Craig Kelly (Hughes, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

What a pack of crocodile tears we just heard then! Hazelwood is closing for one reason: it has been driven out of town by the state Labor government that has tripled the royalties on coal—that is the input cost for Hazelwood, and it tripled the royalties—and by the federal Labor Party, which has a 50 per cent Renewable Energy Target. Of course Hazelwood is uncompetitive and cannot continue under such circumstances.

I appreciate that this is going to cost jobs, but it is not only the jobs at Hazelwood that it is going to cost. I would like the Labor Party to think about the increased cost of electricity that we have seen because of closing Hazelwood. How many other jobs will that cost throughout the economy? You must have competitive electricity prices and competitive energy costs, otherwise you do not have an economy. You do not know or understand the damage that you are doing to our nation's prosperity and our nation's ability to create wealth with your misguided green policies, and that is what we see.

It actually gets worse. Not only have we had these price increases, but the real question that I would like to know the answer to is: what is going to happen to the reliability of supply? We have heard the AEMO say that there is no problem, but I would like to have a quick look at the numbers. We know that last year Victoria's peak electricity demand was 9,523 megawatts. That was last year. What will they need next year and the year after? I would suggest, at a minimum, Victoria needs—to make sure they are safe from blackouts—an availability of 10,000 megawatts. Let us go through where those 10,000 megawatts could possibly come from. Before Hazelwood, they had 9,655 megawatts of fossil fuel generating capacity. Knock out the 1,600 megawatts from Hazelwood, and we come back to 8,000 megawatts from fossil fuels. Where is that extra 2,000 megawatts of electricity going to come from on a hot day in summer? Victoria has wind energy of 1,485 megawatts but, as we know, that is as useful as tits on a bull in a crisis—because when the wind does not blow, the power does not flow. It is completely and utterly useless. We know the peak demand for electricity often occurs late in the evening, around 6 pm, and solar does absolutely nothing to help there. Victoria has hydro energy of 356 megawatts. So where will this shortfall come from? The only possibility is hydro energy from Tasmania—relying on the extension cord across Bass Strait to stop Victoria from blacking out.

What about South Australia and New South Wales—

See this speech in context