Susan Templeman (Macquarie, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

I'm so pleased to be supporting the Offshore Electricity Infrastructure Legislation Amendment Bill 2022. I was delighted when the previous government introduced legislation to at least get offshore wind starting, although there were many gaps in that legislation that this bill seeks to correct to ensure that the essential things are in place for offshore wind projects to be able to start.

I think it's really important to understand why offshore wind is so important. It is part of a suite of renewable energy initiatives. The energy initiatives that we have are about cleaner, cheaper and more secure energy. Our budget last night outlined our spending on so many of those, which will really give people a sense of hope that we are moving into this renewable energy growth that we know has just been waiting for a decade to be unleashed.

For my own electorate, it means really practical things, like community batteries for East Blaxland and Hobartville, which will help them significantly reduce their power costs. There are also energy efficiency grants for small and medium businesses. They're some of the really practical things we are doing.

This legislation is about something that people say they want governments to do, and that is to think longer term and put things in place that will see us into the future. That's exactly what this legislation does.

I sometimes say to people, 'Why am I so excited about offshore wind?' I want to explain that. There is enough wind potential just off Australia's coasts to power our electricity grid several times over. If all the current proposed wind farms were built, their combined energy capacity would be greater than all of Australia's coal-fired power stations combined. One of the key comparisons we find is with the United Kingdom. The UK are an absolute world leader in offshore wind. They got onto it long before the previous government even realised it existed, I think. They have more installed capacity than any other country. Already offshore wind there powers the equivalent of 4.5 million homes annually, generating for them about 10 per cent of their electricity. But, at that scale, it would be much more impactful for us. The cost of new offshore wind has fallen there by 50 per cent since 2015. It is now one of the lowest-cost options for new power in the UK. It's cheaper than new gas and cheaper than nuclear power. This is the opportunity we have and that we are finally seizing in having proper legislation that allows for these offshore wind projects to progress.

Interestingly, only last year we didn't even have a process to allow for these projects to be built. I know that, for years, investors, energy experts—people I worked with in my life prior to politics—have been desperate to see a regulatory framework for the offshore wind industry. That's why the progress we've made in the last 12 months, after much urging for many years by those on our side, has been really heartening.

We do have catching up to do, and that's what this legislation will help put in place. Since coming to government we've taken a few steps in this offshore wind area, and one of those is to outline proposals for the first six offshore wind projects. They include a 200-turbine wind farm off the Gippsland coast, which will generate jobs as well as electricity—that's the bonus that we have. It really will help shore-up our national energy security grid. Here's what I want you to think about, Madam Deputy Speaker: just one rotation of one offshore wind turbine provides as much energy as an average rooftop solar installation generates in a day. Think about that: one rotation does what an entire rooftop solar installation does in a day; that's the scale of it. That's why we have the capacity to be an energy superpower, exporting the excess energy that we create.

Anyone who has heard the Minister for Climate Change and Energy speak about this will know his passion. I know that my community in the Blue Mountains, who got to meet with him in person in the lead-up to the election, saw his absolute commitment to this. I think what we're demonstrating in these first few months is the pace at which it needs to happen, because, sadly, nothing in this space has been happening with any sense of urgency or pace for a decade.

When we look at all the proposals—there's the Gippsland one, off the coast of Victoria, and there are the Hunter and Illawarra ones, off the coast of New South Wales, much closer to home for me—I think we all recognise that there's a need to develop these industries in renewables in places where there will be transitioning from the old, traditional sources to these newer ones, and I really welcome that. All of the sites, including the one in Western Australia, off Bunbury, and in Tasmania, have been chosen because of their good-to-excellent wind resources, their existing energy-generation facilities and their connections to the transmission network, as well as their location near ports or industrial hubs. It's really sensible thinking about the most practical places to put them. The legislation that we're talking about will allow those projects to take the next steps.

One thing that is really important in the work we're doing around offshore wind power is to think about the way communities get consulted. Wind farms will have impacts. Even though these start at about 5.5 kilometres offshore, we have to be very mindful of the environmental and human impacts they will have, including impacts on other people using those waters. Our approach will always be to have genuine, open consultation. Certainly, as someone who has been part of a so-called consultation over a new airport in Western Sydney, I have been highly critical of the processes the previous government allowed to happen there. The consultation was not genuine; it was tick-and-flick stuff. As a community member, I will be calling for, at every stage, open consultation, and I know that's what anybody connected to these projects has a right to expect as well.

The other part of all of this is how it fits into the big picture. These projects are really exciting, but I can imagine people saying: 'They're going to take a long time. What's in it for me? How does this actually affect my life, as someone who's looking at my power bill and thinking oh my goodness, the cost of power has gone up, how am I going to cope with that?' We are really aware of the increased costs of power. I think it's very disappointing that the previous government hid those likely cost rises from people, using regulation to hide and keep information from people in the lead-up to the election. The news might not be what people want to hear, but it's really important that we tell it like it is. Then we can work through the pathway to resolve problems and find some relief. We do this with a view not just to short-term sugar hits but to get the systems in place in the long-term, so that, ultimately, we end up with cleaner, cheaper and more secure energy for many, many years to come.

Offshore wind is really key in that whole process. We are doing it because it gets us fabulous, huge amounts of renewable energy. That's great for the environment, but it is absolutely vital in bringing additional supply into our electricity market. We all know that that is a key to getting lower prices.

We won't hide from the fact that energy hikes are hurting people, and we will be upfront about the reasons why. As the Business Council of Australia says, it's the impact of the Ukrainian war—global forces—but, also, as they describe, 15 years of domestic energy policy chaos. That chaos has ended. This government has already demonstrated that that chaos has ended, and that we are putting forward sensible, deliverable, and pragmatic energy plans and, really importantly, we are working with the states, because a lot of the rollout of this happens at a state level.

As the Prime Minister and Treasurer have both said in the last 24 hours, we will work through these latest forecasts and expectations of what the prices will be doing around the energy market. We will be looking at regulatory and other steps that we can take. I certainly know how much pain is likely to be felt in the homes of people in the Hawkesbury and the Blue Mountains in my electorate when they open those bills. I say to my community: I would really like to hear about the circumstances that you're facing, so that we are able to understand the different impacts this is having across a wide range of different families in different situations. That's the only way that we will be able to work through and come up with a pathway to provide support to families to get through this. In the medium and longer term, we know there are many steps being put in place, like the community batteries, like the solar banks, like offshore wind and other increases in renewable energy. But we know there is going to be pain felt between now and then, and I want to share your stories so that we can make sure we put everything possible in place to support people.

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