For most of the last half-century, natural gas has been sold to Australians as the “clean, cheap” fuel: blue flames under the wok, instant hot showers, and high-temperature heat for the factories that make our fertiliser, glass, cement and alumina.

Today, gas finds itself in the crosshairs. From “electrify everything” campaigns and bank lending policies, to state bans on gas in new homes and tight federal rules on new projects, a cultural and policy bias against gas has emerged.

The question is not whether Australia must cut emissions — that debate is over. The question is what this accelerating bias against gas is actually doing to households, industry, the power system and our long-term competitiveness.

1. What does “bias against gas” look like in practice?

“Bias” here isn’t just about rhetoric. It shows up in concrete decisions:

• Planning rules and bans

  • Victoria has banned gas connections to new homes and residential subdivisions from 1 January 2024, forcing those dwellings to go all-electric.

  • The state’s Gas Substitution Roadmap explicitly frames the task as driving gas out of households via energy efficiency, electrification and a shift to renewable gases.

• National strategies and political framing

  • Federally, the Future Gas Strategy simultaneously acknowledges gas as “critical” for energy security and manufacturing until at least 2050, while emphasising that consumption must decline over time as the grid decarbonises.

  • Climate advocates and some think tanks argue there is “no case” for new gas, attacking the Strategy as inconsistent with Paris-aligned pathways.

• Health and indoor air concerns

  • Medical and asthma groups publicly welcome gas bans in new homes, citing links between gas stoves, indoor NO₂ and childhood asthma as reasons to move to induction and heat pumps.

• Investment and regulatory pressure

  • Gas producers warn that layers of price caps, export controls, reservation schemes and years-long approvals are choking investment and undermining investor confidence.

Bias, in other words, is a tilt in the system: rules, money and public messaging increasingly line up to favour electricity and renewables, and to make gas the reluctant, temporary guest.

2. Gas still underpins a lot of “real world” Australia

Against that backdrop, it’s easy to forget how embedded gas is in the real economy.

• Industrial backbone

  • Natural gas supplies roughly 42% of all the energy used by Australia’s industrial sector, providing high-temperature, controllable heat and feedstock for chemicals and low-carbon hydrogen.

  • The biggest industrial users of gas include alumina refineries, aluminium smelters and ammonia plants. Ammonia is essential for fertilisers, explosives, cleaning agents and a host of chemical products.

  • Large users such as steel, alumina, glass, cement, fertiliser and food manufacturers still cannot fully substitute gas with electricity for many processes, particularly where high heat and chemical feedstock are required.

• Electricity system “firming”

  • Gas-fired generators provide fast, flexible backup when the wind drops or the sun goes down, especially as coal retires. The federal Future Gas Strategy explicitly recognises gas as a “firming fuel” that underpins grid reliability during the transition.

• Regional economies and exports

  • Projects like Gorgon and Wheatstone supply nearly 45% of Western Australia’s domestic gas, while also exporting LNG to Asia.

  • LNG has been a major export earner and employer, built on private capital over several decades.

Whatever one thinks of gas politically, practically it still sits at the heart of both our manufacturing base and our power system.

3. Households: cost, choice and the electrification push

On the household side, the bias against gas is most visible in two narratives that often clash.

3.1 “Electrify everything and you’ll save money”

Energy regulators and many analysts argue that fully electrified homes powered by an increasingly renewable grid will, over time, be cheaper to run:

• The Australian Energy Market Commission projects that if Australia accelerates renewables and storage, households can see lower electricity bills in the near term; but if projects stall and coal exits, prices could rise again in the 2030s.

• Modelling cited by the AEMC suggests that fully electrified homes — with efficient appliances, rooftop solar and batteries — could cut energy costs by up to $900 a year and almost 20% of current spending.

In this framing, gas is the old technology: more expensive per unit over time, and tied to volatile global markets.

