Tony Pasin (Barker, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

I appreciate the opportunity to speak on the Clean Energy Finance Corporation Amendment (Grid Reliability Fund) Bill 2020 and to listen to my colleagues and their contributions. I rise today in support of the $1 billion Grid Reliability Fund. I've often spoken in this place about the importance of lowering electricity prices for Australians. In that regard, it was a long time ago that I indicated that my attitude was one of complete technological agnosticism. It's not the nature of the technology I'm worried about but the outcome, measured in price. Lower priced electricity should be the goal for everyone in this place, no matter what side of politics they represent: affordable, reliable electricity.

Lower energy prices not only lower the cost of living for everyday Australians but make a range of industries that are poised for growth competitive. Our government understands that the benefits of lower electricity prices are shared across the whole economy. For individual homeowners, lower prices allow them to purchase more goods and services. For businesses, they decrease the cost of doing business. That encourages investment, investment encourages expansion, and expansion leads to more Australians in employment.

Whether it's irrigators in the Riverland, winemakers in the Barossa, timber millers in the south-east or anyone working at the myriad of abattoirs throughout my electorate, low energy prices are good for them, good for their bosses and good for our communities. This bill is about employees and employers and making sure that all of them can keep more of the money they earn to improve the standards of living they enjoy. To do this, the $1 billion Grid Reliability Fund provides funding to support private investment in storage and transmission infrastructure to ensure that the large deployment of renewable energy is integrated and backed up.

Since 2017, $30 billion has been invested in renewable energy, with new wind and solar being deployed 10 times faster per person than the global average and four times faster per person than in Europe, China, Japan and the US. It's worth repeating: 10 times faster per person than the global average and four times faster per person than in comparable economies in Europe, China, Japan and the US. With one in four Australian households utilising solar panels to meet part of their energy needs, it's apparent there's no shortage of renewable investment, and it is tipped to only continue in the future, with Australia's share of wind and solar in electricity grids being double the global average. These high levels of renewable energy sources need to be supported by investment in dispatchable energy generation to support the increased intermittent generation.

I need to emphasise that this Grid Reliability Fund does not hinder renewables or other intermittent power sources but supports flexible backup generation and storage—including gas, pumped hydro and batteries—to stabilise the grid. Eligible investments include energy storage such as pumped hydro, batteries, transmission and distribution infrastructure, grid-stabilising technologies and many other projects identified in the government's Underwriting New Generation Investments program.

In South Australia, this could help fund projects to improve transmission of renewables, such as the SA to New South Wales interconnector. This project would save South Australians around $100 a year, not to mention the hundreds of Australian jobs that will be supported during its creation. This interconnector will help to prevent the blackouts that previously plagued South Australia's ability to operate. Our government has already had much success. It has a proven track record in reducing energy prices, with seven consecutive quarters of energy price reductions—seven successive quarters! The wholesale electricity price has fallen for 13 months now and is at its lowest level in six years. The wholesale price makes up a third of residential electricity bills, and, with this grid, we expect prices to drop further.

Our practical approach to reducing emissions and energy prices will support our economic recovery from COVID-19. It will work in conjunction with other government programs, such as the government's Technology Investment Roadmap. The Technology Investment Roadmap is about reducing emissions and the cost of energy through investment, not taxes. It's about creating more industries, not destroying the ones we have, as some opposite might suggest. Our plan will achieve emissions and price reductions, and, with the benefit of the Grid Reliability Fund, it will shore up energy security.

Energy prices affect almost every enterprise in our country. Manufacturing is one industry that is particularly affected by price increases. In my electorate of Barker we have a proud history of value-adding to our already exceptional produce. Instead of outsourcing our premium produce, we keep much of the process local, particularly fruit processing. This includes the many wineries in the Barossa, Coonawarra and the Riverland regions; the dairy producers in the south-east; and the meat processors—which I've mentioned already—including the Thomas Foods facility at Murray Bridge, which suffered catastrophic loss some three years ago, JBS at Bordertown and, of course, Teys in Naracoorte. This value-adding must be supported, and one key factor in that is reliable and affordable energy prices. Manufacturers can't sustain blackouts or internationally uncompetitive energy price spikes, which can see a weakening of our domestic economy and more fragility around jobs. In a time when we're recovering from COVID-19, that simply can't be the case. That's why we're investing in our Manufacturing Modernisation Fund. Combined with lower energy costs and improved stability, this will allow the scaling up of successful manufacturing operations to support our ability to build on our way out of this pandemic.

