Australian manufacturing has been hit hard by high gas prices, which have more than tripled since 2015 due to unrestricted gas exports. This has pushed up electricity prices too, since gas-fired generators help set the wholesale price—almost doubling power costs for businesses and households. As a result, many manufacturers are struggling or closing, as they can’t compete against soaring input and energy costs. Sign the petition from the @theausinstitute to stop unrestricted gas exports. Link in bio
Want to know the smartest way to get more clean energy? Scotland’s first wind farm just proved it. They pulled out 26 old turbines at Hagshaw Hill and dropped in 14 bigger ones. Same spot, five times the power. Now it runs 57,000 homes instead of 11,000. Their recycling every single old blade into construction materials. No new land, no new approvals, just swap out the old tech for better stuff. So why are we still arguing about building new sites when we could be upgrading the ones we already have?
What kind of relationship do you expect between a politician and a mining billionaire who share the same talking points on tax and mining policy? Because Pauline Hanson and Gina Rinehart holiday together and appear at pro-mining events side by side, how might that shape whose voices are heard in our democracy?
Should it be illegal to build car parks without solar?
France has passed laws requiring many large outdoor car parks to cover at least 50% of the site with solar panels. And honestly, it makes complete sense.
The car parks already exist. The grid connection is often already nearby.
That matters because one of the biggest costs in the energy transition is building new transmission lines across long distances.
Now imagine shopping centres, airports, stadiums and industrial estates generating power exactly where it’s needed while also giving people shaded parking. Then add batteries onsite.
And this is also why offshore wind matters.
Projects near Newcastle and Port Stephens can generate huge amounts of power close to major industrial areas instead of hundreds of kilometres away.
The same goes for regional Australia. Imagine 10 or 20 turbines outside a country town connected to a battery in the town itself.
This won’t replace the need for larger clean energy projects. But with the world racing to build the cheapest power generation available, practical ideas like this just make sense.
If clean energy is already the cheapest new power, why wouldn’t we build more of it closer to where Australians actually live and work?
I’ve spent ten years working for property investors. The new CGT and negative gearing changes could shrink that client base. I’m fine with it.
Here’s why I’m not panicking.
Every property I’ve ever worked on was bought by someone. When it sells, the new owner wants work done. Investment properties don’t disappear they change hands, and new owners always have a list. My phone doesn’t stop ringing because a landlord sold up.
And if the Treasury modelling is right, 75,000 extra owner occupied homes hit the market over a decade. That’s not less work for builders. That’s more of it.
Nobody who built wealth under the old rules loses a cent. Anything bought before 7:30pm on 12 May 2026 is grandfathered. The new rules don’t punish building they reward it, and that’s exactly what we need.
Negative gearing still works on a new build, which means you have to actually apply yourself to create wealth. Under the old setup, your seventh existing house grew wealth the same way a new build did. No skill needed. No supply added. Just a bidding war with a first home buyer.
Will some investors be slightly worse off? Maybe. But this rolls in over a decade it’s not a hurricane, it creeps in, they will need to plan differently.
Now, one thing that does concern me, Angus Taylor has flagged reducing building standards and codes as part of his housing response. I want to push back on that hard. Our codes don’t need to go backwards they need to go further. Double glazed windows should already be standard. R-values in walls should be going up, not down. A home that’s cheaper to build but expensive to heat, cool, and maintain isn’t actually affordable. We’ve learned that lesson.
Sky News and The Australian are framing this as an attack on working families, which is a strange read. Runaway prices are what locks families out.
Housing security creates stable homes. Stable homes raise kids better, keep people in jobs longer, and put roots down in communities.
So under the new rules, who’s losing, and what are they losing again?
Outraged over $1.44 a year on your power bill to build EV chargers? Before you blow your lid, have a squiz at what we already chip in for petrol and diesel. Is it fair we fund the rollout of EV chargers? #ev #frackman
Funny how every time the world hits a crisis, the oil companies somehow end up needing a bigger wheelbarrow for the cash.
