Despite saying the Greens’ plan for gas removal was ‘crazy’ before the election, Labor has today announced it will not connect gas to new suburbs.

Mr Barr said on 29 September 2020 that:

"We are not going to be gas-shaming people. We're not going to say that you're a bad person or a bad household if you use gas. Because you will need to for many years into the future."

Indeed, news reports from the time said:

Mr Barr said Labor would not support any "crazy Greens proposal" which would see households forced to switch off gas appliances before they were ready to.

Yet today, the Deputy Labor Leader has announced with much fanfare that from now on, no new suburbs will be connected to gas.

“Labor must fully explain why the plan that Mr Barr described as crazy, that would cost families more, has now been fully embraced just months on,” Canberra Liberals Leader, Elizabeth Lee said.

“This broken promise shows that Labor were either deliberately deceptive or are now being run completely by the Greens - either way Canberrans deserve to know why and how much more people will pay as a result.

“This follows an admission yesterday that, as a direct result of Labor and the Greens’ policies, electricity bills are set to skyrocket by $300. Turning gas off will just make those cost of living pressures even worse,” Ms Lee concluded.