All too often people bemoan the loss of manufacturing jobs. I'm here to indicate that Barker enjoys the title of the food manufacturing capital of Australia. In terms of food and grocery FTEs, there are more per capita in the electorate of Barker than in any other division in this place. As we enter into free trade agreements with other nations around the world and as more nations around the world look to our clean and green premium products, we can only see that accelerate. It's something I'd certainly like to see.

Having spoken about the positives, let me talk about one of the negatives we've experienced in South Australia. As a South Australian, I experienced firsthand the effects of the blackout. On Wednesday 28 September 2016, I was one of 1.7 million South Australians who were thrust into darkness. I happened to be at the Murray Bridge Hotel, sitting at the front bar and talking to a constituent after a day on the hustings. We just laughed and continued to drink our beer, thinking that it was a short-term blackout. But then I began getting the rolling news via Facebook and other places. Who knew that we were looking at a blackout that would run for more than 24 hours? I received countless calls from constituents who were upset and angry. It then moved to fear and real concern. I remember thinking about all of the consequences I hadn't thought about, in terms of electricity reliability. It was a fair way into the blackout—it might have been 18 hours or so—when I got a phone call from a dairy farmer who said, 'Tony, we've got an animal health crisis on our hands.' I hadn't thought about dairy farmers up to that point, but of course they had a crisis! They had to milk their cows, and, if they couldn't, there would have been an animal health issue. They scrambled as quickly as they could to get generators. But I've got dairy farms in my electorate that milk 4,000 cows three times a day. That's a pretty big genset. That was incredibly difficult.

I just provide that anecdotal example of one of the challenges when you're up against the uncertainty of an unreliable electricity grid. Those opposite say it was a storm. I've heard that claim a number of times. Anyone would think that was the first storm we've ever had in this nation. We're a broad continent, a nation with a long history. We have transmission lines that traverse this continent of ours. Those opposite would have you believe this was the very first storm ever to occur, because this was the very first blackout of this nature. That's not true. Yes, there was an issue with extreme weather, no doubt. But the grid was so fragile it didn't have the ability to reboot, because it was overly reliant on intermittent energy. The member for Hindmarsh is leaving the chamber. I was hoping he would stay. I wanted to congratulate him on his time as shadow minister in this portfolio and wish him well with his future one, but I haven't been given that opportunity.

The blackouts affected everyone—businesses big and small. We have dealt with crises much more significant since then, but, at the time, I remember thinking it was about as bad as it can get. How can we lose power for 24 hours? How can I have constituents ringing me scared because they were driving through Adelaide in unfamiliar suburbs and the state had been plunged into darkness?

The Grid Reliability Fund will support our continued efforts to improve the reliability of the electricity market. It's about ensuring that not only do we not experience those blackouts again but businesses can plan for the future without it being an active consideration in their risk profile. I was speaking to executives at BHP after that blackout experience. They were discussing the likelihood of further blackouts, the measures they'd need to take and the cost of those blackouts. To be honest, it was affecting the forward projections of investment decisions. People were saying, 'Why would you invest in South Australia when it has the least reliable electricity grid in the country?'

In the time I've got left I want to give a shout-out to my good friend and colleague the federal minister for energy, Angus Taylor, who's done an exceptional job at taking this debate where it needs to go—practical, sensible solutions for a future where, inevitably, we will live in a low-carbon environment but in which we need affordable and reliable energy that doesn't see us effectively throw the jobs of Australian workers on the altar of ideology. We understand what's required from the basic utilities that power our nation—affordable, reliable energy.

I've said a bit about South Australia. I'm a proud South Australian. Of course, we experienced that horrible blackout caused by the fragility of the energy grid in South Australia and the overly heavy reliance on intermittent energy generators. But I want to reflect finally on the longest-serving South Australian Premier, Sir Thomas Playford. Sir Thomas was a man of great stature. He held the premiership for a very long time, aided, I think we can concede, by a gerrymander. He not only wired up regional South Australia; he built an economy on affordable—in that case, cheap—electricity. It turned communities like Millicent, in the south-east, from rural towns into rural cities, attracting investment on the back of that. I mention it only for this reason: if Sir Thomas Playford, in the forties and fifties, knew the importance of affordable electricity and if he could build a state on the back of it then my message to everyone in this place is: please don't throw that away. Don't dismiss how important that is. Affordable electricity is one of our competitive advantages; never give it up. (Time expired)

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