The parliament of the energy superidiot is trying to proof itself against Peter Dutton.
So it should. Dutton appears so captured by the East Coast gas cartel that, right now, he is a greater national security risk than China.
Today’s news is typical.
A deal between the government and the Greens to try and stop gas from being added to the electricity market’s capacity investment scheme has been seized on by the opposition as a harbinger of a Labor minority government.
In parliament on Wednesday, the government accepted a Greens amendment to an unrelated energy bill that mandates the capacity investment scheme, or CIS, has at least 23 gigawatts of wind and solar energy, and 9 gigawatts of clean storage.
Soaking up that amount of capacity in the limited scheme effectively locks out gas, opposition energy spokesman Ted O’Brien said.
Good. There is zero justification for including gas in the CIS.
It is designed to overcome the challenges of the technology curve in renewables and storage.
That is, it guarantees profitability for today’s technologies so that investors don’t wait for cheaper tech to develop.
It is just about the only good policy within the Albanese government. It must have copied it from somewhere.
Gas does not have a technology curve and is already insanely profitable across the East Coast.
If gas peakers are needed and not being built, it is because of insecurity of supply owing to the gas export cartel. The CIS won’t help.
Moreover, the CIS helps push the NEM away from gas dependency over time, so expensive gas sets the marginal price less often, making power cheaper.
But that is probably the least worst of Peter Dutton’s lunatic gas plans.
As well as planning to subsidise greater gas use in the NEM, and raise power costs, he wants to strip you of the only two protections you have against the baleful East Coast gas export cartel.
Dutton has committed to removing energy rebates from your bill, and he has committed to neutralising the Australian Domestic Gas Security Mechanism (ADSGM).
These two policies will leave Australia’s East Coast economy naked just as the gas export cartel rapist begins importing LNG.
Lunatic Dutton seems to think that removing the shackles from the East Coast gas export cartel will result in a boom of new supply.
He could not be more wrong. The gas export cartel already possesses all major reserves. It is not going to produce itself out of a monopoly.
The gas export cartel will instead respond by restricting local supply even further, guaranteeing LNG imports become the marginal price setter of East Coast gas, and the local price rises to import parity, sending local gas profits mad.
That is, gas prices will double.
The income and inflation shock for you is mind-boggling.
Your energy bills will simultaneously be hit by a doubling in the gas price and wholesale price of electricity (one-third of your bill), and the unwinding of Albo’s household subsidies.
This will mean your energy costs are going to soar 80-100% in 2026/27.
This is 4-5% of the CPI and double that with spillovers. It is a living standards shock larger than Albo’s three-year depression all by itself.
It is the Great Australian Gastastrophe and energy lunatic Peter Dutton wants to put his name on it.
