The people of New South Wales will go to polls at the end of March and ‘net zero’ is all over the ballot paper like a rash.

Voters have two major-party choices.

First, they can vote for the incumbent: Premier Dominic Perrottet and the Liberal-National coalition.

Or they can vote for his challenger: Labor and Opposition Leader Chris Minns.

The issue with these two choices?

There’s no real difference in policy when it comes to one of the most important issues at this election: energy security.

The current energy situation in New South Wales is as follows:

1. Liddell coal-fired power plant will close in two months, meaning New South Wales will lose 10 per cent of its electricity supply
2. The state’s largest coal-fired power plant at Eraring will close in 2025, meaning the state will lose another 25 per cent of the state’s generation capacity
3. A liquefied natural gas import terminal at Newcastle has just been shelved
4. The planned Kurri Kurri gas plant won’t be operational until December 2024
5. Malcolm Turnbull’s darling – the Snowy 2.0 pumped hydro project – faces another “huge delay”. It is now about 10 times over-budget and seven years late
6. Last week Matt Kean banned a gas exploration and extraction project that would have supplied gas within two years 60 per cent cheaper than the current price

In other words?

Blackouts are on the horizon, with some predicting widespread outages this winter. 

Meanwhile, BOTH the Perrottet Liberal government and the Labor opposition are backing a net zero policy that will crush jobs, industry and households.

AND they’re both committed to the medium-term target of reducing CO2 emissions by half of 2005 levels by 2030 – just seven years from now.

Guess who pays? Yep, you got it. Not them…

A new study by the Institute of Public Affairs shows that their net zero policies will put up to 138,095 jobs at risk across NSW, with 67 per cent of these jobs located in rural and regional NSW.

Of course, the job losses will be concentrated in the agricultural, oil and gas, electricity supply, and coal mining sectors.

The electorates that will suffer most include:

1. Upper Hunter – 9,327 jobs are at risk, which is equivalent to 26 per cent of all jobs in the electorate
2. Barwon - 5,976 jobs are at risk, which is equivalent to 20 per cent of all jobs in the electorate
3. Cootamundra: 5,591 jobs are at risk, which is equivalent to 19 per cent of all jobs in the electorate
4. Murray: 6,288 jobs are at risk, which is equivalent to 16 per cent of all jobs in the electorate
5. Northern Tablelands: 5,125 jobs are at risk, which is the equivalent to 16 per cent of all jobs in the electorate

Meanwhile, the electorates that will be least affected by net zero are the wealthy, beach-side, leafy electorates of Sydney’s eastern suburbs and north shore.

Yes, the very electorates that are voting teal and backing net zero are the electorates that are the least affected by the jobs disaster these policies will create.