Steve Georganas (Hindmarsh, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

Let me start my speech on the address-in-reply by congratulating you, Mr Deputy Speaker Bevis, on your election as Deputy Speaker. It gives me great pleasure to be back in this place for another three years. It is an opportunity for me to thank the electorate of Hindmarsh for electing me again. This was my fourth campaign, a campaign fought just as hard as any other campaign. Over four elections since 1998, when I first ran, we in the electorate of Hindmarsh have managed to turn the seat from an eight per cent safe coalition seat into what is now regarded as a fairly safe Labor seat. In the first campaign in 1998, we needed a swing of eight per cent to win the seat, and we found ourselves in front on the night by 600 votes. This led to my running again in 2001, and even though there was a slight reverse, a very small reverse, in that election I decided to take the plunge again in 2004, where I won by 108 votes and became the member for the most marginal seat in the country. This election was a little different. The result on the night of 24 November had me 10,000 votes in front, and it felt good. It actually felt that I had been finally legitimised. Regardless of the vote on the night, and regardless of the margin, I feel very humble that the electorate have given me so much support with their votes. For me, the way that we will continue to service the electorate and work in the electorate has not changed, regardless of whether it is considered a safe seat or a marginal seat. I think each and every one of us in this place, whether we are in a marginal or a safe seat, has an absolute duty to our electorate to work as hard as we can for the people that have put us here.

The election held on 24 November 2007 was a release of public support that had been strengthening over several years. It was a mood for change which became particularly evident in opinion polling in late 2006, and with the election of Kevin Rudd as the federal Labor leader the floodgates were opened. The public demonstrated their dissatisfaction with the Howard government throughout 2007 and, in the end, voted for change. The result was the loss of 21 coalition seats and a swing of 5.4 per cent to Labor. That is 1½ times higher than that of the election result which deprived Malcolm Fraser of the prime ministership and elevated Bob Hawke to the status of Labor hero. It was a truly remarkable result and a very clear and loud statement by the public, who said, ‘We need change.’ The change the public called for consists, in part, of genuine leadership of our nation: leadership that promotes movement, not stagnancy; leadership that prepares for our future and does not dwell on the past; leadership that involves alliance and encourages those being led toward a better life; and, most importantly, leadership that is focused on genuine, meaningful outcomes to issues of public policy that address the required investment in our future, in people and in social, environmental and economic infrastructure.

This form of leadership has been sadly lacking in Australia for many years. The prospect of long-term structural investment in our future has been displaced by one-off vote-buying bonuses that in themselves offer no encouragement for future behavioural change or economic progress. The public clearly saw through the vote-buying exercises. They saw a need for long-term strategic policy making and investment, and this is what they voted for in electing a Rudd Labor government. Whether it be investment in education and the development of a high-value, highly paid workforce, whether it be in reshaping our national health and hospital system with meaningful, sustainable structural change in relations between levels of government, whether it be in Australia in future becoming a hub in our region for various economic activities or whether it be in grasping the nettle and making effective commitments to the fight against dangerous climate change, these and many other areas of public policy focused the public’s attention, especially last year, and continue to do so today.

The prospect of a government that actually engages in meaningful and effective public policy development and implementation offered too much of a change from the previous government for the public to ignore or deny the opportunity for federal Labor to govern. The public wanted change to focus on its own and its nation’s future. The prospect of a Labor government gave them cause for hope, a level of expectation and, in some cases, a certain excitement, I would say. Australia is keen to engage in the 21st century and with a Rudd Labor government Australia will engage in the issues of the time with a new vigour and new and dynamic expectations, and will create a new and better future.

The challenges we face as a nation are highly complex, but the message from the 2007 general election is that Australians are prepared to face the challenges. We believe in ourselves and in our capacity to work through our problems. There is a level of optimism about our future that comes from our belief in ourselves as Australians capable of progressing through what will be a highly challenging century with a government that prizes innovation and expects challenges to be met through advancement of multiple social and economic players.

The drive for progress, lacking federally for over a decade, was immediately evident upon the election of this government. What we saw, literally within days of being elected, was that the Rudd government ratified the Kyoto protocol and engaged with the community of nations as a combatant of climate change. Within hours of the swearing in of the 42nd Parliament, the government honoured its longstanding commitment to acknowledge the stolen generation with a formal apology. This was unthinkable under the previous Prime Minister and it is still even now unbelievable to multiple members of the opposition.

