Michael Johnson (Ryan, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

I am pleased to speak in the parliament today on the Australian Energy Market Amendment (Minor Amendments) Bill 2008. This is essentially a technical bill. It aims to make minor amendments to existing Commonwealth legislation that will underpin the national regime for the regulation of gas pipeline infrastructure. The bill will amend the Australian Energy Market Act 2004, the Australian Energy Market Amendment (Gas Legislation) Act 2007, the Administrative Decisions (Judicial Review) Act 1977 and the Trade Practices Act 1974 to correct the year of enactment of South Australian and Western Australian legislation from 2007 to 2008. The federal opposition supports these minor technical amendments to enable the implementation of the cooperative energy reform agenda between the Commonwealth, the states and all stakeholders. It is a bill that goes to technical provisions but the concept or theme at the heart of it is energy security.

I know the people of Ryan that I represent will be interested in aspects of energy and some of the statistics on energy, given that they are Australians who want to make a contribution to the environmental solution and at the same time ensure they have living standards and opportunities for themselves and their families. So in the context of this bill I want to talk a bit about the nature of energy. Energy is the fuel of life. It makes plants grow. It keeps animals alive. And in our modern world it drives devices ranging from medical equipment that sustains life to sophisticated technology that takes space shuttles up into space. That is in a sense what energy is all about. Today, of course, people around the world exploit energy in many different forms. Essentially, fossil fuels—that is, oil, coal, natural gas—account for around four-fifths or 80 per cent of our total energy consumption. That is a significant share that has largely been unchanged for the last century or so. These fossil fuels dominate because they are seen to be cheap and abundant and they are able to be transported from their source into homes and businesses around the world, so the means of transportation of these sources of energy also makes them economically efficient.

Different energy sources are used in different sectors. Motorised transport, for instance, is fuelled pretty much by oil and, as we know, when the price of a barrel of oil goes up it has ramifications throughout the world, from the most advanced economies and the most sophisticated cities to the developing economies and the most remote villages in those developing countries. So it is very timely that the leading ministers and governments of the world can come together at this time to discuss how we might address the rising price of oil.

The energy used for heating is a mixture: gas, oil, wood, coal and other sources. For electricity generation, fossil fuels provide around 60 per cent of the global total, while nuclear and hydro-electricity contribute 15 per cent and 16 per cent respectively. On the other hand, renewable electricity sources, such as solar, geothermal and wind, are growing fast but still constitute only a small percentage—about two per cent—of the global total. Of course, all of us would like to see renewable energy sources increase, and I will be pleased to touch on that a little later in this presentation. Around 1.5 billion people still cook and heat their homes using traditional biomass sources such as wood and animal dung, so we must not forget that biomass still has a space in this energy debate for so many people around the world. Indeed, it is a source of life itself for so many of our fellow human beings, especially in developing economies where so many people still live in villages in remote parts of those countries.

Let us ask about the consumption of energy. I am sure that the constituents I represent in Ryan will be interested to know the make-up of energy consumption. Whether energy comes from fossil fuels, nuclear, hydro or renewables, we use it in three broad sectors: industry, transport and buildings. Industrial uses such as mining, manufacturing and construction consume around 30 per cent of the global total; personal and commercial transportation consumes some 20 per cent; and residential and commercial buildings take up some 16 per cent for heating and cooling, lighting, appliances and the provision of water and sewerage services. Interestingly, a significant 27 per cent of the energy generated across the world is lost during generation and transmission, so we do not really get the most out of the energy sources that we have available to us.

In my view, energy security, or the lack of energy security, is going to be one of the biggest issues of our times. Energy security for people around the world is right up there as an issue for the great leaders of this century to address. I foresee energy security, affordability, diversity and reliability as one of the top handful of issues that have the potential to cause serious, indeed profound, geopolitical challenges for the leadership of the major countries of the world. I think it is incumbent upon all of us now at the beginning of the 21st century, when we still have time, to lay down the architecture of an affordable, secure, reliable and indeed diverse energy system that will address varying demands—from those of the most sophisticated cities, such as New York, Sydney, Shanghai and London, to those of the emerging cities of the world whose energy demands will increase as their populations grow and become more prosperous. The world as we know it cannot go on at the rate and pace of Western energy consumption today. Our voracious appetite for all things that are energy intensive, from big cars to big houses to big boats and to big planes, cannot be sustained.

