Australia politics live: household energy bills to fall up to 10% in July as renewables, batteries soar; WiseTech staff face AI redundancy | Australia news
Household energy bills drop up to 10% across parts of east coast
The government says household standing offer time of use prices will fall between 1.1% and 10.7% in South Australia, NSW and south-east Queensland, under the latest default market offer over the next 12 months.
The DMO – which is the maximum price energy retailers can charge electricity consumers on default plans (known as standing offer contracts) – shows small business standing offer time of use prices are set to fall by between 12.1% and 20.9%.
Chris Bowen will be out and about this morning to spruik the drop in energy bills which comes as the nations main energy grids recorded over 50% renewable generation at the end of last year for the first time.
Labor says the 2026-27 DMO – which will come into effect on 1 July – will for the first time better protect households and ensure consumers “pay a price that better reflects the actual costs of supplying electricity”.
The benchmark price will down in NSW between $66 and $137, down $155 in Queensland, but up $33 in South Australia.
Key events
Resources minister dismisses BHP leaked memo
Madeleine King has dismissed the joint investigation by Guardian Australia and the ABC’s four corners program into a leaked internal memo from the world’s largest miner, BHP showing it has halted or delayed projects to cut vast amounts of emissions.
The internal documents show the giant has quietly considered options to push major climate investments in its Western Australian iron ore operations into the next two decades.
Sally Sara asks King if she’s concerned about the reporting, but King shrugs it off.
double quotation mark BHP is committed to cutting emissions. They will make their commercial decisions, as do others. BHP and other miners are subject to the safeguard mechanism.
Sara asks again if there are any concerns from the government over the revelations. King replies:
double quotation mark No, because they’re doing their job.
King takes a dig at gas industry
Sticking to energy, the resources minister, Madeleine King, says the government has opened up consultation with the gas industry over its 20% east coast gas reservation scheme – which Labor says will reduce household gas bills.
But she’s not happy with how the gas industry is handling itself.
Speaking to the ABC’s RN Breakfast this morning, she says the government released a discussion paper yesterday to promote discussion on the issue – but the industry isn’t playing ball.
double quotation mark We could have brought in legislation that just reflects what we think, how we think it should operate. And I imagine the CEO and others from the AEP (Australian Energy Producers) and the gas industry would have objected to that wildly. So what we have chosen to do is have a discussion paper and an open discussion for consultation. They also object to that. So I really don’t know where they hope is the middle ground. I think open consultation and development of this policy involving gas producers is the best way to go. If they disagree with that, that’s a matter for them.
Host, Sally Sara asks how much the reservation scheme will drop energy bills – but King won’t say.
‘This is very good value for money for Australia’: Bowen defends COP role
Chris Bowen, who has also taken on the role of president of negotiations at the Cop climate summit, says that Australia’s involvement is “very good value for money”.
He says that the price tag of $150m includes the negotiations for Cop, as well as broader engagement with the Pacific, of which he says Cop is just “one part”.
He accuses the opposition leader, Angus Taylor (who he, for God-knows-what reason, calls “Mr T”), of “lying” about the allocation of funding for Cop being $200m.
double quotation mark Mr T [is] out there saying it’s $200m. He’s lying. Secondly, these things do cost money. It cost money when John Howard chaired Apec. It cost money when Tony Abbott chaired G20. They were good for the country and the Labor party supported them because we’re a patriotic party. So this is an opportunity for Australia to play an outsized role in the climate negotiations.This is a 12-month presidency. Most of the money has not yet been spent to answer your question, Mel. This is very good value for money for Australia.
Batteries are ‘flattening the peak’ of prices: Bowen
Speaking of the energy minister, Chris Bowen says three things are contributing to the drop in energy bills for households and businesses:
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More renewable energy in the grid;
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Renewable batteries absorbing some of the coal and gas being used at peak times during the night;
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Reforming the default market offer to ensure “that only the absolutely necessary prices or costs are included.”
