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

No doubt, like most Australians—like the residents of Eden-Monaro and, no doubt, the residents of Indi, as I see the member for Indi in the chamber here today—the good voters of Wentworth, who are being asked to cast their ballots on Saturday, would have been shocked and appalled to hear the comments of the member for New England this morning calling on the abandonment of the Snowy Hydro 2.0 project in favour of building more coal-fired power stations.

This is wrong on so many levels, but No. 1 is that he talked about $4½ billion being diverted to these power stations. He doesn't even know—he is not even aware, the former Deputy Prime Minister—that the financing for Snowy 2.0 will be private financing. Snowy Hydro is raising that money themselves. So what is this member trying to do? Is he going to try to force private financing to finance the coal-fired power stations that every investor has abandoned? They will not even invest in refurbishing them!

But beyond this: this project, as the Marsden Jacobs & Associates feasibility study highlighted, is only a goer if we commit to an ambitious renewable energy target of 60 per cent by 2040. It's spelled out there in black and white. This project is specifically designed to achieve our transition to 100 per cent renewable energy. There will be 5,000 jobs in Eden-Monaro based on that project, and many jobs in the member for Indi's electorate in building the transmission lines as well. This Prime Minister needs to tell the people of Wentworth that if he sticks with this— (Time expired)

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