Craig Kelly (Hughes, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

It is a great pleasure to continue my remarks on the Australian Renewable Energy Agency (Repeal) Bill, especially on Wattle Day, the first day of Spring, and especially after such a long and cold winter.

Last week in my remarks on this bill, I was making the point that it provides savings of $1.3 billion to the budget; and how completely out of touch members are on the opposition side. They still believe we can just spend, spend and spend, as though there is some magical money tree out in the Prime Minister's courtyard. If we do not make this saving of $1.3 billion, let's be very clear, that money must be borrowed and it must add to the debt that we already have. And it must correct the prospect that in the future taxes will be higher and government services will be lower because we have to finance the ongoing interest payments on that debt.

The nation currently has to pay $12 billion in interest every single year. If we go back, just six short years, back in 2007, we as the Australian nation were receiving $1 billion a year in interest. The previous Howard and Costello government had paid off Labor's debt; they had put money in the bank; and we were receiving that money.

Now, because of the debt that has been rung up—north of $300 billion—it is now $1 billion a month, or $33 million every single day. In this parliament when a bill comes up, we are given a speaking time of 15 minutes. So, during the 15 minutes that I am speaking on this bill, the interest payments that this country will have to make on the debt that Labor rang up is $347,000. Every 15 minutes of the day, $347,000 is the interest bill that we have to pay on the debt. We know that 70 per cent of that, close to one-quarter of a million dollars, flows out of the country because that money is borrowed from people overseas. That happens every 15 minutes of the day, every day of the week, every week of the month, every month of the year—until we start paying that debt back. But that is not good enough for this Labor Party. They want to continue to borrow the $1.3 billion—that is, the savings that we believe will be achieved by repealing the renewable energy agency.

We have to remember that that money comes at a cost—an opportunity cost—because it has to be taken away from other programs. That $12 billion a year could fully fund the NDIS. When I go around my electorate—and I am sure many other members find this—constituents come up to me and ask: 'What's happening with the NDIS?' We have to be honest. We are working out ways of how to fund it. We could fund it with $12 billion a year, if we hadn't had six years of the Labor government continuing to run deficit after deficit after deficit.

We talk about fairness. It is not fair for governments of today to be borrowing money and running up a deficit, because that means that future generations, our children and our grandchildren, will have the burden of higher taxes and fewer government services. It is also not fair because in Australia we need to recognise that, if we are borrowing money, the costs to service those interest payments are substantially higher than many other countries in the world. That is because the 10-year government bond rate, the rate at which the Australian government borrows money, is substantially higher than for the rest of the world; in fact, we have 40 per cent higher borrowing costs than the UK or the US; 50 per cent higher than Spain; 60 per cent higher than Canada; 160 per cent higher than France of all places; and 250 per cent higher than Germany. That is why we simply cannot go and spend, spend, spend, as this opposition wants us to do.

The other thing that the opposition does not seem to get at all is that government investments have a long history of failure after failure. I have recently been reading a book called Uncle Sam Can't Counta history of failed government investments. It lists investment after investment and how, when governments subsidise industries, there is a long history of failure. It impedes economic growth and hurts the very industries and companies they are trying to help. Sadly, those are the failings of this opposition. They simply think: if we have a bigger bureaucracy, throw around more taxpayer's money or provide greater subsidies, it will somehow cure the problems.

But we know economic history has shown the complete opposite. For example, in the area of renewable energy, just look at the Kyoto Protocol. Several years ago there was all this hullabaloo that the US had not signed the Kyoto Protocol to reduce their CO2, their carbon dioxide emissions, but the EU had and how terrible the US was. And the EU, with all this regulation and signing protocols, would reduce their CO2 emissions. But we know what has happened: since the Kyoto Protocol was signed carbon dioxide emissions have increased in the EU. So the more government regulation and interference in the market, and the greater the subsidies for renewable energy, we have seen the opposite happen in the EU: an increase in carbon dioxide emissions; but, in the US, which never signed the Kyoto Protocol and relied on free market entrepreneurs to develop and innovate without the need or interference of the government, carbon dioxide emissions have come down.

Not only has the EU failed to do what they set out to achieve by reducing CO2 emissions; it has actually smashed their economy. Today in the European Union, 19 million people are unemployed. The average unemployment rate across the entire European Union is more than 12 per cent, so it has been a complete economic failure. It has been a complete failure of what they were trying to do in contrast to the USA, which, without government interference, has achieved those reductions in CO2 emissions.

