Rick Wilson (O'Connor, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

I rise today to second and support the member for Fairfax's motion. The member is correct. The rising cost of electricity, whether it is the price of electricity at home or the cost to businesses that will flow on and threaten jobs and business competitiveness, will affect every Australian whatever state they happen to be in. One solution to the rising cost of electricity is to focus on a technology-neutral approach to meeting our emissions target and considering the opportunity coal offers to the energy market. Coal has historically been integral to power generation in Western Australia, and the town Collie in my electorate of O'Connor is central to this.

Coal was first discovered in Collie in the 1880s and, over the past 130 years, has provided thousands of people with jobs in the south-west of WA. There are now two coalmines in Collie, the only operating coalmines in WA, producing about seven million tonnes of coal per year. The majority of this coal is used to power Collie's three power stations, which generate around 50 per cent of the state's power—at this point in time this afternoon, it is around 52 per cent—compared to wind, which was two per cent about an hour ago. It was up to about 3.3 per cent today. It was 14 per cent about a week ago. Who knows what it will be tomorrow?

Back in 2008, we bore witness to the problems of relying too heavily on gas to power the state, and gas powers around 42 to 44 per cent of the state's energy needs. We had the Varanus Island explosion, which led to the sudden loss of almost 35 per cent of the state's gas supply. This resulted in Collie's decommissioned Muja A and B coal-fired power stations being returned to service. Coal-fired power has proven to be the cheapest and most reliable form of baseload power.

At peak times, other states pay over $100 per megawatt of power. South Australia in particular has the highest power costs in the country, where the average price for power of price this year has been $108 per megawatt hour up from $61 last year and $39 in 2015. I know the member for Grey was just having a look on the AEMO website a minute ago and WA's cost of wholesale electricity at this point in time is $39 per megawatt hour, much to the envy of the member for Grey, who is looking at South Australia, which is currently at around $109. The cost of energy in South Australia has rapidly increased in correlation with the South Australia's government increased Renewable Energy Target. Around 45 to 50 per cent of South Australia's energy has come from sun and wind based resources.

Last year we saw how unreliable renewable energy sources can be, particularly when you do not have a reliable source of baseload power, as we saw in South Australia. And unlike South Australia, which is interconnected for backup power from other states, Western Australia has no interconnector. So when things go wrong, we cannot ask for help from anyone else—we will be on our own. The closure of Victoria's Hazelwood power station and coalmine resulted in the loss of 750 jobs in the Latrobe Valley. Collie relies heavily on its coalmining and power generation industry, so I do not want to see that happen there because any closures would be catastrophic and would result in the loss of hundreds of jobs which would likely end Collie as we know it.

With more than 50 years of coal available to be mined in Collie, and given its low cost of production and reliability, coal should remain at the forefront for power generation going forward, with investment into cleaner technology being a priority. WA has long propped up the finances for the other states with GST revenues from our strong resources industry. WA should not be penalised by a clean energy target that puts pressure on WA's main power source and favours renewables. If we proceed with a clean energy target we must introduce legislation to enable the Clean Energy Finance Corporation to invest in carbon capture and storage. This will safeguard the future of the coal industry and ensure that emissions from coal fired power stations are kept out of the atmosphere.

Australia's biggest carbon-capture project is a $2.6 billion venture at the Gorgon LNG project in the north of WA, which is due to start up later this year. It will inject up to four million tonnes of carbon dioxide into the ground every year. This project is backed by $60 million of government funding and is intended to cut greenhouse emissions from the LNG venture by about 40 per cent.

A $1.8 billion coal-to-diesel venture by Collie Synfuels has emerged as the first confirmed contender for government funding for carbon capture and storage. Collie Synfuels wants to build two plants, one in Victoria and one in WA, that would initially produce clean diesel and, later, hydrogen. However, to get government funding a bill to enable the Clean Energy Finance Corporation to invest in carbon capture and storage needs to be passed through the parliament with the support of the Senate. Up until now, the project has been hamstrung in efforts to secure funding from the Clean Energy Finance Corporation, despite its low-emissions technology. This policy is about reducing emissions, and we should have a technology-neutral approach. That means considering the opportunity that coal offers when utilising both high-efficiency, low-emission coal and carbon capture and storage technology.

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