Anthony Albanese (Grayndler, Australian Labor Party, Leader of the Opposition) Share this | Hansard source

If the member for Gippsland gives a character assessment of the Deputy Prime Minister again, we might even hang around to listen to the member for Gippsland on this issue! The answer is blowing in the wind, but it's also in the sky, in the form of the sun. Today we were at a community solar farm run by a cooperative here, just off Majura Road. That is powering 260 homes here in the ACT. This legislation is a recognition by the government—perhaps belatedly, in the pre-election period—that maybe there is something in this renewable energy stuff after all. The Prime Minister, of course, said that renewable energy targets were nuts. He also said that the use of electric vehicles would end the weekend, and he also said that batteries, which of course can store renewable energy, are as useful as the Big Banana or the Big Prawn. He was vociferous in his opposition to net zero by 2050, and he continued to run scare campaigns.

It's interesting that, in spite of the fact that some of the rhetorical position has changed on net zero by 2050—to which wind energy, including offshore wind, can make a major contribution—the Prime Minister continues to try to run a scare campaign at the same time. The big problem for the government in electorates like Mackellar, North Sydney, Higgins, Goldstein and Kooyong is that he undermines the pretence of caring about renewable energy and a transition to a clean energy future by the absurd scare campaign which, at the same time, he's trying to run. So he's trying to do both, and that will not be effective, because they're onto him.

We think that this bill, the Offshore Electricity Infrastructure Bill 2021, is a good idea. We'll be voting for it. We called for it a long time ago. This nation has abundant wind resources, and we should be delivering a framework for their exploitation at the earliest opportunity. We have the opportunity to be a renewable energy superpower for the world, as Saudi Arabia is for fossil fuels. We see that with wind projects like Big Kennedy and Little Kennedy in the electorate of the member for Kennedy. I travelled there with Bob Katter, looking at those jobs, which are driving growth in regional towns like Hughenden. When you go into a town like Hughenden and you go to the pub there, as I have done with Bob Katter, you see people who've grown up and lived in that community, some for generations, and who, with projects like Big Kennedy and Little Kennedy—which is particularly appropriate, as the wind comes down the cape and off the gulf—are positioned in such a way as to really maximise the economic benefit.

Or you go to Kidston, a project in which an old, abandoned mine is being used for hydro storage. If you look at the major solar projects that we looked at in North Queensland, you know that there is enormous opportunity with renewables to create jobs, to lower energy prices and, therefore, to make us more competitive. But not for those opposite. The latest example of the childish nonsense they carry on with occurred yesterday, when we saw the Prime Minister putting a mobile phone up here, as if there are people in this parliament who oppose mobile phones. It's a bizarre position that he finds himself in.

I'll give him the big tip as he goes to Glasgow, the town which gave the world Billy Connolly. They do have a sense of humour, but they won't laugh in a positive way—they will laugh in an uncomfortable way—if he starts to do some of the nonsensical, rhetorical positioning that we saw in the announcement, or nonannouncement, on Tuesday, which included no new policies and 94 mentions of plans without actually producing a plan. This is the last opportunity today for him to produce the modelling, which he says has been done. We don't see what that modelling is. How does offshore wind fit into the model that the government has, for example?

All we got on Tuesday were two new initiatives. One was the promotion of the minister for resources into the cabinet and an increase in his salary—the minister for resources who has been out there saying that renewables don't work when the wind isn't blowing and the sun isn't shining, who apparently hasn't heard of batteries and who, as I've said, must get a real shock when he turns on the tap and water flows out, even though it's not raining outside. This must be seen as another miracle for those opposite. That's one of the two initiatives that we've seen.

The second initiative, of course, is that the Productivity Commission is going to have a review every five years. They'll produce a document saying how it's all going. That does show that they've got a sense of humour, because the Deputy Prime Minister, who trumpets this as one of the big breakthroughs that were got by the National Party, has said that he uses Productivity Commission reports 'when I run out of toilet paper'. That is the respect that he's given to the Productivity Commission. Now he says: 'Guess what people in regional Australia? I won't show you the modelling. I won't show you any of the detail. I won't attend the press conference with the Prime Minister, but I've got you a Productivity Commission report.' It's quite extraordinary.

The truth is, though, that, if we harness renewable energy, we need to do it in an appropriate way. I don't support wind farms off every coast. There's obviously a whole range of projects that would be entirely inappropriate. But, with this government, who knows? The PEP 11 project—the idea that you'd have oil drilling off the coasts of the electorate of the member for Kingsford Smith; Maroubra Beach; Terrigal; the beautiful Avoca Beach, on the Central Coast; Merewether, in Newcastle; Manly; Freshwater and Dee Why is anathema. Similarly, even though offshore wind wouldn't produce the same level of damage to the pristine environment that something like oil drilling might, it wouldn't be appropriate to have offshore wind in those sites either. But who knows with this government? Who knows where this could go?

When you are so obsessed with being defined by what you're against, it's difficult to advance in a way in which you actually promote support for what you're for.

That's why, after nine years, this legislation—just like everything else this government does—is too late. They have denied this nation first-mover advantage over that nine years of inaction. So we do need to catch up. Around the world, more than 35 gigawatts of offshore wind capacity are in operation, with expected increases to 80 gigawatts by 2030 and 2,000 gigawatts by 2050. Australia's entire national energy market now, in comparison, is about 55 gigawatts. There are more than a dozen offshore wind proposals in Australia and appropriate sites that could power substantial parts of our country—and create jobs; that is important.

I'll give you the big tip as well about what we need to do, which is fix the grid. That's what our Rewiring the Nation proposal will do—a $20 billion fund to make sure that we actually plug in the energy that's being created so that you have the most efficient operation of the grid. If you speak to anyone in the energy sector they'll tell you that this is the most significant thing you can do to drive down our emissions, but it will also drive down energy prices and make the system operate more efficiently. But it is beyond the capacity of those opposite to do that, which is why we'll need to do it if we're successful in the next election campaign. It will be critical.

We have, of course, a range of other plans, including community batteries; that's what we were talking about today with the solar farm operators. They're in the ACT. We have a plan to make sure that Australians can benefit from the jobs that will be created through new energy apprenticeships.

We have a plan for the National Reconstruction Fund—$15 billion. How do you take existing industries and transform them so that they can become more efficient? How do you create new industries as well? We have abundant resources in this country. The Liberal-National Party model is to dig them up, send them overseas, get things made and then buy them back once the value's been added. That's not our model. Our model is that, wherever possible, we should manufacture things here, create jobs here and create value here, and that is what we are absolutely determined to do and that's what the National Reconstruction Fund will look at.

New industries—why is it that we produce everything that goes into a battery but we aren't making more of them here? Why is it that we aren't producing wind turbines here on a mass scale, like we used to? They've actually departed, under this government. The two institutions, above anywhere else in the world, that we should be proud of in terms of breakthroughs in PV solar technology are the Australian National University and the University of New South Wales. But what has happened as a result is that the value's been produced somewhere else. China or other countries overseas have received the value of those scientific breakthroughs. We want to commercialise those opportunities, going forward. But here that will be hard with a government that just isn't fair dinkum.

Tonight, when the Prime Minister leaves Australia, we'll have the Australian politics version of the whoopee cushion in charge. Makes a lot of noise, is uncomfortable about that noise that's there—but he will be in charge of the country. And he doesn't support net zero by 2050; he's opposed to it. So how fair dinkum are they going to be? At least Senator Canavan, the Productivity Commission guy, is fair dinkum and honest about his backward view of the world. But Australia can't trust a government that isn't fair dinkum on these issues. (Time expired)

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