Executive summary
Australians remain concerned about costs — of energy, groceries and housing — and believe that renewables and a transition to cleaner energy will increase power bills. This flows through to their intentions to invest in renewable energy (like solar) and electrification.
It also likely has significant implications for their attitudes towards energy policy more broadly. Confidence in the renewables rollout impacting the broader energy system is increasingly bifurcated along partisan lines, with Labor voters generally reporting increased optimism and Coalition voters deepening pessimism regarding government performance, system reliability, and the perceived availability and cost of renewables. The expectation of rising power bills is a more universally shared concern, though the magnitude of expected increases still varies.
Voters retain strong and consistent support for increased energy production from solar; but are becoming increasingly sceptical of both onshore and offshore wind as a source of energy, which has been overtaken by natural gas as the second most popular energy source. This is partially partisan, but not entirely, and appears to be driven by concerns about the cost implications of renewable and clean energy.
However, support for new gas is contingent and context specific. Linking new gas projects to the faster retirement of coal-fired powerplants — for instance — increases the support for these projects, but it also flips the partisan gap on its head; increasing support among Labor and Greens voters (compared to a straight question about natural gas production) but driving it down with Coalition voters.
The growing partisan differences on energy supply and policy creates political risk for the sector, increasing the chances it will vary significantly whenever the party in government changes, at both federal and state levels.