3.2 The messy reality on the ground

But for many households, especially renters and low-income families, the shift is not so simple:

• Up-front costs

  • The Victorian Gas Substitution Roadmap and associated analysis note that the installed costs of gas and electric appliances can be similar on average, but the exact outcome depends heavily on house type, wiring, meter upgrades and appliance choices.

  • Retrofitting an existing home to go all-electric can mean new wiring, switchboard upgrades, and multiple appliances being replaced — costs that many owners and virtually no renters can easily absorb.

• Tariff structures and bill shock

  • Gas usage is typically cheaper per unit than electricity, but gas bills often come with daily supply charges; shifting entirely to electricity removes one bill but increases the other.

  • Households already reeling from high electricity prices — still heavily influenced by the cost of fossil fuel generation and network investment — are understandably cautious.

• Loss of choice

  • Victoria’s ban on gas in new homes means young families building in that state no longer get a meaningful choice between gas cooking and induction, or between ducted gas heating and reverse-cycle systems. Gas becomes something reserved for older homes – a kind of shrinking legacy network.

If the transition is well planned and supported, households can end up better off. If it’s rushed or ideological, the bias against gas can show up as forced choices, upfront costs and confusion, particularly for those with the least financial buffer.

4. Industry: squeezed between climate targets and gas hostility

For industry, the stakes are much higher than a winter bill.

4.1 Gas-heavy sectors feel cornered

Sectors like alumina, ammonia, cement, glass and food processing rely on gas both for heat and as a chemical input.

When the policy environment signals that gas is “on the nose”:

• Investment decisions stall

  • Companies delay expansions or modernisation because they can’t be sure gas will stay affordable and available over the 20-year horizon they need to justify new plant.

  • Submissions to inquiries on net-zero funding repeatedly warn that without reliable gaseous fuels during the transition, manufacturers will simply invest elsewhere.

• International competitiveness erodes

  • If domestic gas becomes scarce or politically problematic, Australian plants risk paying more than competitors overseas, even in jurisdictions also pursuing net zero.

  • Long-term offtake contracts for LNG and gas feedstock become harder to secure if investors fear sudden interventions or future bans.

4.2 Policy uncertainty as the biggest “hidden tax”

It’s not just that regulations are tightening — that’s happening in every advanced economy. It’s the volatility and the perception that gas is politically unfashionable.

• A recent policy paper tracing the history of gas intervention argues that successive federal governments’ ad hoc interventions — from export controls to price caps — have left the east coast market tight and discouraged new supply, contributing to higher prices.

• At the same time, the Future Gas Strategy says more investment is needed to avoid supply shortfalls and support the net-zero transition.

From an industrial perspective, this looks like mixed messages: “We don’t really like you, but we need you to spend billions more — and we might change the rules later.”

That is a recipe for under-investment, higher prices, and eventually, the offshoring of emissions-intensive manufacturing rather than its genuine decarbonisation.

5. The electricity system: dependence dressed up as redundancy

A core argument from anti-gas campaigners is that renewables plus storage can shoulder the entire load without new gas. In the long run, that’s likely true. In the 2020s and early 2030s, it’s much more complicated.

• Fossil fuel generation remains relatively expensive

  • The Climate Council notes that in 2025 electricity from fossil fuels (coal and gas) was averaging around $123/MWh, almost twice the cost of power from renewables at about $64/MWh.

  • That cost story strengthens the case for renewables, but it doesn’t remove the immediate need for flexible backup.

• Risk of price spikes if the transition misfires

  • The AEMC warns that if renewable projects and storage don’t come online quickly enough as coal retires, electricity prices could rise by up to 20% due to supply tightness, with households facing a reversal of recent bill declines.

In that context, a strong bias against gas can ironically make electricity more fragile and more expensive in the medium term—because the one fuel capable of filling in gaps, at scale and on demand, is discouraged precisely when it is still needed.

The danger is not that Australia will never reach a low-gas grid, but that we try to jump there too quickly, undermining reliability and public trust in climate policy itself.

