Mike Kelly (Eden-Monaro, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Assistant Minister for Defence Industry and Support) Share this | Hansard source

Well, it's happened again, hasn't it? The Prime Minister, the Deputy Prime Minister, all of them, are selling out once again. Brave, brave Sir Malcolm, like a character out of Holy Grail, has bravely turned tail and fled! This man, in his cowering, craven capitulation to the carbon-captured members of his own party room, has given up on the very things he said in this chamber. We were all here, weren't we? We watched that speech he gave, backing in Labor's climate change and renewable energy policy and crossing the floor to vote for it. Where are those days now? Where is this hollow man?

And we've been discussing, of course, the effect of this NEG on the market, renewable energy and climate change. This Prime Minister and this policy are the biggest threat to the Snowy 2.0 project, which they've touted as their great vision. In fact, we know it wasn't. It was just a project Malcolm photobombed that the Snowy Hydro Corporation had in train well before he discovered it. They'd put in their feasibility funding application to ARENA, the body those opposite tried to destroy in February last year before Malcolm turned up in March. And, of course, the Snowy 2.0 project will be funded from their own money and from private investment—not a cent from this government. That's a critical factor: private investment. One of the most important factors of the Snowy 2.0 project was that an economic feasibility study was conducted by Marsden Jacob Associates. That report tells you everything you need to know about the way the market needs to go and about the relevance of Snowy 2.0. This government tried to bury that report. They told Snowy Hydro: 'Don't put that out there, for God's sake. Please don't do it.' That's been confirmed by Snowy Hydro. They've said their shareholder asked them not to put it out there. Eventually, Snowy Hydro did anyway because they had to. Why? Because their investors need to know this information. And the decision that's going to be made in December will be affected by the factors spelt out in this report.

And here is the report. This is it. It exists on the Snowy Hydro website. None of these guys have read it, and I think that is the greatest advertisement for the need for more investment in education, because these guys didn't read the Finkel report and they haven't read any of this. And some journalists need to have a closer look at this, too. What you'll see spelt out, when they talk about the economics, is that the long-term commitment on renewable energy makes the Snowy 2.0 project feasible economically. It gives it its greatest economic and market impact. And what is the long-term commitment that is spelt out in this report? There it is on page 4. That long-term commitment is a target of 60 per cent renewable generation by 2040. There it is in black and white, and it matches, by the way, perfectly with Labor's renewable energy target trajectory.

So it is an ambitious renewable energy target that makes Snowy 2.0 viable. That is the way it will work in relation to the market, by providing the firming to that transition to 100 per cent renewables, so any attempt to slow down that transition to renewables or to reintroduce coal-fired power will threaten the viability. And we know that because the CEO of Snowy Hydro and their chief operating officer have told us that. Paul Broad said: 'From our perspective, new coal doesn't stack up. We'll outcompete them on price and reliability. We can outcompete a new HELE plant. And Snowy 2.0 only stacks up when more coal power exits the market. The amount of coal base load that comes out of the market determines the viability of Snowy 2.0.' And, of course, that's been backed up by other experts, including David Carland, an energy finance specialist, who said that the government has a choice. This is really what underpinned my question today. He said:

The development of a major new coal-fired station will destroy the viability of Snowy 2.0. The federal government needs to make a choice: does it want Snowy 2.0 or does it want a major new coal-fired station.

And everything in this Marsden Jacob report underlines that coal is dead as a future source of power. It will gradually phase out. It spells out the time lines for the major power stations that will die. But it also says that carbon capture and storage and these technologies they tout are not sustainable for the future of the market. In fact, they say:

… the technology is not yet commercially deployed and is unlikely to be viable without a significant price on carbon … This technology has not been proven on a commercial or large scale, its costs are not known, and it is considered unlikely that it will be commercially viable until well into the 2030s.

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