He tells the ABC’s AM program:
double quotation mark What we’re seeing is batteries working to what we call flatten the peak. So the biggest pressure on prices is in the night-time when coal and gas are called upon more. When we’re calling on batteries more, which saves the renewables from the middle of the day for the night, that is really putting very significant downward pressure on prices.
Host Mel Clark asks whether we should be concerned that prices will go back up as the energy crisis in the Middle East continues but Bowen says that, unlike when Russia invaded Ukraine and gas prices skyrocketed, it’s oil that’s been affected by the latest war – which shouldn’t have an impact on household or business energy bills.
double quotation mark There have been impacts on gas production but we’re really mainly seeing the impact on oil at the moment. But we’re not complacent.
Household energy bills drop up to 10% across parts of east coast
The government says household standing offer time of use prices will fall between 1.1% and 10.7% in South Australia, NSW and south-east Queensland, under the latest default market offer over the next 12 months.
The DMO – which is the maximum price energy retailers can charge electricity consumers on default plans (known as standing offer contracts) – shows small business standing offer time of use prices are set to fall by between 12.1% and 20.9%.
Chris Bowen will be out and about this morning to spruik the drop in energy bills which comes as the nations main energy grids recorded over 50% renewable generation at the end of last year for the first time.
Labor says the 2026-27 DMO – which will come into effect on 1 July – will for the first time better protect households and ensure consumers “pay a price that better reflects the actual costs of supplying electricity”.
The benchmark price will down in NSW between $66 and $137, down $155 in Queensland, but up $33 in South Australia.
Josh Butler
Repacholi, the special envoy for men’s health, said fatherhood was “one of the proudest moments in a bloke’s life, but it can also be one of the hardest”. He said the report “shows there is a real opportunity to make it easier for dads to talk about their health, get support early and stay connected during one of the biggest transitions of their lives.”
Pocock said he welcomed the attention Movember was bringing to the issue.
double quotation mark Investing in the mental health of parents sets both them and their children up for better outcomes.Becoming a new parent is a huge transition at the best of times, and given all the additional pressures families are facing at the moment, there’s clearly more we can do to help people through it and get the best outcomes for everyone then we should definitely be looking at that.
Josh Butler
Men’s health project Movember is pushing for more support for new fathers, visiting parliament today with a new report warning of poor mental and physical health, isolation and loneliness for men with new families.
Labor MP Dan Repacholi and ACT senator David Pocock are supporting the push, which was also co-signed by Prince Harry during his recent visit to Australia. The Movember report found that while the overwhelming majority of men reported positive aspects of fatherhood – 84% saying it gave their life greater meaning, 77% saying it helped them express love and vulnerability more openly, 72% saying they were more involved in care than their own fathers – there were also some issue which were sometimes overlooked.
The report found 60% of new dads said they were never asked about their own mental health during their partners pregnancy or int he year afterward, which Movember called “a significant gap in how the health system supports dads”. A quarter of new fathers rated their mental or physical health as poor, and 20% reported feeling more isolated or lonely.
Movember is asking for more routine mental health screening for fathers, as well as more investment in training health professionals and expanding community support programs to reduce isolation.
Krishani Dhanji
Good morning, Krishani Dhanji here with you. Thanks to Martin Farrer for getting us started.
It’s going to be another big day in Canberra as Labor fights against the Coalition over its capital gains tax changes (with the legislation to be introduced on Thursday), and public servants and government senators steeling themselves to face another day of grilling at estimates today. That will include the national anti-corruption commission and its commissioner, Paul Brereton, who announced his resignation yesterday. We’ll keep our eyes peeled for that later this afternoon.
And, on a very different note, there’s a push in parliament today to give new fathers more support – a campaign backed by men’s mental health envoy Dan Repacholi and independent David Pocock. More on that shortly.
I’ve got my coffee, I hope you’ve got yours – let’s get stuck in!
Josh Taylor
WiseTech chair alleges ‘threat of violence’ against CEO
WiseTech’s founder and chair, Richard White, wrote to staff late on Sunday evening to allege there had been “personal attacks, vitriol, and deeply offensive behaviour in group chats” regarding the restructure of the software company due to AI.
