EnergyShift

The EnergyShift research is designed to track Australian voter sentiment on the energy transition and related policy issues over time. Across each wave, the research explores:

• the most important issues voters believe the Federal Government should focus on;
• cost-of-living pressures, including electricity and gas bills;
• voter assessments of government performance on the transition to renewable energy;
• priorities between lowering energy costs, maintaining energy reliability and reducing emissions faster;
• perceptions of the cost, availability and reliability of electricity and renewable energy;
• views on the role of gas in Australia’s energy transition;
• support for different sources of energy production;
• expectations about power bills, blackouts and energy system reliability. 

The latest EnergyShift wave shows that cost of living continues to dominate voter concerns, while energy affordability and reliability remain central to how Australians evaluate the transition to renewable energy.

Cost of living remains the dominant national issue
In Wave 6, cost of living remained the most important issue for voters, with 64 per cent identifying it as the issue the Federal Government should focus on right now. This has remained consistently high across the tracking period.

Energy costs remain a central concern
Among voters who selected cost of living as their top issue, groceries remained the largest concern, but petrol prices increased sharply in the latest wave. Electricity prices remained a specific cost-of-living pressure, with the Wave 6 report noting electricity bills at 13 per cent among those most concerned about cost of living.

Voters continue to prioritise affordability and reliability
When voters were asked to rank energy priorities, lowering energy costs remained the clear first priority. In Wave 6, 60 per cent ranked lowering energy costs first, while 24 per cent ranked maintaining energy reliability first and 12 per cent ranked faster emissions reduction first.

Confidence in the transition remains mixed
The latest research found that Australians continue to assess the Federal Government’s performance on the transition to renewable energy negatively overall, with 19 per cent rating performance positively and 34 per cent rating it poorly. 

Across the EnergyShift tracking series, several patterns have remained consistent. Cost of living has stayed the dominant national issue. Voters continue to prioritise lower energy costs and reliability ahead of faster emissions reduction.

There is also persistent concern that the transition to renewable energy will increase household power bills.

Figure 44: Do voters believe that the cost of renewable energy options has gotten better or worse. Waves 1 through 6 compared. On page 98 of March 2026 report

At the same time, attitudes toward different energy sources are shifting. Support for solar remains strong, while support for wind has become more contested in some voter groups. Natural gas has seen a notable increase in support across the tracking period.

One of the clearest long-term findings in the EnergyShift research is the increase in support for natural gas as an energy source.

In Wave 6, RedBridge found that support for increased gas energy production had risen from 53 per cent in the first wave to 63 per cent in the latest wave.

Figure 116: Support for increased energy production from different sources of electricity. Wave 6 EnergyShift Survey, March 2026.

The report notes that support for gas has increased across all states over the tracking period, including increases in Queensland, New South Wales and Victoria.

The latest wave also found that 71 per cent of voters believe gas should play a role in Australia’s energy transition alongside renewable energy sources such as solar and wind. This included 36 per cent who said gas should play a major role.

The research suggests that, while views on gas are not uniform across all voter groups, more opinion is currently settling in support than opposition.

The full EnergyShift research reports are available for download below. Each report includes the detailed findings, question wording, data tables and demographic breakdowns for that wave of the research.

Methodology

The EnergyShift research survey sample included around 2,000 Australian citizens aged 18 and older who are enrolled to vote.

Respondents were recruited through an online panel, with quotas for age, gender, location, education and vote at the federal election to ensure the sample was representative of the Australian electorate. Rim weighting was applied for age, gender, education and location. The effective sample size has a margin of error of ±2.3 per cent for a 50 per cent result at the 95 per cent confidence level.

Results for subgroups, including age, location, income, education and vote intention, involve larger margins of error and should be interpreted with appropriate caution.

For questions about the EnergyShift research, member and industry briefings, methodology or findings, please contact:

Matt Williams, Head of Advocacy at APGA, mwilliams@apga.org.au or 0401 126 749