The opposition have to realise that when they talk about sustainability, nothing is sustainable unless it is economically sustainable. When we are talking about targeting and putting government investment in renewable energy, we need to be careful that we are not targeting the wrong enemy. My concern, especially for constituents in the western part of my electorate in the Liverpool area, is the effect of air pollution—not CO2 pollution but particulate matter. We know that, according to a new State of the Environment report, in 2011, 3,000 Australian—more than twice the national road toll—deaths were attributed to air pollution. In New South Wales alone, we are talking about 1,400 deaths and 200 hospitalisations every year caused by particulate matter air pollution.

Particulate matter is the ultrafine dust, smoke and particles that are released into the atmosphere through fuel, especially diesel engines. Preferably, this is where we should be targeting our resources, rather than reducing carbon dioxide emissions, because we can save lives. We can have greater health outcomes, if that is where we train our guns.

The other issue we need to look at for government investment or some encouragement is the issue of our liquid fuel security. With our refineries closing down and relying on imported oil, we have a significant issue with our fuel security. We only have seven days supply in the supply chain but we have the potential to have coal-to-liquids plants to convert our brown coal into liquid fuel. This is a proven technology called liquefaction.

South Africa already produces 30 per cent of its liquid fuel needs from liquefaction—from turning coal into liquids oil. For all the talk about China, it is advancing very quickly on this. In fact the International Energy Agency has recently said that the only country that has meaningful investments in coal to liquids is China. Yet we have this great coal resource and we not using it.

The other issue, which was raised by members of the opposition in this debate, is the RET. I believe that we should not be giving any special advantages to any particular power companies in the energy industry. But if there is no change to the RET, it is very clear from the recent review, the taxpayer will bill giving a $22-billion subsidy to the wind farm industry. That works out to be a $1,000 subsidy for that industry for every man, woman and child. We hear talk of lowering the wholesale price of electricity; it is a complete and utter furphy. What counts is the cost of production and the retail price. You cannot lower the cost of production and you cannot lower the retail price if you are producing a mandated percentage of production from a higher cost source. With that $22 billion cost, if we are not going to make any changes to the RET then members of parliament on either side need to carefully explain the benefits. What are the benefits to this nation of giving a $22 billion subsidy to wind farms?

We hear that this is taking action on climate change but we must quantify what that action actually is. How will spending $22 billion reduce the carbon dioxide in the atmosphere? How much will investing $22 billion change the temperature? And will that change in temperature be beneficial? Will it equate to $22 billion? It will, more or less. This is the debate that we must have because we are investing taxpayers' money. We are getting in the way and we are interfering in the market. Therefore, I commend this bill to the House. The savings of $1.3 billion are most important for this budget.

Andrew Giles (Scullin, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

It was very interesting that the member for Hughes talked about the debate we must have because, having listened to his contribution for the last 12 minutes, I am entirely in the dark as to how it related to the legislation that is before us. It was, however, an interesting and wide-ranging contribution. As ever, the member for Hughes is hard to follow. He talked about fairness but that was a fairness narrowly fiscally defined that had very little regard, if any, for our environmental future or for the prospects of our children and their children. He also gave us an economic history lesson which I did find interesting. And I would be interested to hear how he might expand upon how it would be applied, for example, to the government's Direct Action scheme, which seemed to fit very poorly within the frame of principles the member for Hughes very eloquently expressed.

This is a government that is bereft of vision. It is a government that seems solely concerned with dismantling the work of previous governments. It shows in this debate, as at large, the narrowest of ideological agendas, which denies any positive role for government and, in the context of the bill before us, denies us a clean-energy future. This is also sadly another broken promise—described by another contributor in this debate as one of many seeming acts of random meanness.

The minister came out before the election in support of ARENA but I will come back to that later—suffice to say another broken promise. I note, as the previous speaker did, that it is difficult to separate this bill from its context in the release of the Warburton review into the renewable energy target that was handed down at about the time I thought I was about to make my contribution to this debate on Thursday of last week.

In the context of the ARENA bill, the findings of the Warburton review seem somewhat ironic, to say the very least. The RET review handed down by Mr Warburton offers the very real prospect of the destruction of the renewable energy industry. It backs in very strong vested interest and is involved in acts of redistribution just as profound as those referred to by the member for Hughes but in the opposite direction. But what is really interesting about this is the review concedes that the RET is working, that it is exerting downward pressure on wholesale electricity process as well as reducing emissions.

While it is no surprise that this government of all governments would want to destroy the renewable energy target, especially when a self confessed climate change sceptic has been appointed to conduct the review, this is a real Alice in Wonderland moment here, a real Alice in Wonderland topsy-turvy moment. Acknowledging that the RET is working, the government proposes to scrap it anyway. It really is surreal. What it shows is two things: a deep commitment to undoing the work of the previous government, as I touched on earlier; and, seemingly and sadly—for all the high rhetoric before the election about increasing public trust in politics—an equally deep commitment to breaking election promises.