Within a breathtakingly short period the newly formed Rudd federal Labor government has commenced the rollout of trades training centres to Australia’s 2,650 secondary schools and commenced the government’s $1 billion computers in schools package that will allow every Australian student in years 9 to 12 to have access to a school computer. It has invested $150 million for an immediate national blitz on elective surgery waiting lists, launched the $50 million tender for the purchase of water licences in the Murray-Darling Basin, increased the utilities allowance and the seniors concession allowance to $500 a year, increased the telephone allowance from $88 to $132 a year for those pensioners with a home internet connection and announced the appointment of Australia’s first petrol commissioner. The Rudd Labor government has also progressed legislation within the parliament that will reform the personal income tax system for the benefit of low- and middle-income earners and it has increased the low income tax offset from $750 to $1,200. Most importantly, one of the bills that is being progressed through parliament will achieve one of the things that the majority of Australian voters wanted to see changed last year—it will bring a halt to new AWAs.

There is much more to come. There is more hope for timely responses, for structural systematic changes that evolve into new relationships and divisions of responsibility and greater expectations of meaningful and long-lasting action through multiple sectors of the community. Within 12 months of the election of the Rudd Labor government, Australians can look forward with anticipation to the withdrawal of Australia’s combat forces from Iraq. There will be 450,000 new training places to tackle the skills crisis. The government’s teen dental plan will assist the first of one million Australian teenagers between the ages of 12 and 17 with dental costs. There will be the end of the former government’s wasteful Pacific solution. There will be an interim report by the National Health and Hospitals Reform Commission and a long-term health reform plan for modern Australia and the announcement of the government’s design of Australia’s national carbon emissions trading scheme. These are just some examples of the drive and ambition of members on this side of the House that excited the nation into voting for a Rudd Labor government.

The Australian public has hoped for change and is seeing evidence of it almost on a daily basis. One of the most substantial areas of activity that the community will be watching with considerable interest is the development of a national carbon emissions trading scheme. It is proposed that the architecture will be devised by the end of this calendar year. It is also anticipated that Australia will have engaged in the national carbon trading system in 2010, probably prior to the next federal election, and it is good that this is the case.

If there is any area of social, economic and environmental policy that illustrates the chasm between the Rudd Labor government and the opposition, it is that which is in response to the prospect—some would say inevitability—of dangerous climate change. We have seen the New South Wales government’s Greenhouse Gas Reduction Scheme operating for several years. Involving the supply side in the development of efficiencies and cleaner generating capacity, and the demand side again in efficiencies in business and homes around the state, and encouraging the sequestration of carbon through revegetation projects, the New South Wales government’s scheme led to the world’s first mandatory emissions trading scheme.

The community support for the scheme can be observed through the increasing interest of individuals and organisations in using elements of the scheme to voluntarily show their own commitment to carbon neutrality. These are the citizens and organisations that have no obligation under the rules of the scheme to participate, but they wish to and they do, simply because they believe in the scheme’s objectives and the overall obligation of each and every one of us to do what is not only in our own personal interest but in the interests of Australia as a whole. There is real and strong support for action in the abatement of greenhouse gases. The question on most people’s lips is not one of whether we should decrease emissions but what level of emissions cuts we should set to be reached by us by the year 2020—only 10 years after the commencement of our national emissions trading scheme.

The European Union called for cuts in the range of 25 per cent to 40 per cent by 2020. Irrespective of what 2020 target Australia agrees to internationally or commits to individually, substantial work will inevitably be required on a permanent basis. Efficiency work such as that occurring within New South Wales on the demand side and the South Australian Residential Energy Efficiency Scheme, which will commence soon, is of immediate importance. Efficiencies constitute too great an immediate and substantial reduction in emissions not to be implemented now. Of course work is necessary not only in the development of renewable energy technologies but in the extensive amount of work in their rollout around the country, and this will take time. So I find it strange that in the media the debate about what baseload generation capacity is—or, more to the point, the value of renewable energy generation in baseload terms—continues to undermine the place that renewable generation will increasingly play in our energy mix.

