Anne Webster (Mallee, National Party, Shadow Assistant Minister for Regional Health) Share this | Hansard source

Most Australians will be shocked at the discovery of the $60 billion black hole in the middle of the Albanese government's 2030 renewable energy plan! CSIRO's own chief economist acknowledges that all existing generation storage and transmission capacity up to 2030 is not factored into the costs. But those costs will have to be paid for by energy bill payers. Those so-called sunk costs will be very real to the families and businesses who will see them on their energy bills.

The GenCost study that Labor has relied on to cost its energy plan somehow magically neglects to include the massive costs of storage and transmission, including Snowy 2.0, the Kurri Kurri gas plant, significant integrated system plan transmission projects, the Tasmania Battery of the Nation and the Illawarra gas peaking plant. Also omitted are the enormous grid-wide costs of integrating homes into the new renewables network, including household batteries and solar panels. It beggars belief.

It needs to be said loud and clear that the government has been misleading Australians by misrepresenting the true cost of its energy plan. We cannot allow this dissembling to go on unchallenged. The government and the minister must come clean with the Australian people about how much they are going to have to pay in the mad rush to meet their 43 per cent emissions reduction target, their 82 per cent renewable energy target and the impact of the carbon tax by 2030.

The government must stop cooking the books and instead adopt the approach of the coalition. We advocate for an all-of-the-above strategy when it comes to energy. This approach acknowledges the necessity of considering a mix of different technologies, including renewables, to meet our energy needs.

Labor, on the other hand, have gone all-in on renewables only, and the energy users of this country will have to pay for it. The massive transmission networks they plan to build to deliver the renewable energy to market—including the hulking VNI West transmission route, right through the middle of my electorate of Mallee—are not included in their calculations, and yet reports cost AEMO's extended option 5A plan at a mere $11 billion during the construction phase alone. That will have to be paid for, again, through family energy bills. And that doesn't include the huge social, environmental and personal costs that communities in the path of the transmission lines and in the shadow of windfarms will have to pay. I have been consulting with countless people in the Mallee on these issues for months, and it's fair to say that most of them are distraught. They will see their prime agricultural land ripped up as transmission lines are bulldozed through. Prime wetlands will be destroyed, the environment irrevocably changed and endangered species threatened. And Labor's response to all of this is to plough on regardless, with little attempt to secure the social licence they promised to deliver. So often it is regional communities that pay the price for Labor's metrocentric policies.

If Labor weren't so ideologically blinkered, they might see the benefit of the all-of-the-above option that we in the coalition are advocating for. We need a properly balanced energy mix which includes robust baseload power delivery. We have already seen in Germany and elsewhere what happens when an energy grid is too heavily dependent on renewables—what happens when the sun isn't shining and the wind isn't blowing: the lights go out, that's what happens. That's why the Nationals have long been advocating for a proper review of nuclear energy. Nuclear energy is used by more than 30 countries around the world, including the US, Canada and the UK. That's despite the fact that Labor keep talking about it, literally, as, 'There is nothing to see here,' with new projects and small modular reactors.

In Ontario, for example, nuclear comprises about 60 per set of its grid and energy bills are half the cost of Australia's. That surely tells us everything we need to know. I call on the Labor government to be honest with the Australian people about the true cost of their renewable energy plan, and I call on the minister to consider all available energy generation options. It is not fair that families and businesses, particularly in the regions, will have to fork out to pay for this ill-considered policy.

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