As published in the Australian on 24 September 2025
The Albanese government has committed Australia to cutting our emissions in half over the next decade – Australian jobs, industry and prosperity be damned.
Alongside their decision, they released 54 pages of economic modelling and 34 pages of technical appendices, and yet these documents contain nothing on the cost of the plan.
Whether they know the cost and are keeping it secret, or simply don’t know the cost, it’s difficult to know which is worse.
Reading through Labor’s modelling, I was reminded of the fallacy of the broken window proposed by economist Frederic Bastiat some 175 years ago.
It tells the story of a boy who throws a rock through a shopkeeper’s window.
The glazier who fixes the window views the boy as a hero, for without him he would earn less money, as would others in town who benefit from the glazier spending his income.
The boy’s actions appear to create jobs and industries which otherwise would not exist.
But this telling of the story omits someone: the shopkeeper, who has to pay the glazier to fix the window. Those jobs and that economic activity come at his expense.
Bastiat referred to the apparent benefits as “that which is seen” and the unrecognised costs as “that which is not seen”.
Ultimately, the boy is no hero – the town would be better off had he never broken the window.
And so it is with the government’s new 2035 emissions targets.
Under the spin of Anthony Albanese, Chris Bowen and Jim Chalmers, they tout costs as benefits, from electricity to jobs and the state of the economy.
Albanese even likens the net-zero transition to the industrial revolution.
This is the broken-window fallacy in action.
The industrial revolution brought an expansion of our economic opportunities, allowing us to produce more with less.
But this government’s decarbonisation agenda does the exact opposite, forcing a shrinking of our economic opportunities, leading us to produce less with more.
Bastiat would describe the economic activity created by Labor’s climate transition as “that which is seen” versus the jobs and industries destroyed, the higher energy costs, and higher taxes needed to fund green subsidies as “that which is not seen”.
The new jobs, industries and economic activity created are not a benefit but a cost. Just as the jobs, industries and economic activity created by the broken window are a cost.
This is the inconvenient truth that Albanese, Bowen and Chalmers refuse to acknowledge.
The truth is that the transition destroys more economic activity than it creates.
The question is whether that is worth the climate benefits.
And to put those in context, Labor’s plan to halve Australia’s emissions over the next decade would offset less than one week of China’s emissions.
But Labor’s modelling doesn’t even compare the costs and benefits. Worse, it doesn’t even estimate the cost – shocking but not surprising given their form on modelling.
And the cost will be significant. A conservative estimate by the Business Council of Australia puts it at half a trillion dollars to 2035, or $50,000 per household.
How will the typical Australian household struggling under sky-high energy costs feel about paying that bill?
It’s easy to commit when the costs are concealed.
By its own admission, the government chose the target that reflected the hardest cuts possible – and then reverse-engineered the supposed economic benefits.
The modelling only indicates that the economy will continue to grow despite net zero, based on the premise that Treasury’s long-run growth assumptions play out.
This tells us nothing at all about whether the government’s chosen path is the best one.
Ultimately, a path that balances costs and benefits would see us reduce emissions in line with other comparable countries.
There are no two countries in the world more similar to Australia than Canada and New Zealand. Canada chose a target of 45-50 per cent while New Zealand chose 51-55 per cent.
Clearly there was no cost-benefit analysis behind Labor signing Australia up to 62-70 per cent.
Cutting our emissions deeper than comparable countries might seem admirable but, as Bastiat would argue, that’s only when focusing on what is seen rather than not seen. The truth is it’s reckless and self-destructive.
Albanese has thrown a rock through Australia’s window, and as broken glass scatters in all directions vested interests with dollar signs in their eyes cheer him on.
Labor marvels at all the jobs that will be created but says nothing of the jobs destroyed.
Meanwhile, Australians become poorer and our economy weaker.
The fanatics currently in control of Australian climate policy may be eager to cut our emissions at any cost, but the Coalition utterly rejects that approach.
We will fight these targets every step of the way.
The Coalition will not sacrifice Australian jobs, industries and living standards at the altar of Labor’s climate vanity. Unlike Labor, we will not have net zero at any cost.