I would like to give some perspectives on this point offered by many Australian scientists and columnists, who address myths that underlie doubts about renewable energy, especially wind power, being a valuable and potentially highly significant proportion of our total future energy mix. Some myths include, for example, that since wind power is an intermittent source it cannot replace coal-fired power unless it has expensive, dedicated long-term storage; secondly, because of wind power’s intermittency it has no value in meeting peak demands; and lastly, to maintain a steady state of voltage and frequency requires much additional expense. Some 25 years ago CSIRO and ANU scientists used Monte Carlo computer simulations—mathematical probability models of electricity grids containing various amounts of wind power capacity. Their conclusions have been subsequently confirmed and built upon by several overseas authors—that is, that any given quantity of wind power generating capacity can be factored into baseload power capacity, whether it be one per cent, 10 per cent or 70 per cent, as is currently happening in places such as WA.

Neither coal-fired power stations nor wind turbines nor hydro systems are all running at all times. The Australian national electricity grid network mandates backup. Its electricity inputs are managed so as to minimise spikes in generation, drops in delivery, breakdowns and the like. A substantial amount of backup is required, and this is the case for existing coal-fired power stations, just as it is the case for the 15-odd per cent wind capacity currently being fed into the grid from South Australia in order to maintain supply as required.

Backup is mandatory and non-negotiatiable. It is a matter of factoring in the potential limitations of the source as a proportion of overall generating capacity—whether you source 10, 20 or 50 per cent of grid requirements—and having the most cost-effective backup power generation at your disposal. This would be rapidly deployed hydro or gas-fired generators, and these are the technologies best able to meet periods of peak demand—at least hydro has been.

Internationally, Denmark reached 18 per cent of total electricity generation through wind power in 2002—not necessarily easily, but they managed it—and intend increases in capacity, and Germany is planning for 25 per cent of electricity to be sourced from wind power by 2030. It has been advanced that as much as 40 per cent or more of an energy grid’s power can be generated from wind without the need for highly expensive long-term storage. The extent to which these scenarios may be cost-competitive is beyond the scope of my comments here today, but the potential of wind and other sources is highly substantial.

Advances in photovoltaic technology are being perfected in a mass production setting in Adelaide that will see its costs, as measured in the number of years of free electricity that will pay for its capital costs, decrease from the current 20 years to between five and seven years. That is a decrease of 70-odd per cent. The prospect of Australian households right around the country deploying solar and photovoltaic cells for hot water, thereby decreasing their reliance on conventional power generation and consequent pollution in the order of 30, 50 or 70 per cent or more over time; the six per cent hydro and almost 20 per cent wind capacity as seen in South Australia; the onset of biofuels; the advancement in geothermal which would even satisfy sceptics’ concerns; and other sources such as wave power being harnessed off the coast of Perth must elucidate as mythology the idea that renewables cannot supply highly substantial proportions of our power demands, subject to economics and the performance of the market under the national emissions trading scheme.

This is the most substantial area of activity that Australia will engage in over the years ahead and it is a substantial area that the elected Rudd Labor government will engage in. This is no doubt one of the most important areas facing us. This is the most dynamic area of emerging Australian industries, but it requires the goodwill and investment of business, government and the community to succeed. This is the most substantial drive for innovation that any of us can expect in a generation. It is an exciting time and it is a time for the aggressive, strong and inherently sound leadership that Australia is now pleased to support. Over time, 20 million Australians will know that a Rudd Labor government set greater, more structured and more permanent goals for itself and the nation. These are goals that, once achieved, will place Australia in a position where we can once again hold our heads up high in the gaze of the international community and our reflective conscience. It is this desire that led to the election of a Rudd Labor government and a chance for Australians to have their ambitions realised and their responsibilities met with increased innovation and a belief in progressive leadership and change.

We saw that change through the election of the Rudd Labor government. The voters on 24 November had a choice to make between the same old government and a new, progressive government with fresh ideas to ensure that we build the foundations for a modern Australia. The former government had lost their way. They were out of touch and they had no plans for the future, in contrast to the Labor government, which had all of those three things. I look forward to the next three years as a member of the Rudd Labor government. It is an exciting time. It will be a time when the nation progresses and the foundations of our nation are built on for many more years to come. (Time expired)

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