Darren Chester (Gippsland, National Party, Shadow Minister for Regional Education) Share this | Hansard source

I welcome the opportunity to speak in this debate on the Net Zero Economy Authority Bill 2024 and related bill because this is a critical issue. It is a critical issue because there is obviously a direct correlation between our national security and our energy security. We need to get the settings right. We need to be rational and balanced. We need to get the right policy settings for the longer term in this place.

Sadly, the bills before the House today reveal the heart and soul of the modern Labor Party. This was once a party with connections to blue-collar workers and hardworking Australian families. Now it's a party which is being driven by left-wing ideologues and a weird and quite absurd belief that Canberra knows best. I have a little warning for those opposite: you simply can't out-green the Greens. No matter how hard you try, they will never be satisfied. Just listen to the extremist language from the Greens over the last couple of years. The unhinged rhetoric, like that the planet is boiling, is only adding to the climate anxiety which exists among many young people in Australia today. A balanced debate is needed.

A little reality check is important as well: there is no Australian solution to what is undoubtedly a global challenge. We need to be taking action from a position of national strength. In the rush to secure some sort of political advantage, we have seen extreme and outrageous claims often being made in this debate when all Australians want are facts. They want us to get on with the job of practical action and to provide reliable, affordable and sustainable energy at the least cost to the environment.

To manage a problem, first of all, you have to measure it and understand your capacity as a nation to actually respond. I asked the federal Parliamentary Library to research Australia's percentage of contribution to global greenhouse gas emissions. It advised me that currently we are the world's 14th largest emitter, with 1.3 per cent of the total emissions. The remaining three coal-fired power stations in my electorate of Gippsland make up 7.8 per cent of that 1.3 per cent total, and they still provide more than 60 per cent of Victoria's energy needs. Those three power stations have underpinned the growth of Victoria and the ability of the national electricity market because of the reliability and affordability offered by coal-fired power. I have said many times that the Latrobe Valley can be very proud of its contribution to our nation, and the power station workers and their families should be respected as a transition to alternative energy sources occurs over the next 20 years. But there is no Gippsland solution. There is no Latrobe Valley solution. There is no Australian solution to this global challenge. That's why we need a balanced approach which is synchronised with international commitments. Decisions which undermine our energy security will impact on our national security, so it's critical we get the policy settings right.

The member for Flynn was right; the level of duplication of the proposed Net Zero Economy Authority's responsibility to promote new investment in the net zero transition and existing Commonwealth entities is beyond a joke and will not be supported by those on the side of the House. He quite rightly asked, 'How many federal agencies tasked with renewable financing does the Commonwealth actually require?' This approach—the Labor Party's approach, backed by the Greens, focused on facilitating investment consistent with net zero ambitions—also leans on this government's preference for trying to pick winners with its Canberra-knows-best mentality rather than genuine investment facilitation and jobs creation. It is a top-down approach which has been proven to fail on many occasions.

You have to ask: when was the last time Canberra picked a winner that didn't involve regional Australia losing out? When Canberra starts picking winners based on political science, the regions always suffer. It's extremely disappointing to me that we now see in the Latrobe Valley the Japanese government and industry leaders demonstrating more support for the Latrobe Valley based hydrogen energy sector than our own Prime Minister. Despite the success of the Hydrogen Energy Supply Chain Pilot program, which attracted seed funding in its initial stages from the former coalition government and the state Labor Party, today's Labor Party is openly hostile to any alternative uses for the brown coal in the Latrobe Valley. This is an incredible natural resource and we should be open minded to alternative uses in the future as technology develops, not allowing Canberra to dictate to the people of Latrobe Valley what their future jobs might look like. Producing hydrogen for transport needs can help reduce global emissions, and it's Japan taking the lead; it's Japan taking the HESC project to the next stage.

Instead of supporting this innovative approach, the Prime Minister has buckled to the demands from the Greens and turned his back on the hardworking families looking for energy and job security in the Latrobe Valley. In a deal with the Greens, the Albanese government has specifically ruled out coal, gas and native timber projects receiving any funding support under the $15 billion National Reconstruction Fund. This fund was meant to help diversify regional economies and is designed to attract private investment to make it easier to commercialise innovation and technology. But the modern Labor Party, driven by those left-wing ideologues, has ruled out projects which involve coal.

It's also ruled out projects which involve investment in the native timber sector. Even the United Nations, the Australian Forest Products Association and many other organisations acknowledge that sustainable harvesting of hardwood timber is a way to sequester carbon; it's actually good for the planet because it's the ultimate renewable resource. Just last weekend I had the pleasure of being in St Kilda, and I checked out the $53 million St Kilda Pier redevelopment. It's a great project, a fabulous project. But imagine my disgust and dismay on finding out that the hardwood timber which is going to feature on the decking and be quite an iconic part of this magnificent part of the St Kilda foreshore is going to be Darwin stringybark sourced from Queensland. Timber is going to travel at least 2,000 kilometres to make it to Melbourne to be included in this project, yet just down the road, in Gippsland, the Allan government and the Andrews government banned the harvesting of all native hardwood timber—but they are still quite happy to take hardwood timber from other states. What we're doing in Victoria is not using less timber—we're still using hardwood timber—but taking it from other places. That's the problem with timber: you use either your own or someone else's, and 'someone else's' in this case is timber from Tasmania, New South Wales, Queensland and a whole host of countries with lower environmental protocols than our own state.