Australians get told high fuel prices are “just the market.”
Power bills go up? “Global pressures.”
Gas prices explode? “International conditions.”
Meanwhile, the latest quarterly profits roll in like poker machines in your local RSL and you guessed it, huge profits.
Shell: US$6.9 billion.
BP: US$3.2 billion.
ExxonMobil: US$7.7 billion.
Chevron: US$5.5 billion.
And we’re supposed to believe this is all just unfortunate timing.
It reminds me of that old saying often pinned to Mark Twain: “It’s easier to fool people than to convince them they’ve been fooled.”
But strip away the layers and it’s pretty simple: if prices go up globally, multinational oil companies make a fortune globally.
And Australians? We get told to be grateful for the privilege of having fuel. It’s almost like they’ve trapped us in a system where, without them, we’re screwed. That’s what makes me wonder why is the solution to rely on them more? Wouldn’t the smarter move be to get away from the commodity that keeps tipping us over the edge?
I know what didn’t go up in price, the wind or the sun.
Does that sound like a free market… or a rigged one? #oil #rippedoff
Did the gas industry win again?
The new gas reservation policy barely touches supply. It only applies to new fields and uncontracted gas and the Grattan Institute says that was about 2% last year. So what fills the gap? More drilling. More fracking. More pressure on farming land. Is this fixing prices… or just expanding the footprint?
🚨 BREAKING NEWS 🚨
The boats pictured below were NOT held up in the Strait of Hormuz. These two cargo ships carrying wind turbines managed to go nowhere near it. They were not attacked by pirates. They were not taken hostage in Donald Trump’s ongoing war on sanity.
Instead, shockingly, they arrived safely in the Port of Newcastle.
However, there are unconfirmed reports that Barnaby Joyce and Pauline Hanson have joined the Newcastle Rising Tide port blockade in a brave last stand to stop these “eyesores” being unloaded. Witnesses say Barnaby was last seen lying down in protest, though it’s unclear whether this was political action or just a regular Tuesday.
One Nation has reportedly dispatched their newly anointed chief agitator, “Alan” yes, THAT Alan. The very same patriot recently filmed lunging at Liberal Senator James Paterson at a polling booth in Farrer like a feral cassowary who’d just been told clean energy was on the ballot. After that performance, the One Nation high command apparently decided Alan had “real promise” and promoted him from Bloke Yelling At A Senator to Chief Agitator (Wind Division).
Alan, who has never met a renewable energy project he didn’t want to chain himself to, told reporters he would rather personally shovel coal into Peter Dutton’s nuclear reactor than not fight this battle against the wind.
Australia’s bravest patriots continue their heroic fight against the terrifying threat of moving air.
KEEP THE PRESSURE ON
Are you starting to notice the pattern? Because the same gas industry lines keep popping up. Next time it shows up in your feed, why not ask where’s our 25% gas export levy?
Why does a wind turbine need a farmer’s permission, but a gas well doesn’t?
A farmer can say no to clean energy. The same farmer can’t say no to a gas well, the rig shows up regardless.
Maintenance rigs come back every 12 to 18 months for the life of the well. Same patch of farmland, fenced off, drilled, re-drilled.
A wind turbine? It sits on a slab the size of a shed. The farmer can graze sheep right up to it. Pull it out in 25 years and the paddock is still a paddock.
So who actually owns the family farm the farmer working it, or the gas company drilling it?
#cleanenergy♻️ #fracking
Why does regional Australia’s support for clean energy never make the headlines?
Poll after poll shows the quiet majority in the bush backs the shift to clean energy. They see it as practical, profitable, and a hedge against a rainfall you can no longer predict. The outrage gets the airtime. The consensus gets nothing.
So who exactly is the media actually speaking for?
#cleanenergy♻️ #outrage
