Malcolm Turnbull (Wentworth, Liberal Party, Prime Minister) Share this | Hansard source

I thank the honourable member for his question, and I thank him for his enthusiasm for an all-of-the-above approach to energy, which is absolutely consistent with the government's approach founded on economics and engineering. The honourable member understands, as we all do, that families and businesses need affordable and reliable power. Anything less than that will rapidly de-industrialise Australia, deter investment, put thousands of Australians out of work and make the cost of living unsustainable. We are committed to taking a technology-neutral, all-of-the-above approach to the energy challenges we face, founded on economics and engineering.

The honourable member has outlined a number of very interesting projects in his electorate. For the Kennedy Energy Park, ARENA is providing $18 million out of a project cost of $120 million. Stage 1 begins with a proof-of-concept project of up to 40 megawatts of solar plus 40 megawatts of wind, and the proponents say their ultimate plan is to construct up to 1,300 megawatts of renewable energy generation. ARENA and the Clean Energy Finance Corporation are also in very detailed discussions with a company called Genex that has built a solar farm at the old Kidston mine site. It is a very interesting project. They are going to use the pits and one of the dams from the old mine site for pumped hydro. They will use excess energy from the solar farm to pump water up into a higher reservoir and then run it down through a turbine. It is a much smaller version, I suppose, of the Snowy Hydro concept or, indeed, the Cultana project.

These are all—and there will be others—very, very interesting, promising opportunities. That is why it is critical for us—all Australians and government—to have a technology-neutral, all-of-the-above approach. There are many ways of securing our energy future, but you need a plan. That has been the big difference between our side of politics and Labor. We saw what happened in South Australia. There was a huge wind resource—terrific! There were lots of wind farms—wonderful! But there was no storage. What that meant was that you could have all of your electricity provided by your windmills one minute and, then, zero. And there was no planning. It is exactly what Labor did with gas, as we all know. Labor allowed gas exports from Queensland—terrific! But they forgot about the domestic market. Engineering and economics are the key, and there are great opportunities in Kennedy.

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