It's the same—and this is the broader debate about net zero and caring for the environment—with the new vehicle efficiency standards, which are part of the government's plan to reduce emissions. Most of the costs will be borne by regional people. This government, this Prime Minister, came to power promising openness and transparency. Then we saw the tactic, in the last sitting period, of muzzling all debate in the House of Representatives on the vehicle efficiency standards legislation. This is the car and ute tax which all Australians will be forced to pay under this government. Instead of hearing the concerns and suggestions from the opposition, the government acted like some sort of tinpot dictatorship and silenced all its critics in this chamber.

Australians have a right to know what the impacts will be on them under this Labor-Greens plan to introduce a new tax on cars and utes. There have been estimates that, for some of Australia's most popular cars—the highest selling vehicles in this nation—their sticker price, when you drive them out of the yard, will increase by tens of thousands, certainly thousands, of dollars. In the middle of a cost-of-living crisis, that makes no sense whatsoever.

Who are the people that are buying these four-wheel drives, SUVs and people movers? Well, they're my people. They're the people in Gippsland with little choice but to buy those types of vehicles because they don't have the luxury of taxpayer funded trams, buses and trains for their transport. They rely on their personal vehicles, and their vehicles are critical. The choices they make are critical, whether they are about their workplace, if they're tradespeople, or their source or recreation, if they want to tow a boat of a horse float. The way they stay connected to their families and friends is through these larger vehicles, and they are the ones who will be paying more under this vehicle efficiency standard.

But the minister and the Prime Minister refuse to release any modelling. They refuse to tell the truth to the Australian people about what the actual cost will be to the sticker price when you drive out the gate in those vehicles. Everyday Australians just want the minister to be honest. Just be honest and tell us how much more we will pay. In the middle of a cost-of-living crisis, how much more will I pay for my SUV, for my people mover, for my tools of trades as a tradesperson in regional Australia. By hiding the modelling, what are they actually hiding from Australian families?

Madam Deputy Speaker Vamvakinou, let me assure you that regional Australians hate this policy. They hate this policy. They understand that they're going to pay more for their family vehicles, and they don't want to do that in the middle of a cost-of-living crisis. They don't have the inner-city privilege of public transport. They rely entirely on their own private transport, and they know they're going to pay more for those vehicles in the future under this government. Families who are already struggling with a cost-of-living crisis don't want to see an additional tax on their favourite vehicles, but they do want the Prime Minister and the minister to be open and transparent with them. Tell them the truth. Tell them how much it's going to actually cost them when they drive those vehicles out the gate.

The absolute worst part of this policy is the way it does actively discriminate against the people that are represented in this place. It's designed—it's a deliberate design measure—to target regional Australians and their way of life, and, quite fairly, they are furious about the position they're being placed in by this government.

I believe the vast majority of Australians accept the science around climate change. I also believe that those in my community and those throughout many other regional communities respect the natural environment. They are actually the ones who join Landcare and Coastcare and do the practical work, the practical action, to look after the environment of that area, and they believe our nation has to do its share of the heavy lifting. But when we continue to have those opposite and those on the crossbench making ridiculous claims and political points that nothing has been done on climate change for the past decade, it does create anxiety. It's unnecessary, and it's actually dividing our nation in a way which is not required, when we understand that the vast majority do want to see action on reducing our emissions.

The previous government had a proud record in terms of practical action to support the environment. The previous government supported investment in major renewable energy projects like Snowy 2.0 and put in place the Technology Investment Roadmap, with $22 billion for new energy technologies. It's also important to note that we, as a nation, have continued to meet and exceed our global emissions reductions target. Australians can be proud of that; Australians should be proud of that. We have reduced our emissions faster than comparable economies like Canada, Japan and New Zealand. It is simply ridiculous to suggest there was a decade of inaction when we continued to meet our international obligations. The previous government worked with states and communities to see Australian become a massive investor in household solar and large-scale renewables, and this was all done without economy- and job-destroying taxes.

Unfortunately, it's the same with the current debate on nuclear energy. The government, the Greens and the teals would rather yell and scream and make outrageous claims to silence their critics than actually engage in a rational conversation with the Australian people. From my perspective, I have an open mind when it comes to this public debate regarding nuclear energy in Australia. I think it's time for a calm and rational conversation with the Australian people which is based on facts, on technology, on environmental science—not on hyperbole, not on feud campaigns and not on political science. My region of Gippsland has a proud heritage as an energy-producing region, has a high level of what I'd call energy literacy in the community. People understand what is a complex energy trifecta of affordability, reliability and environmental sustainability. They want to be trusted with the information and trusted with the facts. They want to make their own decisions on what is the best way forward not only for our committee but also for our nation.

Just as we are considering large-scale renewable projects with offshore wind farms, energy from waste in Maryvale, the coal-to-hydrogen project and the potential recycling of coal-fired power station biofuels, we need to take a pragmatic approach to this nuclear debate. If there's bipartisan support—which there is—for nuclear-powered submarines as part of the AUKUS agreement, we should be able to have a rational debate in this place and in the committee about the merits of nuclear technology to help meet our future energy needs in Australia. There are dozens of advanced countries throughout the world which utilise nuclear technology already, and Australia remains the third-largest exporter of uranium to help power those economies.

It's premature to be ruling regions in or out as potential locations for a nuclear power station, because there is simply no proposal on the table right now. But as a matter of principle, I would say this: you would need to be able to demonstrate to a potential host community—including Gippsland—that any safety concerns can be ameliorated and that there were direct social and economic benefits to that community. We are continuing to have this conversation in my community. We recognise that the Latrobe Valley has some strategic advantages owing to our existing transmission infrastructure and our skilled local workforce, but if we're going to host a large-scale energy infrastructure in the future—whether it's nuclear, renewables or biofuels—there has to be respect shown to local communities and direct economic benefits for the region. I urge those opposite to engage in a constructive, rational and sensible way on the energy debate.

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