the Allan government’s new rental rules, which include switching from gas to electric hot water and heating systems when appliances reach end of life, the Victorian Chamber of Commerce and Industry says the cost estimate of proposed changes had been undercooked.
“Frankly, the recommendations impose significant costs on Victorians during a cost-of-living crisis,” VCCI chief executive Paul Guerra says in the submission.
Mr Guerra said it was the provisions that would trigger the need to electrify homes – for example when gas appliances were switched to electric models and upgrades to power mains were needed – which were of particular concern.
“The cost estimation of $5519 in 2025 under the revised minimum standard miscalculates the actual costs incurred by investors,” he said.
He pointed to a Frontier Economics report on the cost of converting a three-bedroom house from gas to electricity as being around $35,000, and to a Commonwealth Bank scheme offering customers $30,000 loans to convert properties.
And while households are stung again for no purpose, the East Coast Gas Cartel’s far larger use of gas to process LNG is forgotten. This is why the Greens are now demanding that the LNG plants be electrified.
Unsatisfied with its intellectual, moral, and political energy wreckage, Grattan has also pumped ceaseless immigration propaganda on behalf of Melbourne University and the Scanlon Foundation, two more sponsors.
It has given no thought to how this might exacerbate its Australian energy and environmental outcomes.
It doesn’t matter to the “think tank” that population growth has delivered the worst period of falling per capita living standards since the Great Depression.
That Australia has been thrust into a permanent housing shortage suits the Grattan just fine because it feeds the property development and international student capex trades behind its sponsors, Scanlon and Melbourne Uni.
The immeasurable social and generational inequities, not to mention extreme economic distortions, are just externalities to the Grattan.
Policymakers and the media should ban the Institute for Fleecing Australians.
