Mrs Bronwyn Bishop (Mackellar, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I move:

That this bill be now read a second time.

When I presented my private member’s bill entitled Geothermal and other Renewable Energy (Emerging Technologies) Amendment Bill 2009 and explanatory memorandum, I did so because in moving amendments to the Renewable Energy (Electricity) Amendment Bill 2009, which had been dealt with earlier, the amendments which I included in my bill had been rejected by the government as amendments to that bill. The two amendments relate to the fact that we believe that there should be room left for particularly geothermal, wind and wave power to get access to the 20 per cent target for renewable energy sources and not be crowded out by wind power in particular.

With regard to the second amendment, that related to allowing relief to be given to food processing activities so that the additional costs, which would hurt farmers and the income of farmers, would be covered in the same way that costs in aluminium and other industries are covered. In this context, it is very important to realise that in Australia our baseload power comes from black coal and brown coal. In fact, 75.6 per cent of all electricity production in Australia comes from coal, 54.5 per cent black coal and 21.1 per cent brown coal. After that, there is 15 per cent from gas, 1.8 per cent from oil and 7.6 per cent from renewables. That is targeted to rise to 20 per cent.

We also should remember that the original Renewable Energy (Electricity) Amendment Bill 2009 was coupled with the ETS establishing bill, the bill that imposes the cap and trade scheme and indeed imposes a new ETS tax, a broad based consumption tax that will be in addition to the GST and which will tax everything. In the much heralded negotiations on the government’s bill establishing the ETS—I think to call carbon a pollutant is a misnomer, so I will not do it—it is important to realise that the imposition of this new tax is really going to hurt people. If the government’s current bill went through in its present form the imposition on Australia’s economy would be untenable. The impact on jobs, the cost of living and the standard of living would be such that the people would really start to hurt. This debate is only now being embraced.

It is very important that we realise that in the negotiations that are taking place we are also seeking to have 94.5 per cent relief from the ETS tax for the food processing industry. So it is perfectly consistent that I should be moving the second reading of this bill, as it will give relief from the renewable energy target to the food processing industry as well to protect farmers from the adverse consequences of the renewable energy target. The second part of the bill makes sure that access is possible for newly emerging technologies.

In the very short minute that I have left, it is perhaps important to put on the record some of the terms that are being bandied about and just what they mean. A paper has been prepared in the Parliamentary Library by the science, technology, environment and resource section which has nuggets of gold in it which are very important to us. The extraction of energy from coal by burning only releases about 30 per cent of the coal’s intrinsic chemical energy. It would thus appear that there is the potential to develop more effective ways of generating power from coal, which would then reduce the amount of it that you had to use in order to produce the same amount of energy. The paper gives a very good definition of what baseload is and the continuity that is needed in order for us to run the sort of society that we have. I commend my bill to the House and I hope that we are able to have a vote upon it.

Mark Dreyfus (Isaacs, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

We oppose the Geothermal and other Renewable Energy (Emerging Technologies) Amendment Bill 2009. This bill is a pretence by the opposition that it is in any way genuinely concerned about either renewable energy targets or renewable energy sources or indeed tackling climate change at all. The opposition’s real level of concern about renewable energy was shown by its attitude to climate change and its attitude to renewable energy while in government. That attitude was to do next to nothing about it, to refuse to ratify the Kyoto protocol and to refuse to engage with dangerous climate change in any real way.

I want to give some context to this particular private member’s bill. The government’s package of legislation, the renewable energy target legislation package—which consisted of the Renewable Energy (Electricity) Amendment Bill 2009 and the Renewable Energy (Electricity) (Charge) Amendment Bill 2009passed through the parliament in August and became law in September. Both these pieces of legislation are amendments to the Renewable Energy (Electricity) Act 2000. It is important to note that context, because what the piece of year 2000 legislation did was to establish the present mandatory renewable energy target scheme at 9,500 gigawatt hours.

The context for this private member’s bill and the failed amendments that were put forward by the opposition when the government’s legislation was being debated is that the government has massively expanded the renewable energy target by four times the figure established by the former government—from 9,500 gigawatt hours to 45,000 gigawatt hours by 2020. That vastly expanded renewable energy target will encourage the deployment of renewable energy without picking winners within the target, which is the intent of the private member’s bill that has been forward by the member for Mackellar.

The other point to note—and this is what the opposition and the member for Mackellar are refusing to engage with—is that it is not merely the size of renewable energy target that will encourage a whole range of technologies, including wind, biomass, solar and geothermal energy. The other part of the scheme—and these measures fit together—is the Carbon Pollution Reduction Scheme. That scheme, when it is passed by this parliament, will be the primary driver of renewable energy and will work with the renewable energy target to provide significant support and encouragement for the development of new technologies.

The renewable energy target, which this private members bill—if not rejected—would tinker with, is complemented by a whole range of government programs that are providing direct support for the development, commercialisation and deployment of emerging renewable technologies. I will mention just a few of them, because this is the context in which the opposition are putting forward these tinkerings with the renewable energy target and its program. In the 2009-10 budget it is worth noting that the government committed some $15 billion to climate change related initiatives. One of the most significant of those is the $4.5 billion clean energy initiative, which was announced in the budget. That includes $1.6 billion to support research and development of solar technologies as well as $465 million to establish the Australian Centre for Renewable Energy. I could mention also the $100 million for the Australian Solar Institute or the $480 million for the National Solar Schools Program.

All of these measures show that this government—unlike the former government, which in its 11½ years was unable to come to grips with the need for firm government action in respect of climate change—is committed to reducing Australia’s greenhouse gas emissions and to engaging with dangerous climate change. The renewable energy target that has been set represents a massive increase on the one that the former government was content to leave in place for the whole of its term in government after bringing it in in 2000. The massive increase will, in itself, encourage the development of new technologies, as will the complementary effect of the carbon pollution reduction scheme, as I have already indicated.

Bruce Scott (Maranoa, National Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Order! The time allotted for this debate has expired. The debate is adjourned and the resumption of the debate will be made an order of the day for the next sitting.