Bowen’s net zero obsession renders his new domestic gas plan next to redundant - news24.com.au

The federal government has announced a new domestic gas plan, but policy settings favouring net-zero outcomes have rendered the scheme largely ineffective. The initiative aims to secure gas supply, but renewable energy mandates and emissions reduction targets are driving investment away from gas infrastructure and toward wind and solar, limiting the domestic plan's practical impact on energy security or supply certainty.

Where this fits

This story illustrates a core tension in Australia's energy strategy: policy is pulling in two directions at once. The government wants gas as a firming fuel to back renewables, but its net-zero framework makes gas investment economically unviable. The result is underinvestment in the dispatchable generation Australia will need as the grid becomes weather-dependent. This bears directly on reliability and cost. A renewables-heavy grid requires either firm backup (which gas could provide) or storage and transmission overbuild (both costly and material-intensive). By making gas uneconomical without also pursuing firm alternatives like nuclear, the policy creates a gap: renewables need firming, but the policy toolkit excludes the lowest-emissions firm options.

What it means

Australia is backing into energy insecurity through policy contradiction. A domestic gas plan that cannot attract investment because policy penalizes gas is no plan at all. The grid will still need firming when the wind does not blow and the sun does not shine. If gas is ruled out by emissions targets and nuclear is ruled out by law, Australia faces either rolling blackouts, heavy reliance on imported liquefied natural gas at volatile prices, or a vastly more expensive build of batteries, storage and transmission. The honest position is that net-zero targets and energy security are now on a collision course, and Australia has not named the cost of choosing one over the other.