Matt Thistlethwaite (Kingsford Smith, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Assistant Minister for the Republic) Share this | Hansard source

Well, haven't this government made a meal of developing a mechanism to reduce carbon emissions in our economy? There's no plan at all to transition our economy away from polluting fossil fuels towards more renewable energy and create jobs in the process, to provide investment certainty for the private sector. They have this Luddite view of new technology, and it's a handbrake on Australia's economic development.

In other developed nations, they view the challenge of climate change as an economic opportunity, a chance to catch the wave of technological change and create new industries, new businesses and new jobs in clean energy; in modern farming techniques; in new mining of new resources around rare earths; in research and development of new projects and new technology; in education, around driving that research and development; in the financing of projects and in the accounting and legal aspects of new projects; and, of course, in skills development for workers throughout our country.

The Morrison government view the challenge of climate change in ideological terms purely. They see it as a political weapon, an opportunity to hang on to power—and to hell with the rest of Australia, our economic future and the creation of jobs. They see this issue, and issues such as this, purely as a wedge opportunity, an opportunity to try and drive a wedge between certain sections of the population and the Australian Labor Party on this particular issue—and to hell with the consequences for our environment or job development in the future.

This is no more evident than in the way that they've handled the Clean Energy Finance Corporation and what they are attempting to do to it with this bill, the Clean Energy Finance Corporation Amendment (Grid Reliability Fund) Bill 2020. The CEFC was established by Labor in 2013 to support the creation of job-generating clean energy products. The CEFC was established as a government corporate entity with an independent board, and it makes investment decisions based on rigorous commercial assessments and an investment mandate that's based on helping to mobilise investments in renewable energy, in lower emissions technology and energy efficiency products, and in manufacturing businesses that promote and produce the inputs into achieving those aims I mentioned earlier.

The CEFC was established on 1 July in 2013, and it's been extremely successful. It's helped drive $27.3 billion worth of private sector investment in renewables projects and technology to reduce carbon emissions in our economy. It's returned $718 million to the Australian taxpayer during its life. And, importantly, it's driven 20 million tonnes of abatement or reduction in carbon pollution in Australia. So it's been a wonderful success story, in generating a return to the Australian taxpayer and driving down emissions in our economy. Despite that, have a guess who wants to close it. Have a guess who's tried to shut it down. None other than the Abbott, Turnbull and Morrison governments. What other country in the world would try and shut down a body that's been successful in reducing carbon emissions and returning $718 million to taxpayers in Australia? Only one political party would do that, and that's the LNP. And they've been at it since they got to government.

Thankfully, the Australian people have seen through their charade and—through the parliament, through their elected representatives—have been able to stop this government shutting down the Clean Energy Finance Corporation. They've all been doing this. The Liberals have been wanting to shut this body down because you've got a small number of Liberal and National MPs who—let's face it—do not believe in climate change, who think that it's all a hoax, who are climate sceptics and who are holding this government to ransom and trying to shut down bodies like the Clean Energy Finance Corporation because they don't fit with their ideological obsession with not reducing carbon emissions in our economy. They've tried to shut down this body that's been very successful, but, thankfully, the parliament stopped them. Thankfully, on the numerous occasions that they've tried to shut it down, the Senate has been successful in stopping that legislation.

So the government said: 'Well, if we can't shut it down, then we'll simply try and change it. We'll neuter it. We'll change its investment mandate so it can invest in projects that—guess what—actually increase carbon pollution in Australia.' Yes, that's right. They want to change the investment mandate of a body that's been successful in reducing carbon pollution and returning dollars to the taxpayer, so that it can now invest in projects that will increase carbon pollution in Australia. And get this: those projects don't produce a positive return to the Australian taxpayer. Can you believe it? It is unbelievable, but that is what this mob are trying to argue with this particular bill. Once again, it's almost like we're in the novel Nineteen Eighty-Four. Let's make the Clean Energy Finance Corporation the 'Anti Clean Energy Finance Corporation' under the Morrison government; that's exactly what they're trying to do through this bill.

The explanatory memorandum for this bill says that this bill's aim is to expand the Clean Energy Finance Corporation's remit to better support the modernisation of the electricity grid through investment in transmission, storage and other firming and reliability assets, and to support the implementation of the government's Underwriting New Generation Investment program. On the face of it, that looks pretty positive, but when you read the fine print with a lot of these things—again going back to this Orwellian language that they use—there's a much more sinister plan by this government. It's about undermining the investment mandate to invest in projects that reduce carbon emissions and are involved in ensuring that we're promoting technology that reduces those emissions. They want to shut down a body that's working. They want to shut down a body that's making a return to taxpayers and making the environment cleaner for our kids by changing the investment mandate so that it can invest in projects that actually increase carbon emissions in our economy and not return a positive return to the Australian taxpayer. That is unbelievable. That is why Labor is opposed to many aspects of this bill, and if the opposition's amendments aren't accepted, we'll vote against the bill.

What they'll do through this bill will be the most significant change in the Clean Energy Finance Corporation since it was established. It makes it the 'Anti Clean Energy Finance Corporation'. In that part of the bill about the Underwriting New Generation Investment program, when you read what some of those programs are, you see what this government is all about. Some of them are gas projects in Victoria and South Australia and Port Kembla. One of them is an upgrade to a coal-fired power station in New South Wales. They're projects that will increase carbon pollution. That's right. They want the Clean Energy Finance Corporation's investment mandate to be changed so they can increase carbon pollution in our economy and make it harder to meet the international commitments, which Australia has signed up to, to reduce carbon emissions—not to mention destroying our kids' future by increasing carbon emissions. Yes, that's what they want the CEFC to be able to do. They want the parliament to say that the CEFC should be able to invest in projects that increase carbon pollution in our economy, sneakily trying to undermine the investment mandate for which this body was established. Why? To placate a small rump of mainly backbench MPs on that side of the parliament that don't believe in climate change: 'Let's hold our kids' future to ransom for the sake of five or six MPs in the Liberal Party and the National Party in Australia that don't believe in climate change.' It is unbelievable.

The CEFC is supposed to invest in emerging technology, in technology that's on the margin about whether or not it would be able to gain capital and access to finance in investment markets. We all know that gas is a well-established technology that doesn't face the barriers to entry that other emerging technologies—like some solar, wind or battery projects and carbon farming initiatives—face at the moment. The only barrier that gas projects face in capital markets, not only in Australia but throughout the world at the moment, is that capital is moving away from projects like that because they increase carbon pollution. That is the only barrier they face.

See this speech in context