Madeleine King (Brand, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for Trade) Share this | Hansard source

This motion is a bit embarrassing, really, with its comments that the Morrison government is investing in renewable energy. The member for Mackellar is seeking that this House acknowledge Australia as a world leader in renewable energy, when less than a week ago the minister for resources and Northern Australia vetoed support for a significant job-creating renewable energy project. That's right, in this Morrison government's pitch to be a renewable energy powerhouse, they've actively overturned the decision of the board of the Northern Australia Infrastructure Facility by vetoing support for a windfarm in Far North Queensland.

This renewable energy project was set to create 250 jobs just south of Cairns, an area hit really hard by COVID restrictions and with a lack of an international tourism industry. What's worse, the minister and member for Hinkler is himself a Queenslander. Here he is, along with his whole Liberal-National government, rubbishing and vetoing renewable energy projects and destroying new job-creating projects in Queensland. Yet they have the gall to come in here with this private member's motion to try and promote their renewable energy legacy.

There isn't a legacy. In fact, this is the first time a ministerial veto has been used under the NAIF, and this minister chose to veto a windfarm. Minister Pitt said that as renewable energy sources such as wind and solar are mature technologies—the last time I looked, gas pipelines and gas-fired power stations were also mature technologies—the private sector will drive that development. That was the basis for rejecting this windfarm. Gas pipelines and gas-fired power stations are mature technologies. This government will throw hundreds of millions of dollars into gas related projects—that the private sector can't or won't fund because there is a likelihood they'll be stranded assets.

I am a supporter of the gas industry. I've said that openly. It is a transition fuel. It will be for many years to come. Yet this government ditches its support for any renewable energy projects and throws money elsewhere. This is not the Liberal government of old. These are not the liberal economists we expect to see in this building. They throw money around like it's theirs. They think taxpayers' money is theirs, and they don't support the job-creating projects people want.

The member for Mackellar is trying to say one thing in his electorate—and the member for Higgins, and every other Liberal and National member speaking want to say the same thing in their electorates—about how supportive the Liberals and Nationals are of renewable energy, while their minister vetoes support for a job-creating renewable energy project. As the Clean Energy Council chief executive Kane Thornton observed:

… investors … are increasingly frustrated by the politicisation of a sector that is at the forefront of job creation and economic revitalisation of regional Australia.

What an excellent point. This government is cutting funding to renewable energy projects that create jobs in regional Australia. Let that go on the record. Let's not forget what they are doing to regional Australia: sucking funding out and sucking jobs out.

Yesterday we saw an absolute train wreck of an interview, where the minister for resources treated battery technology like it was the Lord Voldemort of modern Australia—the storage capacity-enabling renewable energy projects that shall not be named! This is the minister for resources of Australia. He wants the Australian people to believe that his critical mineral strategy is an essential component for—guess what?—batteries, yet he won't support battery technology, just as this government won't support the windfarm in Queensland. I guess we should expect nothing less of Minister Pitt. After all, it was he who said that solar panels and lithium batteries could turn out to be this generation's asbestos. Good job.

We know this government is isolated on the world stage when it comes to real action on climate change. One hundred and twenty countries, 70 per cent of our trading partners, and every state and territory in the country has committed to a target of net zero emissions by 2050, but not this bunch of Luddites. The Business Council of Australia, the Australian Petroleum Production and Exploration Association, the National Farmers Federation, the Australian Industry Group, big resource companies—BHP, Woodside Energy, Rio Tinto, Santos—our biggest airline, our biggest banks, and countless experts and scientists have all committed to the target of net zero emissions by 2050. But not this government. No, they will drag Australia down and prevent us from being a renewable powerhouse, and shame on them.

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