Pat Conroy (Shortland, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Assistant Minister for Infrastructure) Share this | Hansard source

I'm going to begin where the minister began, which is talking about Australia's carbon pollution levels, because the minister wasn't telling the full story. If he were interested in being accurate and fair, he would have noted that, last year, pollution levels in this country rose by 1½ per cent. Australia's carbon pollution went up by 1½ per cent according to the government's own figures. As worryingly, in the last quarter alone carbon pollution in Australia went up by 0.83 per cent. Annualised, that is 2½ to three per cent. So my first question to the minister is: will he admit that he has failed as the environment and energy minister for this country? Pollution levels are up. He is a failure. He should come clean and admit that he has failed as minister. It is a legitimate question and I look forward to his answer.

Further evidence of his failure is that wholesale energy prices have doubled in his tenure. Wholesale electricity prices in this country have doubled in his time as minister. They have doubled because of this government's policy vacuum around energy policy since September 2013. Their first energy policy was to abolish the Renewable Energy Target. When that failed they then had the Emissions Reduction Fund, which did absolutely nothing for energy in this country. Then we had the glorious 12 hours of this government's commitment to the Emissions Intensity Scheme. Who can forget that glorious 12 hours! The minister did a great interview with Fran Kelly. It was quite a good performance, but the fossils in his party room were freaked out that he retreated and surrendered within 12 hours. It was the shortest war in the history of the energy crisis in this country—his commitment to the Emissions Intensity Scheme. Then we had the Clean Energy Target for six months, under Alan Finkel, and now we've got the National Energy Guarantee. Normally when you have an energy policy launch you have inches of documents, but this policy was an eight-page letter from the Energy Security Board. What is the price of all this? A doubling of wholesale energy prices. The Clean Energy Council's chief executive said yesterday that there is still no long-term unifying energy or climate change policy in this place.

Secondly, what is the impact of the National Energy Guarantee, with its hopelessly inadequate 26 per cent target? We had the Clean Energy Council saying that the NEG is unlikely to encourage new renewable energy to drive down power prices as our old coal-fired power plants continue to close. The Smart Energy Council chief executive said the NEG effectively places a cap on renewables and removes the investment initiative and support for additional large scale renewable projects to come online. Bloomberg New Energy Finance, who are the premium analysts around the world in this area, said that after 2020, when the current Renewable Energy Target is met, investment under federal policies would be likely to fall off a cliff because the National Energy Guarantee, as currently floated by the federal government, would require very little effort to achieve.

When the minister's own department was asked at estimates last week whether they agreed with this analysis, their strongest response was 'we're unsure'. They didn't rebut it; they said they were unsure about Bloomberg New Energy Finance's analysis that renewable energy investment, because of their renewable energy target, falls off a cliff. And they couldn't be stronger because they also admitted at estimates that they have done no modelling on the impact on renewable investment under the NEG. Bloomberg also said renewable energy investment is likely to taper in 2018 and then collapse. The former CEO of the Clean Energy Finance Corporation, Oliver Yates, said it is low-ambition energy, it is woeful and it locks inaction in place. Minister, what do you project renewable energy penetration to be by 2030 under your 26 per cent NEG? What is your planned trajectory post 2030 for Australia's decarbonisation? And what is the state of play of the Finkel recommendation around a three-year notice period? These are all important questions and I look forward to the answers.

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