Ted O'Brien (Fairfax, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

On behalf of the House of Representatives Standing Committee on the Environment and Energy, I present the committee's advice and report, incorporating dissenting reports, on the inquiry into the Australian Local Power Agency Bill 2021 and the Australian Local Power Agency (Consequential Amendments) Bill 2021, together with the minutes of the proceedings.

Report made a parliamentary paper in accordance with standing order 39(e).

by leave—Australia's regional communities want access to affordable, reliable and secure energy. As Australia's electricity generation mix changes and the grid transitions to a less carbonised future, consumers across Australia, not just in metropolitan areas, should have the opportunity to benefit from improvements to the electricity system. Regional and rural communities are keen to be involved in their cleaner energy future and have indicated that smaller scale energy projects, up to 10 megawatts, can struggle to attract development and progression.

The bills before the committee were introduced by the member for Indi and follow her own consultative process to address these perceived gaps in regional energy investment and supply. The bills are intended to give effect to the Local Power Plan, the LPP, to promote renewable energy generation and community power projects in regional, rural and remote Australia. The bills would establish the Australian Local Power Agency, the ALPA, as a new corporate Commonwealth entity responsible for driving investment in community energy projects and supporting regional communities in sharing the benefits of renewable energy.

The committee called for submissions on the bills in February 2021. The committee received 71 submissions and 13 supplementary submissions. The inquiry was also the subject of two email campaigns, yielding 1,001 contributions. The committee held a public hearing in August 2021, taking further evidence from 30 interested stakeholders, including from regional communities. Ultimately, based on the evidence received in the inquiry, the committee considers that the creation of another bureaucratic agency with all the costs and administration that entails would not be of benefit to Australia. In the committee's view, the Australian Renewable Energy Agency and the Clean Energy Finance Corporation are the appropriate agencies to undertake the work of providing support to renewable energy projects in Australia, including regional communities. For these reasons, the committee has recommended that the bills not be passed.

I thank my colleagues on the committee who actively participated in and brought their perspectives to this inquiry, in particular I acknowledge the work of the member for Indi in bringing these bills forward and participating as a supplementary member on the inquiry. I thank the secretariat for, again, their diligence and good work, and, finally, I thank all the individuals and organisations that contributed to the committee's inquiry through submissions and participation in public hearings. I commend the report to the House.

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