Response to AEMO’s decision to suspend NEM Wholesale Market.
Labor’s Energy Minister Chris Bowen assured Australians on Tuesday that there was ‘no need to be concerned about blackouts in the immediate future’ and yet the following day AEMO took over the market for fear of black outs.
This demonstrates the Labor Government’s removal from the reality of the market and a lack of meaningful engagement with industry.
Federal Labor and some state governments have spent the last decade sending signals to the coal and gas industries that their days are up, and now they’re the ones complaining about a lack of coal and gas in the Australian market.
Instead of calling a crisis meeting with industry, the new Minister called a meeting with politicians which led to nothing to address the immediate crisis.
The Minister’s only action to date has been to announce a series of reviews, none of which present a solution to the immediate crisis.
If there’s one silver lining to this energy crisis it should be Labor agreeing to end their nasty demonisation of technologies they don’t like.
We have an agreed destination of net-zero by 2050, and the real question is how we get there. We need cheap, reliable and clean energy but all technologies must be on the table.
In light of this crisis, it is up to the Labor Government to explain how they will deliver on their promise to reduce people’s power bills while rushing towards 82% renewables.
Renewables need every chance of success and that can only happen with a technology neutral approach.