As parliament closes for the year the Labor party has released its plan to create jobs, cut power bills and reduce emissions. The document which is plastered with images of Wind farms, solar panels and heavy industry manufacturing outlines the case to seize the opportunity of the decade.

As an overview, the Powering Australia plan will incentivise $76B of investment which should create over 600,000 jobs and the added benefit of cutting power bills on average by $378 by 2030. The increased focus on renewable energy will also result in renewables sharing 82% of the market by 2030.

High level modelling demonstrates Labors plan will improve the economic landscape for Australia allowing up to compete with the rest of the world while improving the health of individuals and the environment.

Although not strong on details the plan outlines to Power Australia Labor would invest $20B to establish a public Rewiring the Nation Corporation to modernise the transmission grid, co-invest $100M to provide solar to 25,000 households locked out of rooftop solar schemes and provide $200M to install 400 community batteries which could be utilised by up to 100,000 households.

Big business could also be in for change with Labor taking the Business councils advice and reducing the emissions baselines for large emitters covered under the existing Safeguard Mechanism. The plan will also invest $3B to support renewable manufacturing and a further 10,000 energy apprentices will be trained.

The transport sector should get tax breaks and discount to stimulate the electric car market.

Modelling shows that the $76B Australia which is 3% of GDP should reduce emissions by 440Mt or 43% below 2005 levels. As well as the creation of over 600,000 jobs by 2030 it should have dropped the average electricity bills by 26%.

Article written by

Alex Driscoll

Senior Manager Markets, Trading & Advisory