What do posters see as policy directions and priorities for the new Parliament ?
There are many things I don't know about but one I do know there's a problem with is energy.
Without going into engineering details, there's basically two aspects to that:
1. Price. There's a major price shock underway with both gas and electricity at the wholesale level at present across the NEM (all states except WA and NT).
Of those states Tasmania has the ability to wave some magic wands, do a bit of financial trickery and make the problem disappear and will probably do so.
For the other states though, Queensland's ability to intervene is limited and for the others it effectively is zero. Announcements are coming in the very near future - should start this week and yes it was delayed, by order of the previous government, until after the election very intentionally (although a few companies have spilled the beans to the media by the way).
Given the significance of cost of living politically, and the focus there's been on electricity price in particular at the political level, there's some significance there to a major price jump.
2. Physical gas supply to the south-eastern states collectively, that is NSW, ACT, Vic, Tas and SA taken as a whole but noting that Victoria of itself accounts for about 60% of winter (peak season) gas consumption and is thus the focus.
As the Gippsland Basin fields dry up and production rates drop, and a major field is indeed expected to cease production next financial year, maximum production rate is dropping off even with new (smaller) developments proceeding and would outright plunge in a "no new gas" scenario.
Even with that new investment we're still looking at a pretty major supply drop for 2023 and an almost 50% drop by 2026 from the Longford plant, by far the largest supply source, with declines elsewhere as well.
Further information can be found in the
Victorian Gas Planning Report Update dated March 2022 for those interested in detail. Note that much of it's based on the assumption that the Port Kembla Gas Terminal project as well as others does proceed so take care to note the with new gas / without new gas differences if reading it. Without new supply, available gas is set to plunge rather fast.
All things considered, and noting that there's very little time available to be replacing millions of gas appliances in homes and so on (gas space heating accounts for about 70% of peak day demand in Victoria so that's a couple of million appliances), there's really no option other than to stand back and let the (privately funded not government) gas projects proceed.
That's not denying climate change on my part, just noting that there's basically no time to do anything other than a "quick fix" at this stage. Well, at least there isn't much option unless government's feeling really brave and is willing to do a shutdown of sorts of Melbourne. At a guess, no party will choose that track - though the politics would be rather interesting if it did come to that.
....
The above two points aren't to suggest that energy's the only issue facing government. It's just a comment on something I know about and which does lead to government essentially having its hands tied and being backed into a corner over a potentially highly contentious issue.
There are also other very definite issues within the energy sector, most notably oil prices and the effect that has on consumers plus the risk of a disorderly exit of coal-fired generation prior to alternatives actually being built. What happens there is somewhat harder to predict although the coal one ultimately is fixable with money if it comes to that, deals can be done to bring about an orderly exit rather than a chaotic one, although that brings more politics with it of course.
Some pain there politically I expect. Government's hands are substantially tied by the situation and the Coalition picked a good time to exit the stage just as it's about to go boom.
Noting that none of that's to suggest I'm in any way opposing renewables and so on, indeed I'm very sure that a fully renewable electricity supply can be done and that an orderly phase out of gas is also doable. The issue however is about time or rather the lack of it. It's about the near future and keeping society functioning, not the long term where many more options do exist.
The one certainty though is the issue will be settled. It's game over for arguing about it. The can simply cannot be kicked even once more.