Reality catches up (again) with net-zero fantasy
The wheels continue to fall off the net zero dream.
Today’s release of the Australian Energy Market Operator’s 2026 Draft Integrated System Plan is yet another nail in that fantasy’s coffin.
In a 115-page document that reportedly mentions “net zero” only once — while referencing coal more than 150 times — AEMO has confirmed what Family First has been warning for years: Australia cannot keep the lights on, or keep power affordable, without coal and gas.
According to The Australian’s reporting on the draft plan, AEMO now says coal will be needed until 2049 to stabilise the grid — a full 12-year extension beyond previous modelling.
AEMO also warns transmission costs are blowing out by up to 100 per cent, meaning families will shoulder billions more in poles-and-wires charges just to prop up an unreliable renewables rollout.
This isn’t a transition. It’s a slow-motion train wreck.
And it is happening exactly as Family First predicted and many experts have predicted.
For years, we have warned that Labor’s and the Liberals’ bipartisan obsession with net zero would mean higher bills, fragile supply, and endless taxpayer subsidies to hide the true cost of renewables.
Today, the regulator itself has admitted the plan relies on “challenging” assumptions and “utopian” forecasts — including the staggering requirement for grid-scale wind and solar to jump from 23GW today to 58GW by 2030 and an eyewatering 120GW by 2050.
No serious expert believes that is achievable. No other country is doing this.
Communities across regional Australia are already pushing back against massive wind towers, solar sprawl, and thousands of kilometres of new transmission lines.
Costs are rising. Projects are being shelved. And now AEMO warns that business demand for electricity — driven in part by data centres for AI — will rise by 90 per cent.
Yet Labor still insists everything is fine.
The truth is exactly the opposite.
Reality has caught up with the fantasy world of net zero.
The simple truth is that intermittent energy cannot replace reliable 24-hour generation. No amount of political spin can change the laws of physics.
That is why AEMO now concedes coal will need to be kept on standby well into the 2040s — not for nostalgia, but because the system cannot function without it.
Families and small businesses need affordable, reliable power. They cannot absorb endless price rises driven by ideology.
Family First’s plan is simple:
- End taxpayer subsidies for so-called renewables that will never deliver the promised cheap energy.
- Stop forcing communities to accept giant transmission projects they do not want and which only add to power bill pain.
- Allow new high-efficiency coal and gas plants to be built so Australia can secure abundant baseload power at the lowest possible cost.
- Lift the ban on nuclear energy.
AEMO’s latest warning is not a surprise — it is a vindication.
Labor can keep promising miracles in 2035 or 2050, long after today’s politicians have left Parliament. But families are living with the consequences now.
It’s time to abandon the fantasy and return to common sense. Australia’s future depends on it.