I think that all of us deep down know this, and yet for many of us collectively as a society, as a community, whilst we know this, we still choose to ignore it. Indeed, some of us choose to bury our heads in the sand at the mounting challenge that is coming our way in terms of adjusting our lifestyle and the way that we use our energy for our day-to-day purposes.

Yet, equally, I do want to say very strongly that in the world as we know it we cannot just switch off all our lights, and we cannot just stop using our motor cars, and we cannot go on strike against planes and we cannot stop flying. Doing these things is simply not on the cards for our 21st century world of business, commerce, enterprise and global interaction. We cannot be Luddites. We live in a world where opportunity, prosperity, technology and the brilliance of our scientists and our engineers will surely be able to provide a way forward that achieves a balance between sustaining our community and environment whilst at the same time providing an appropriate level of lifestyle where we can enjoy nature and its opportunities and not live in darkness.

We cannot turn the clock back. We cannot all go and live in caves, as some of the extreme environmental groups would have us do. In fact I do not even call those who advocate such things environment groups, such is their intellectual bankruptcy and extremism. The bottom line is that energy supply, security, affordability and diversity is a very complex issue and this is why, going to the theme of energy and energy sustainability, I want to express great dismay at the way that the new Labor government has approached a source of energy which I think can go a long way, in the years and decades ahead, towards bringing about that balance and that sustainability that we all must try to achieve.

I want to talk in this context about solar energy. We all know that the budget that was recently delivered by the Rudd Labor government delivered a real blow to the solar industry, to renewable energy, and certainly it delivered a blow to the constituents of Ryan, who very much want to make a contribution to the environment and energy debate by taking up solar. Before I go into some of the details of that budget and the government’s attitude, I want to make a statement about solar, and I quote from a book produced by a renewable energy company that manufactures solar panels, Suntech. It has got a very interesting quote there which I find to be profoundly interesting and insightful. I quote from its production entitled Powering a Green Future, where it says on page 30:

The sun delivers enough energy in one hour to meet global energy needs for an entire year.

I would have thought that that is an eye-opener for sceptics about solar and, indeed, for those who think that solar can in no way make an impact on our renewable energy diversity mix. It is a very interesting quote. As an aside, Suntech is an innovative company that is manufacturing solar panels, and its chairman and CEO, a Chinese Australian by the name of Dr Zhengrong Shi, is at the forefront of the international debate on renewable energy and of course, in particular, solar.

The energy received from the sun has enormous potential, and somehow we must get the greatest minds in our country and from around the world to find a way to channel that vast source of energy into a form where it can be used substantially beyond its already significant contribution in the homes and businesses across our country. As I said earlier, I think the federal budget really showed the true colours of the Rudd Labor government on the energy diversity mix and trying to contribute to the energy debate across this country. As everyone will know—and certainly everyone in my electorate of Ryan now knows—the government’s policy was to make it more difficult for many people to access the solar panel rebate the Howard government brought in during its time. I know that it is not fashionable to think highly of the Howard government when it comes to environmental initiatives. Interestingly enough, the solar panel rebate, which was very popular—and certainly very popular in Ryan—has been kept by the Rudd Labor government yet it seeks to exclude so many Australians from it.

The Howard government encouraged the people of Ryan to take up solar panels with this $8,000 rebate. The Rudd government, after it came to office, decided in the budget that any household on a collective income of $100,000 was deemed to be rich and therefore in a financial position not to need the rebate. So many, many residents not only of Ryan but from across the suburbs of the electorates of this country felt that they were being singled out and excluded from making a contribution. I want to say very strongly that those in the Ryan electorate on $100,000 would not consider themselves wealthy by any means; they are struggling like their fellow Australians around the country to pay for petrol and groceries and child care. So the decision to means test the solar rebate was only going to be an additional burden and force them to prioritise this below the essentials of putting petrol in their car and buying groceries for their evening meals.

So, in other words, the Rudd government’s decision to implement this threshold of $100,000 is a very retrograde step. It is not consistent with its election campaign commitment to very strongly promote the solar industry. I think that really highlights the hypocrisy. We heard a campaign commitment to a 20 per cent renewable energy target by 2020. This was to be achieved by significantly boosting Australia’s solar, wind and geothermal energy industries. But that was put in its place by a budget measure on solar that smacks people in the face.

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