Tim Wilson (Goldstein, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

I want to start where the member left off, which is to highlight some of the somewhat hypocritical arguments that were put before the chamber. He talked specifically about how we should let the market rip and remove all government investment, all government subsidies in the renewable energy sector. In order for him to say that consistently, he would have to say he's against the Clean Energy Finance Corporation. Abolish it—that's what the member was arguing. He was arguing let's get rid of ARENA, which focuses on investment in new technology innovations. He would argue that we should have got rid of the Renewable Energy Target when it used to be in place. He definitely wouldn't have supported the carbon tax, because that would have been a bad subsidy to the private sector as well. Of course these hypocritical arguments go to the heart of the disjointed, incoherent position of the Australian Labor Party on energy. He doesn't even know his own electorate. His electorate is close to mine. In the Goldstein electorate, and many of the businesses that operate just outside it, are many businesses that die cast, which means that they have to melt metals. We can have arguments about renewable energy; I'm not arguing that; I'm pro technology. But I'm also a realist. Wind turbines can't create the heat to melt metal unless they're on fire themselves. You need gas. That's why gas is a critical part of the manufacturing base of the economy.

Some of the members on the other side argue against that or shake their heads. They obviously have no real connection to what you have to do in manufacturing. You need to melt things. You need to burn things. That's why we're in this situation. I go to businesses, not in my electorate but just outside, in the member's electorate, and I know exactly what they're like. I know exactly how much it's a dishonest argument to put forward that everything can simply be replaced.

Let's be realists. Let's focus on it. One of the reasons why the government has accepted the proposition of gas as a critical part of the transition to lower emissions and energy prices, while guaranteeing reliability, is for the reason that the Chief Scientist comes out in support of it, because so much of the infrastructure that sits behind gas can be converted to hydrogen when it becomes viable. The member who moved the motion, the member for Indi, is now shaking her head at the Chief Scientist. It's just extraordinary. They are not focused on the reality of the engineering associated with energy.

As somebody who has studied energy extensively over many years, including in the climate change space, but not exclusively, it's clear to me that to have a sustainable transition plan you need to look at what viable technologies sit in the marketplace and what can be delivered, and you need to make sure that you take the country with you. That is exactly why we've taken the energy road map approach, mapping out a chart or pathway of how we want to get to a lower-emissions future and a cheaper energy future, and what we need to do to support technology into the marketplace. But the only solution that our opponents put forward is one with a singular lens, where cost doesn't matter and we're not worried about the impact on families. Let's remember who are most impacted by this issue: it's not the well-off and it's not business—although they have their own consequences, and when they do it hurts jobs, and jobs and job creation are going to be critical in the months and years to come—it's the poor, it's the pensioners and it's the people who don't have much of a margin in their household electricity bill.

They're the people who pay the cost of the agenda of Labor and an Independent, in this case. They don't understand the energy market and think that if they come to Canberra, sit here and tinker with their priorities that somehow that's going to deliver for the Australian people. That's against the approach that this government takes, where we map out a plan and invest in new technologies so that we can build a future energy-reliable supply for the country. That's so manufacturers can have the gas they need to melt metals so they can produce goods and so they can sell Australian products competitively internationally. It's so households can pay lower prices on their bills; that's whether they're on gas, because they've got all that infrastructure and they can't necessarily change or upgrade, or because they need lower electricity bills—particularly in winter when it's cold and they don't have the money to support themselves.

Every single thing we do is very mindful of what it is we need to do to cut emissions, what is it we need to do to cut prices and what is that we need to do to make sure that we have a reliable energy supply for this country. The alternative approach which has been put before us in this parliament by this member—and those in the Labor Party who support it—is to make their priorities more important than the lived, real experience of Australian households and Australian businesses. That is why their conduct is so disgraceful.

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