KY CAO: Independent WA Candidate for Australian Senate
FEDERAL ELECTION 3RD MAY 2025
KY CAO FOR WESTERN AUSTRALIA
Ky Cao is an independent WA Candidate for the Australian Senate in the Federal election on 3rd May, 2025, as recognised by the Australian Electoral Commission.
Energy Entrepreneurship
Ky built his career in power generation and retailing, and economic consulting, and is now an independent project developer.
Ky was founding Managing Director of Perth Energy Pty Ltd (PE), the first private new-entrant power and gas generator-retailer in Western Australia. He grew PE from startup to $300m turnover by the time he retired in 2016. PE is now owned by AGL, the largest energy generation-retailer in Australia.
During his time at PE, Ky developed a $130m, 120MW dual-fuel fast-response plant in Kwinana (2010), and a $92m, 82MW diesel peaking plant in Merredin (2012). Both plants are now supplying backup services (firming capacity) to intermittent solar and wind generation on the South-West Grid.
In 2011, Ky was awarded the Ernst & Young Entrepreneur of the Year for Australia’s Western Region Services.
More recently, Ky co-developed a $70m, 49.5MW solar farm in Quang Tri Province, Vietnam, which was successfully delivered to the Vietnam grid in 2019.
Contribution to WA Industry Reform
In 2001-05, Ky led the private sector’s lobbying efforts to deregulate the then state-owned monopoly electricity supply industry in WA. He set up and chaired the Independent Power Advisory Group (IPAG), which comprised major conglomerates with energy interests in WA. IPAG assisted the WA Government in key programs, the disaggregation of the vertically integrated utility Western Power, and introduction of the Wholesale Electricity Market (WEM) in 2006. Ky’s pioneering work is recorded in WA Parliament Hansard (36th Parliament, 2nd Session, Legislative Council, 14-08-2002).
In 2016, the University of Western Australia, Ky’s Alma Mater, established the Ky Cao Prize, awarded to the best student in the Economic Policy unit ECON3395 each year in recognition of Ky’s contribution to industry reform.
Economic Expertise
Prior to founding PE, Ky worked as professional economist at the State Energy Commission of WA and consultancy firm Syntec Economic Services in Melbourne.
In 1993, he accepted a Senior Research Fellowship at the joint UWA-Curtain-Murdoch University Asia Research Centre to lead a team of experts in the study of Asia’s emerging financial markets. Ky’s book, The Changing Capital Markets of East Asia was published in 1995 by Routledge in London and New York.
Free Market, Open Society
Ky arrived in Australia in 1979 under the Australian refugee resettlement program that helped resettle boat people from camps in South East Asia. He spent 6 months at the Liam Sing refugee camp in Thailand after a 12-day boat journey from South Vietnam.
As a first generation migrant, Ky believes deeply in Australia’s free market, open society foundations.
Only a free market open society can accord protection to each citizen and small consumer by virtue of competition among a multitude of suppliers, including suppliers of political services.
Only a free market open society can ensure we have the accuracy of information to respond to world demand and maintain competitiveness and prosperity.
Only a free market open society can ensure we have the liberty and collective wisdom to improve on the inspirations and deeds that make us who we are as citizens of a free nation.
The Key Issues
-
Our productivity has collapsed.
Not because Australians work any less efficiently, but because of unrelenting penalties and disincentives placed on individual effort.
The tax system and bloated regulation are strangling individual effort. Australia is now at the bottom of the OECD for living standards improvement.
READ MORE -
Australia’s tax burden is too high.
36% of national income goes to tax; 80% of that federal. The federal budget alone is one-third our GDP. Social security is one-third of this budget.
We’ve got one public servant for every two private workers. That level of government intervention in the market is suffocating productivity and private enterprise.
The national debt is well over $1 trillion — $70,000 per taxpayer.
This is unsustainable, especially with an ageing population that will place more demand on government support.
To protect social security, we must cut waste, inefficiencies and non-essential functions in government.
Specifically, we should work towards:introducing a zero-tax rate for income earners of up to $45,000
easing the burden for businesses by lowering the small business tax rate to 15%
READ MORE
-
The FY26-28 budgets contain additional unpaid net discretionary spending in the order of $60 billion.
To pay for this, Labor plans to tax unrealised capital gains.
The government already doubled the tax on super contributions to 30% in 2023. If re-elected, Labor will seek to lower the Unrealised Capital Gains Tax (UCGT) threshold and go for smaller business, residential properties, and start-ups.
This radical tax grab will crush investment incentives at a time when Australia needs all the productive investment it can get to deal with the housing crisis at home and wholesale changes to the international trading system.
That’s not just bad economics—it’s authoritarian.
-
The foundation for free trade is the comparative advantage principle.
Comparative advantage works for same-value participants operating under the same rules in a voluntary exchange for mutual benefit. As soon as you bring in the counter-value dynamics of trade, things become less dangerous.
The current trading system is characterised by anytime disruption to supply chains, anti-competitive conduct, unfair subsidies, internal barriers to trade, market cornering for monopoly purposes, and a geopolitical winner-takes-all end game.
We must return to a truly free trade system where we can trust the rules and trading partners’ value system.
We must be ready and prepared to defend our economic and national sovereignty.
Australia is neglecting our defence and industrial base, and critical technology development such as AI, because the government is completely obsessed with the bankrupting concept of “Net-Zero”.
This is irresponsibly reckless.
Instead, the Defence budget should be doubled to 3% of GDP over 5 years.
-
“Net-Zero” is not something that we can bet our entire economy on. Especially when the US, China, and India, making up two-thirds of global CO2 emissions, don’t believe in it.
We, as a nation, must approach the purported risk of Climate Change just as we would any other risk to Australia and the world—in a rational way—rather than mandating fossil fuel-free “Net-Zero” energy systems blindly.
To reach “Net-Zero” by 2030, the cost to Australians is at minimum $1.5 trillion – $54,000 for every man, woman, and child.
All this, to deal with Australia’s 1% of world emissions — meaning there is zero prospect of ‘moving the needle’ on the subject.
-
Housing is too expensive because regulation accounts for nearly half the build cost. This, combined with high interest rates and poor migration planning, creates the potential for a crisis.
The answer is not to stop growth, but to match skilled migration to industry needs; not government guesswork.
At present, the pervasive distortion of the pricing system in our many industries has led to government speculation, acting like a central command economy.
We have to reverse course.
How to Vote for Ky Cao
As an Independent Candidate, Ky is not affiliated with a political party.
To vote for Ky, you’ll need to complete the ballot form below the line.
Number the box beside Ky Cao with a ‘1’, and then number remaining candidates in order of your preference, completing at least 12 boxes.
Have questions or want to discuss policy?
CONTACT KY
Resources
KY’S WHITE PAPERS
Cao, K. (2025). Australia Headed in the Wrong Direction [Informational white paper]. — Download a copy
Cao, K. (2024). Energy Market in Transition [Informational white paper]. — Download a copy
OTHER RESOURCES
Co2 Coalition. Happer, W & Lidzen, R. (2023). Challenging "Net Zero" with Science. — Download a copy