The wall of secrecy surrounding the cost of the federal government’s flagship renewables subsidy scheme may finally be about to crack.
The Australian National Audit Office has officially listed the Capacity Investment Scheme as part of its work program for 2026-27. As one of the least transparent federal subsidy schemes devised, the CIS is long overdue for an audit.
The government has faced sustained scrutiny over its decision not to reveal the cost of the scheme, which will commit taxpayers to paying unknown billions to wind, solar and battery developers under 20-year revenue underwriting agreements.
Until now, the Energy Minister has used the “commercial-in-confidence” claim as a get-out-of-jail-free card to continue evading every inconvenient question about how much taxpayers will have to pay.
Energy ministers running similar programs in other countries have shown far more transparency. Britain, for instance, regularly publishes the strike price of its agreements with developers, as well as the estimated annual budget impact of its Contracts for Difference scheme. In Australia, the public is told neither.
The length of CIS contracts makes the secrecy much worse. Once signed, these deals will be very difficult for a future government to unwind if they fail to deliver value for money. Of course, that’s all part of the plan.
Last year, Chris Bowen made very clear what his task was for this term of government: “I want this transition to be so locked in that a change of government can’t stop it.” If this transition is such a good idea, then why must its price tag be kept secret?
The lengths the government has gone to in avoiding transparency should be ringing alarm bells for taxpayers everywhere. Instead of being run through a government department – as is standard practice for subsidy programs of this magnitude – the CIS is being run through a private company: AusEnergy Services Limited.
ASL does not front Senate estimates. In other words, the body responsible for assessing and recommending billion-dollar CIS projects for ministerial approval is not directly accountable to parliament. Nor is ASL subject to Freedom of Information requests in the way government departments are.
And any attempt to request documents the department receives from ASL can be effortlessly knocked back with claims of confidentiality.
Appointing a private company to administer a tender process worth billions of dollars is so unusual that perhaps the only other example of this occurring is the NSW Government’s Long-Term Energy Service Agreements scheme, which is also run by ASL.
But at least in NSW the outsourcing of the LTESA scheme came with a statutory framework and regulatory oversight. The federal government opted for neither in its design of the CIS.
This highly unusual arrangement not only forces taxpayers to sign contracts blindfolded, it also erodes public trust in the ministers who lead our country. Suppose a minister were accused of approving underwriting for an uneconomic project that benefited his friends. How could he prove his innocence? Under the current design, there is no accountability mechanism that would let him.
If ministers want to maintain the trust of the public and ensure they cannot be accused of favouritism or corruption, they must embrace transparency and robust oversight – not use private companies and commercial-in-confidence claims to shield their decisions from scrutiny.
But beyond the matter of governance, an important question remains. Even the CSIRO, which insisted for years that wind and solar were the cheapest forms of new energy, has conceded the transition to renewables will increase the cost of our energy system. Is the Australian public willing to bear that cost? The answer appears to be no.
Polling commissioned by Affordable Energy Australia found more than half of Australians would not pay a single extra dollar to achieve net zero, and almost three-quarters wouldn’t pay more than $50 a year. Among communities bearing the brunt of the energy transition, willingness to pay is even lower. Another poll commissioned by Affordable Energy Australia found two-thirds of Gippsland would not pay a single extra dollar to make the transition move faster and four in five wouldn’t pay more than $50 a year.
These results suggest that once the true scale of the CIS is revealed, very few taxpayers will be in favour of such costly contracts being signed on their behalf.
Australians may support the idea of the energy transition in theory but they do not support the reality: ever-growing bills, secretive subsidies and the destruction of prime agricultural land and pristine rainforests. Consumers want cheap and reliable power first and foremost, not ideological targets.
Our government would do well to heed the words of German Energy Minister Katherina Reiche, who wrote earlier this year: “One fact has been suppressed for too long: an energy transition that ignores system costs will ruin the country it claims to save.”
