Melissa Price (Durack, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

I'm very pleased to rise today to second the motion from the member for Hughes because I'm deeply concerned about the stability of our electricity system under this government. On this side of the House we recognise you cannot have a strong and successful economy without a reliable energy system. Given the importance of the grid, the Australian Energy Markets Operator's dire warnings of blackouts this summer and beyond should concern everyone in this place. This warning should be enough to get those opposite to reflect on their ideological positions. The Labor Party took to the last election a nonsensical promise to convert our electricity market from a place of around 30 to 35 renewable energy to 82 per cent by 2030, which is only seven years away. I call it a nonsense promise because there was no road map then, nor indeed is there today, as to how we will get there. The Albanese government are determined to remove base load power such as coal and gas from the system and replace it with solar, wind and other renewable sources. The Minister for Climate Change and Energy repeatedly claims he's leading an economic transformation bigger than the industrial revolution, yet Labor have refused to have Treasury complete any modelling on its energy plan.

Australians are already paying some of the most expensive energy bills in the world under this government. This is despite their pre-election promise to lower electricity bills by $275. Yet it is clear Australians are paying more for the privilege of increased risks of blackouts. I understand that Labor choose to ignore questions surrounding detail, but surely the prospects of blackouts are enough to get this government to acknowledge it is putting us on an incredibly reckless path. How can this government possibly proceed with closing our base load power stations, and what is the solution—to install 22,000 solar panels a day and 40 giant wind turbines a month, attaching them to transmission lines that don't yet exist? They also pay lip service to renewable energy projects up and down the coast of Western Australia, many of them proposed to be in my electorate of Durack. However, what they don't tell you is that this energy is probably not going to be returned to the grid, lowering prices and making sure we have a reliable energy source, but rather used to create ammonia for export. I ask: is this a hydrogen revolution, or is it simply a hoax? We're told this rushed transition to renewables is needed to avert the worst climate scenarios, including significant increases to climate related deaths. Let me tell you: in Durack what saves lives are very good air conditioners. Air conditioners save older Australians, especially in my part of the world, where they have incredibly hot summers, but they're no good in a blackout. As we head towards summer, let's hope WA Premier Cook doesn't need to get coal from Newcastle, like he had to do last summer, to make sure we kept the lights on and we kept the air conditioners on in what was another hot summer in Durack.

Another nonsensical element of this transition is we are consistently told weather patterns will become harder to predict, yet this government plans to make our grid significantly more reliant on the weather. On this side of the House we understand renewables are of course an important part of the mix. In fact during our time in government we were able to boost the share of renewables in the system whilst keeping energy prices low. We led the world in rooftop solar, with in one in four households taking it up. But by going all in on renewables you are setting the grid up for failure. A successfully functioning electricity grid does not exist without base load power. The climate wars are over, but the energy wars have begun. The only way Australians are going to secure victory in this battle is if Labor move past their radical positions on energy. What is needed is an-all-of-the-above approach to this energy transition, not ministers like Chris Bowen picking and choosing which technology they like best and banning all the rest. We need all technologies—

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