Paul Murray: Roger Cook’s incompetent energy policy leaves WA, households and businesses vulnerable

As this newspaper reported in October, the Cook Government’s decision to quietly delay a planned rewrite of its crucial energy transition policy for the second time — pushing it out to September, 2027 when it was already overdue — left WA industry leaders in the dark. It has taken more than three months, but the truth behind that delay is finally emerging. The new department tasked with writing the plan is a shambles, according to a damning government review. “The agency is described as disjointed and opaque, with stakeholders reporting advice is often confusing and contradictory depending on the area giving the advice,” the Cook Government’s own Agency Capability Review reported last month. It said the problems within the new Department of Energy and Economic Diversification, one of the latest of Labor’s public service changes, were so severe that “if not resolved, it poses a significant risk to the agency’s ability to deliver the energy transition.” The so-called whole of system plan, which is meant to model at least four scenarios for the State’s power system, guiding investments over 20 years, has been out of date since 2022. That was when former Premier Mark McGowan announced closing the last of the government’s Collie coal-fired power plants in 2029, making redundant Labor’s original WOSP which had coal in use past 2040. And it was the fateful day that WA’s energy policy became captive to climate change politics, rather than the obligation to provide affordable, reliable power. The damning review process into the new energy bureaucracy ran from March to October last year. The responsible minister, Amber-Jade Sanderson, must have been aware of it when she struggled to explain the further delay to the WOSP on October 29. With less than four years to the promised shutdown of Collie, the rollout of renewables to replace coal-fired generation is running well behind schedule while power demand on WA’s main electricity network, the South West Interconnected System, skyrockets. Demand on the SWIS is expected to grow somewhere between three and five-fold over the next 20 years from 5.9GW. “Supplying this level of demand with electricity generated largely from renewable energy sources would require almost 10 times the amount of generation capacity currently on the SWIS,” the government’s assessment stated. That’s because of the inherent unreliability of renewables. They never produce at their rated levels. When The West asked about the latest WOSP delay in October, Sanderson pointed to a new transmission plan for the SWIS which had been released the previous month, a discrete part of the bigger puzzle. “Now that we are delivering this plan, we have started working on the next WOSP,” Sanderson said. Started working? It was already overdue in 2023 when the government first promised a rewrite of the outdated 2020 original. If it comes out by the due date of September, next year, it will be one month before the scheduled closure of the 300MW Collie power station. That would leave just 400MW of coal-fired generation at Muja D in State hands and the uncertain proposition of the privately-owned 440MW Bluewaters continuing. Even during the relatively mild evening weather this week, coal was providing around 20 per cent of peak demand and gas more than 40 per cent. The Cook Government gives every appearance of not having a clue about energy policy and this latest evidence of incompetence is deeply unsettling given the challenges ahead. So here’s some context. It was telling that in his year-ahead interview with journalist Joe Spagnolo in December, Premier Roger Cook did not mention the struggling renewables transition and certainly not as a government priority, which it needs to be. Those priorities for 2026 were listed by Cook as housing and health and holding onto WA’s GST share. Aren’t they going well? The only mention of energy came when he was asked by Spagnolo about the now-axed power bill rebates: “Nothing is off the agenda, but we want to be focused on targeted cost-of-living relief such as our rental assistance program, rather than broader, scattergun programs,” Cook said. A review of Labor’s renewables policy by the Institute of Public Affairs published last November found “the State Government has used bill credits, hidden subsidies, and the balance sheets of State-owned utilities to mask the fiscal and economic consequences of its own choices.” The IPA said its modelling showed that, under plausible assumptions about rooftop solar, wind and batteries, removing coal forces the SWIS into chronic dependence on constrained gas supply or into an uneconomic overbuild of renewable and storage capacity. “Either way, households and industry are exposed to higher prices and greater reliability risks, with large subsidies required to keep bills politically acceptable,” the report said. It specifically dismissed the government’s blame for higher power prices being lumped onto “global gas markets, the war in Ukraine and the actions of private retailers”. “That line might make sense on the east coast, but it does not fit WA’s very different domestic gas market, which has long been buffered from world prices by reservation policies and long-term contracts,” the IPA said. “The gap between fuel costs and final prices points to a different driver of bill increases. That driver is the WA climate and energy plan itself. “Accelerated coal closures, large-scale procurement of new wind and solar, grid-scale batteries and synchronous condensers, and major new transmission all come with substantial capital and financing costs. “Because much of this spending occurs through State-owned corporations such as Synergy and Western Power, the burden ultimately lands on either electricity users via their bills or taxpayers via the State Budget. “AEMO’s own statements of opportunities, together with IPA modelling of the SWIS, indicate that policy-driven coal closures, forced reliance on gas-fired firming, and the need to overbuild variable renewables, storage, and transmission are central drivers of higher system costs.” So back to the damning Agency Capability Review, in soccer terms a political own goal. The new Department of Energy and Economic Diversification was created from the former Department of Jobs, Tourism, Science and Innovation which lost its tourism and defence industry responsibilities, but picked up Energy Policy WA. It is the fourth structural tinkering with energy policy bureaucracy since Labor came to power in 2017. DEED has an annual budget of $490 million and remains under the control of Director-General Rebecca Brown who reports to four Ministers, which is always problematic. It was alluded to in this reflection on a lack of political leadership: “The review identified a gap between the agency’s perception of its limited authority and the expectations of government, other agencies and industry for it to lead and coordinate the State’s energy transition and economic diversification agenda. “Where there are multiple ministers and agencies with competing priorities, government confirmation of the agency’s role may be needed.” Why undertake another bureaucratic reshuffle if the department’s role is not obvious to everyone involved at the outset? Reviewer Liz MacLeod did not mince words when describing the new department’s dysfunction in an executive summary of her report, the only part released publicly: “With a history of operating as an isolated entity, the full integration of Energy Policy WA into the agency is critical. If not resolved, it poses a significant risk to the agency’s ability to deliver the energy transition. “Examples of entrenched silos and resistance at all levels are apparent across the agency. “Staff reported unclear governance structures leave them ‘second guessing’ decision-making roles and responsibilities. Middle managers are often expected to translate strategy into action without the training or support needed to succeed.” Faced with this damning review that ran through to November, the best Sanderson could muster in response last week was to claim that the findings didn’t reflect “ongoing operations.” Must have been a busy December. Shadow energy minister Steve Thomas pointed the finger directly at the Minister: “You’ve got Energy Policy WA running its own agenda and building its own empire and so it doesn’t want to integrate well with DEED. “You’ve got the rest of DEED looking at Energy Policy WA, seeing a failure in performance and not wanting to be held responsible for it.” This lack of direction is hardly surprising because it comes right from the top. Cook is one of the four Ministers responsible for DEED. Last September, the Premier released a document called “Our priorities for government 2025-2029”. It was only 12 pages, most of which were taken up with pictures. To describe it as slim is generous. Thin might be closer to the mark. In fact, skeletal. Energy was mentioned only four times, but one was claiming the government was delivering its commitments “with energy and determination”. The other three repeated this one line: “Becoming a renewable energy powerhouse.” Nothing more. While that might be an admirable ambition, it is just a slogan. And it can’t be a priority if it is not backed by an up-to-date and fit-for-purpose plan. But WA doesn’t have one.