The wall of secrecy surrounding the cost of the federal government’s flagship renewables subsidy scheme may finally be about to crack.
The Australian National Audit Office has officially listed the Capacity Investment Scheme as part of its work program for 2026-27. As one of the least transparent federal subsidy schemes devised, the CIS is long overdue for an audit.
The government has faced sustained scrutiny over its decision not to reveal the cost of the scheme, which will commit taxpayers to paying unknown billions to wind, solar and battery developers under 20-year revenue underwriting agreements.
Until now, the Energy Minister has used the “commercial-in-confidence” claim as a get-out-of-jail-free card to continue evading every inconvenient question about how much taxpayers will have to pay.
Energy ministers running similar programs in other countries have shown far more transparency. Britain, for instance, regularly publishes the strike price of its agreements with developers, as well as the estimated annual budget impact of its Contracts for Difference scheme. In Australia, the public is told neither.
The length of CIS contracts makes the secrecy much worse. Once signed, these deals will be very difficult for a future government to unwind if they fail to deliver value for money. Of course, that’s all part of the plan.
Last year, Chris Bowen made very clear what his task was for this term of government: “I want this transition to be so locked in that a change of government can’t stop it.” If this transition is such a good idea, then why must its price tag be kept secret?
The lengths the government has gone to in avoiding transparency should be ringing alarm bells for taxpayers everywhere. Instead of being run through a government department – as is standard practice for subsidy programs of this magnitude – the CIS is being run through a private company: AusEnergy Services Limited.
ASL does not front Senate estimates. In other words, the body responsible for assessing and recommending billion-dollar CIS projects for ministerial approval is not directly accountable to parliament. Nor is ASL subject to Freedom of Information requests in the way government departments are.
And any attempt to request documents the department receives from ASL can be effortlessly knocked back with claims of confidentiality.
Appointing a private company to administer a tender process worth billions of dollars is so unusual that perhaps the only other example of this occurring is the NSW Government’s Long-Term Energy Service Agreements scheme, which is also run by ASL.
But at least in NSW the outsourcing of the LTESA scheme came with a statutory framework and regulatory oversight. The federal government opted for neither in its design of the CIS.
This highly unusual arrangement not only forces taxpayers to sign contracts blindfolded, it also erodes public trust in the ministers who lead our country. Suppose a minister were accused of approving underwriting for an uneconomic project that benefited his friends. How could he prove his innocence? Under the current design, there is no accountability mechanism that would let him.
If ministers want to maintain the trust of the public and ensure they cannot be accused of favouritism or corruption, they must embrace transparency and robust oversight – not use private companies and commercial-in-confidence claims to shield their decisions from scrutiny.
But beyond the matter of governance, an important question remains. Even the CSIRO, which insisted for years that wind and solar were the cheapest forms of new energy, has conceded the transition to renewables will increase the cost of our energy system. Is the Australian public willing to bear that cost? The answer appears to be no.
Polling commissioned by Affordable Energy Australia found more than half of Australians would not pay a single extra dollar to achieve net zero, and almost three-quarters wouldn’t pay more than $50 a year. Among communities bearing the brunt of the energy transition, willingness to pay is even lower. Another poll commissioned by Affordable Energy Australia found two-thirds of Gippsland would not pay a single extra dollar to make the transition move faster and four in five wouldn’t pay more than $50 a year.
These results suggest that once the true scale of the CIS is revealed, very few taxpayers will be in favour of such costly contracts being signed on their behalf.
Australians may support the idea of the energy transition in theory but they do not support the reality: ever-growing bills, secretive subsidies and the destruction of prime agricultural land and pristine rainforests. Consumers want cheap and reliable power first and foremost, not ideological targets.
Our government would do well to heed the words of German Energy Minister Katherina Reiche, who wrote earlier this year: “One fact has been suppressed for too long: an energy transition that ignores system costs will ruin the country it claims to save.”