Alison Byrnes (Cunningham, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

The opposition has engaged in hyperbole with this motion, when for 10 long years the coalition government did little to address the need for energy transition. Now in opposition they have the temerity to claim that any problems faced by the grid are entirely of the making of the Labor government. They were the ones that over three years ago promised $1 billion to support 3,800 megawatts of new generation but delivered not one dollar and not one kilowatt. They are the ones who have the track record of four gigawatts of capacity leaving the system but only one gigawatt put back in.

The Australian Energy Market Operator is responsible for the security of the national energy market, and they have undertaken extensive modelling in relation to the future energy needs of Australia. Yes, the experts and even the nightly weather reports are predicting this will be a hot and dry summer, but the government is working collaboratively with states and territories to prepare. AEMO's 2023 Electricity statement of opportunities report states in relation to this summer that approximately 3.4 gigawatts more of new generation and storage capacity from a range of technologies is expected to be available compared to what was available last summer.

The market is speaking. Green energy is cheaper. Only the opposition would consider that the government is following an ill-informed pathway by decarbonising the grid. We are acting to fix the mess left behind by those opposite, delivering overdue policy certainty and investing in the cheapest form of energy—renewables. We're making up for a decade of inaction with a $20 billion Rewiring the Nation fund. We are implementing the Capacity Investment Scheme to increase new dispatchable capacity and to ensure reliability. We delivered more than $1.7 billion for the Energy Savings Package in the last budget, for energy savings upgrades for homes, business and social housing, to cut bills and reduce pressure on the grid.

In the electorate of Cunningham, steps are being taken to assist Australia to build a strong and clean energy future. A proposed offshore wind zone is currently out for consultation, and I had many conversations in the recess with my community about our future energy needs. I have had many of those conversations with young people in my community, who are particularly concerned about our environment. They are a generation that have seen nothing but the effects of climate change: volatile temperature differences, fires, floods, erosion and habitat loss. This worries them. They know that we need to look at new ways to generate strong, reliable and renewable energy. Businesses in my community have sent me the very clear message that in the future they need strong, reliable and renewable energy. Major manufacturers know that they are going to need renewables to produce their products, not just because of the cost but also because the market is going to demand clean and renewable products.

BlueScope Steel recently said they'll need 15 times the current amount of electricity to transform the Port Kembla Steelworks and make the same volume of steel using hydrogen powered direct reduced iron-making, or DRI, technology. BlueScope Steel currently uses 750,000 megawatt hours of grid supplied electricity across the steelworks per year. This equates to the usage of about 150,000 households, and they're going to need 15 times that to make green steel. The offshore wind proposal for the Illawarra, if implemented at the current size, would generate enough electricity to power 3.4 million houses. BlueScope Steel will need about two-thirds of that amount of energy to keep our local steelworks open and producing green steel in the future. BlueScope currently employs 3,500 people directly in the Illawarra and is responsible for a total of 9,000 jobs in the region, including contractors and suppliers.

Also locally, Australian Industrial Power, a subsidiary of Squadron Energy, is developing a 635 megawatt Port Kembla energy hub. While this project is in the early stages of development, it is indicative of the steps being taken by private investors as we move to new energy sources. It is renewable forms of power, not just any old power, which are going to sustain and grow thousands of jobs in my local community. Future energy generation will not be a task for a few communities in Australia; it will be a responsibility for every community and every household.

See this speech in context