The company did not provide any examples of this when asked on Monday.
Multiple staff Guardian Australia spoke to suggest all questions to the executives in the chat have been seeking more information on the redundancies in a professional manner, and argue they are being attacked for asking questions.
White’s email also alleges the chief executive, Zubin Appoo, received a handwritten note “threat of violence … containing personal information and offensive comments directed at members of his family”.
A spokesperson for WiseTech said the matter “is under police investigation” and said: “WiseTech has zero tolerance for threats of violence, abuse, intimidation, harassment, vitriol or offensive behavior against anyone.”
Almost 200 WiseTech Australian employees flagged for redundancy due to AI
Josh Taylor
Professionals Australia, the union representing workers at software company WiseTech has told Guardian Australia about 190 staff on the company’s product development and customer service teams have been notified their roles could go as part of the 2,000 cut due to advancements in artificial intelligence.
Guardian Australia reported last week that staff were told that they would be informed this week after nearly three months of waiting since the initial announcement.
Guardian Australia understands emails were sent out to affected employees and those who will remain with the company informing them either way, but were recalled and re-sent an hour later.
Professionals Australia said this was to allow those staff who may be cut to provide their personal email details before being cut off from WiseTech systems.
There will be a two-week consultation with WiseTech for those affected, with employees being invited to a meeting to discuss the changes. WiseTech has not yet outlined if it plans to offer more than the required redundancy.
A spokesperson for WiseTech said no final decisions had been made yet.
double quotation mark No final decisions will be made about any individual roles until the relevant requirements for each local jurisdiction have been met.We recognise that a process of this scale, nature and complexity creates uncertainty for our people. We’ve taken a careful, deliberate approach to ensure our decisions are well informed and made with full regard to our business and our people.
Renewables and batteries soar but ‘critical’ moment coming
Australia has become a top-three global player in batteries, and renewable energy met nearly half of the nation’s power in 2025, but the Clean Energy Council has warned that progress could stall as investment in new wind and solar plummeted.
The industry’s annual snapshot found renewable energy supplied 43% of Australia’s power throughout 2025, up from 39% in 2024. The year ended on a high, with clean energy generating more than 50% of power in the national grid in the final quarter.
Australia ranked third in the world for utility-scale batteries, behind only China and the United States – with 2GW of large-scale battery capacity connected to the grid, up 233% on the previous year.
Yet despite these achievements, the CEC chief executive, Jackie Trad, said the energy transition was approaching a “critical juncture”.
double quotation mark The next five years matter most. Our sector’s highest priority in 2026 must be to remove the barriers slowing investment in new large-scale wind and solar projects that will ultimately replace unreliable coal generators that threaten the security of our energy system.
A 48% fall in new investment in onshore wind and solar signalled a likely slowdown. This was most evident for wind, with 0.9GW reaching financial close in 2025, compared with 2.2GW the previous year.
According to the report, rising inflation, regulatory bottlenecks, slow delivery of transmission and delayed coal closures contributed to weakening investor confidence.
Investment in battery storage remained strong. The uptake of home batteries surged 260%, compared with 2024, helped by the federal government’s cheaper home batteries program. More than 268,000 small-scale storage systems were added during 2025 – a number that has since grown to 400,000.
Welcome
Good morning and welcome to our live politics blog. I’m Martin Farrer with the top overnight stories and then it will be Krishani Dhanji with the main action.
There’s good news and bad news for the environment: Australia has become a top-three global player in batteries and renewable energy met nearly half of the nation’s power in 2025 – but the annual industry snapshot warns that new investments are worryingly absent (especially notable given our big exclusive today on BHP’s renewables go-slow).
About 190 WiseTech staff have been notified their roles could go as part of 2,000 cuts due to advancements in artificial intelligence, unions have told the Guardian. More coming up.
The men’s health project Movember is pushing for more support for new fathers and will lobby parliament today. More coming up on that, too.
