Julie Collins (Franklin, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for Ageing and Mental Health) Share this | Hansard source

We saw in question time yesterday more of the confusion from this government on its energy policy—the National Energy Guarantee, or the NEG, as the government calls it. We heard yesterday in the parliament, in an embarrassing admission from the government, that, essentially, they didn't realise that the NEG's lack of ambition and support for renewable energy actually means it doesn't include Tasmania's Battery of the Nation project. The project the Prime Minister claims he invented and was wanting to take credit for yesterday in the parliament is not included in the National Energy Guarantee because of that lack of ambition. The lack of renewables investment post 2021 means that this project will not proceed under the NEG. We've had the Prime Minister come down to Tasmania, of course, in the recent Braddon by-election and prior to that, to talk about this great project and these series of projects in Tasmania for pumped storage hydro. As many people would know, Tasmania has been Australia's leader in renewable energy. We've had renewable energy for 100 years with our hydro schemes, and these pump storage schemes could add to that as part of the Battery of the Nation project. They would be terrific in terms of renewables. The estimated cost for these, of course, is between $1 million and $1.5 million per megawatt hour. This means that this renewable technology is cheaper than new coal technology. It would be cheaper to build this Battery of the Nation in Tasmania than it would be to build coal.

You won't hear that from the government, of course. You won't hear that at all. Indeed, the main proponent of this project is Hydro Tasmania, a state owned GBE that has been operating in Tasmania, as I said, for 100 years, in various guises. Indeed, it said:

The Battery of the Nation initiative supports Australia to embrace cost-effective renewable energy generation while maintaining secure, reliable electricity supply.

The Battery of the Nation project is simply not consistent with the government's National Energy Guarantee because, of course, there are no renewables under their ambition for the National Energy Guarantee post 2021. Indeed, the Energy Security Board has done modelling of the NEG, and it assumes that the Battery of the Nation project does not proceed.

When the Prime Minister comes to Tasmania, he talks about it. He was in the parliament yesterday trying to claim credit for it—this project that Tasmanians have been working on for many years without the Prime Minister. And we've had Senator Eric Abetz standing there right alongside him. What we've also seen in recent days is Senator Abetz saying that he might not even agree with the National Energy Guarantee; apparently, even that is too ambitious for Senator Eric Abetz!

So I find it completely incomprehensible that we have the Prime Minister and Senator Abetz in Tasmania, claiming to support this project. We then have the Prime Minister with a policy that he says is going to allow the Battery of the Nation to proceed, when in fact it won't; the modelling say it won't happen, because of the government's lack of ambition on renewables. Then we've got Eric Abetz saying, 'Oh, well, the NEG is too ambitious, so I don't even support that.'

If we're talking seriously about renewable energy and Tasmania expanding our renewable energy, we also need to talk about the Basslink cable. We've seen a feasibility study that has been done in relation to a second interconnector between Tasmania and the mainland for the National Energy Market. Ironically, the Battery of the Nation project is not viable without that interconnector, and the interconnector is probably not viable without the Battery of the Nation. So, clearly, the interconnector, the second Basslink cable and the Battery of the Nation are not going to happen under the coalition government or under their National Energy Guarantee—if, indeed, they can actually get it through, up and running.

Tasmania, as I said, has always been leading when it comes to renewable energy. We want these jobs in Tasmania—these thousands of jobs that would come from the Battery of the Nation project. But we've had five years without a coherent energy or climate change policy and five years of inaction, and now we see more chaos from the government in relation to the National Energy Guarantee. That means that Tasmanians continue to miss out. Tasmanians' ambitions for great projects that would create great jobs in our home state are at risk and may not happen, because of this government's continued chaos when it comes to energy policy in this country and when it comes to support for renewable energy.

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