6. Regional jobs, royalties and “place-based” risk

Gas is not an abstract fuel in many parts of Australia; it’s the core of local economies.

• LNG and domestic gas support jobs in Central Queensland, WA’s Pilbara, the NT and parts of South Australia, often in communities with few alternative industries.Industry.gov.au+1

• State budgets lean on royalties, and local councils depend on rates paid by gas infrastructure.

A hard-line anti-gas stance that does not come with serious regional transition plans risks:

• Stranding workers without clear pathways into new roles in renewables, hydrogen, or other industries;

• Leaving “rust-belt” style regions behind, feeding political backlash that can stall climate ambition more broadly.

In that sense, bias against gas is not just about molecules and emissions — it’s about regional social licence for the broader transition.

7. So what is bias against gas actually doing to Australia?

Pulling the strands together, Australia’s growing bias against gas is having several concrete effects:

1. Accelerating household electrification in some states

   • This can be positive for indoor air quality and long-term bills, if it’s well-designed and supported. But where bans and rules move faster than subsidies and information, lower-income households can be left carrying the upfront cost and confusion.

2. Injecting uncertainty into industrial planning

   • Gas-dependent manufacturers hear two conflicting messages: “you’re vital” and “you’re the past”. That uncertainty discourages the very investments needed to decarbonise heavy industry in Australia rather than offshore it.

3. Complicating the electricity transition

   • In the rush to show ambition, there is a temptation to treat gas as if it has already been replaced in the grid. It hasn’t. Policy that is hostile to new flexible gas capacity, even as coal retires, increases the risk of price volatility and blackouts in the 2020s.

4. Increasing the political temperature

   • For many Australians, especially in regional areas, “anti-gas” can sound like “anti-jobs” or “anti-manufacturing”. If the debate is framed as a moral crusade rather than a practical transition, it risks eroding support for climate policy more broadly.

5. Creating winners and losers in the housing market

   • New all-electric homes built to high standards may be efficient and comfortable; older, leaky homes left on shrinking gas networks could face higher per-unit costs and less attention from policymakers, entrenching inequality.

8. Towards a more honest, balanced approach

None of this is an argument for clinging to gas indefinitely. Australia has committed to net zero, and the science is clear that fossil fuel use must decline.

But a mature national conversation would admit three things at once:

1. Gas use must fall over time

   • Particularly in homes and low-temperature commercial uses where efficient electric technologies already exist and can be cost-effective.

2. Gas is still essential in the short-to-medium term

   • For firming the grid, for specific industrial processes, and for supporting key export partners, as even the federal government’s own Future Gas Strategy acknowledges.

3. The way we manage the “wind-down” matters as much as the destination

   • Ideological hostility to gas, without credible alternatives in place, risks higher power bills, industrial hollowing-out and regional anger — all of which can ultimately slow climate action.

A more balanced path would look something like this:

• Technology-neutral policy with clear timelines

  • Set firm sector-by-sector emissions budgets and standards, then let firms choose the mix of electrification, efficiency, renewable gases and (for a period) fossil gas with CCS that best fits their operations.

• Targeted, not blanket, interventions

  • Prioritise electrification where the economics and health benefits are strongest — such as new builds, social housing programs and public buildings — while supporting targeted upgrades in existing homes rather than simply banning connections.

• Serious industrial transition support

  • Use tools like the Net Zero Fund and “Future Made in Australia” agenda to help gas-dependent industries pilot hydrogen, electrified heat and CCS on-shore, rather than drifting overseas.

• Genuine regional transition plans

  • Co-design roadmaps with gas regions: new energy projects, critical minerals, green manufacturing and services that build on, rather than erase, existing skills.

If Australia gets this balance right, bias will be replaced by prudence: gas will steadily retreat from our homes and power system, but in a way that keeps industry alive, honours regional communities and maintains public support for the decades-long journey to net zero.

If we get it wrong, we won’t just be “biased against gas” — we’ll be biased against our own long-term prosperity.