The bill before us seeks the closure of the Australian Renewable Energy Agency through the repeal of the Australian Renewable Energy Agency Act 2011. That act sets out the legislation framework for the Australian Renewable Energy Agency and its objectives, essentially to improve the competitiveness of renewable energy and related technologies and increase supply—pressing challenges most of us would agree. The act also details governance arrangements and funding available. Since 2012 ARENA had been operating as an independent agency, something this government is not terribly fond of, designed to improve the competitiveness of renewable energy technologies. In essence, ARENA has had the mandate of reducing the cost of renewable energy technology development and increasing its use—a critical objective to a sustainable future. How is this being done?

ARENA provides financial assistance for research, development, demonstration and, importantly, commercialisation of renewable energy and related technologies. Its role indeed goes beyond this to develop skills in the renewable energy industry. It has been promoting renewable energy project innovation nationally and also internationally. As previous Labor speakers noted, ARENA currently supports more than 190 projects to earn more than $1.5 billion in private sector investment. This is just a foundation and it ought to be a solid foundation. There are nearly another 200 projects in the pipeline with the potential of drawing more than $5 billion in private sector funding.

This bill before us risks the investment arrangements already in place and puts a complete freeze on the $5 million for future investment. I note in passing, as I know other speakers have done, that 70 per cent of this funding has gone to projects in rural and regional Australia, creating jobs for the future in these areas. The axing of ARENA puts these projects in jeopardy and puts these vital jobs in jeopardy as well.

I was struck not only by the contribution of the member for Hughes in this debate but also that of the minister in his second reading speech, which, interestingly, did not set out what ARENA needs to be abolished. In fact, I believe—and I think any fair reading of the speech goes along these lines—it made the opposite case: it reads more like a eulogy for a close friend who has left us too soon, which, in a sense I guess, it is. The minister states:

Financial assistance, largely through grants, has been provided to nearly 200 renewable energy developments, including the construction of renewable energy projects, the research and development of various technologies and the development and deployment of renewable energy, along with activities to capture and share knowledge gained through all of these projects, to advance the sector towards full commerciality.

ARENA has made significant progress towards achieving its objectives.

So the government is not seeking to abolish ARENA because it is not working; it is getting rid of ARENA because it is working—just like the RET. We only need observe the extreme comments from government members when it comes to renewables—indeed, anything to do with the environment—to gain an understanding of this reflexive hostility towards renewable energy. There is no rationality to this. Why on earth would anyone be against clean energy that does not wreck the environment? Consumers are certainly on side. Operators of nearly 200 renewable energy developments across the country are as well. I can see two reasons, though: one is the dominance of climate change deniers within the ranks of this government; and the other, the power of vested interests concerned with their commercial prospects, not Australia's future. I suspect the minister, yet again, has been rolled by his own cabinet, as he was with industry assistance for the auto industry. The minister goes on to state in his second reading speech:

ARENA has played an important role of increasing the competitiveness of technologies and the supply of renewable energy in Australia.

Delivering on these projects will allow Australia to take a pragmatic approach, focusing on our capabilities to ensure that Australia is well positioned to take up technologies that work as they become commercial.

I could not agree more with the minister. That is what makes this government's decapitation of ARENA so deeply frustrating.

As I alluded to before, the context of this bill is the government's broader attack on clean energy in its concept and in practice. It is not unlike the governments irrational hatred of public transport. It is little other than something which is reflexive, prejudicial and unthinking. There is no logical or rational reason behind the decisions; it just starts from its prejudice and works backwards, taking all of us backwards with it. And, so, here we are, debating whether to tear down something the government acknowledges works well for no apparent reason. Here with ARENA; tomorrow or some time very, very soon, with the Renewable Energy Target.

The government has conceded that there is no emergency, so it is unclear why there is any need to proceed with this act of economic as well as environmental vandalism in terms of the act that is before us—the abolition of ARENA. As with this bill, I note—as I have had the opportunity to contribute in this place—the government also sought to abolish the Clean Energy Finance Corporation. In recent days The Australian Financial Review reported, in advance of the Warburton report, that the coalition is on the verge of scrapping the Renewable Energy Target—desperately finding a way through to achieve that ideological goal in the face of the overwhelming evidence to the contrary.

I have been contacted by many constituents who are furious with the government about scrapping of the RET and other measures designed to tackle climate change. I was reminded of this during the break when a full house came to an event Mark Butler conducted in Lalor—a full house of people deeply concerned about where this government is taking us in climate change; a room full of ideas, full of energy, full of frustration that an architecture which is working to address a fundamental concern they have for themselves, for their children and for their grandchildren is being torn down with nothing being put in place to replace it. The people who attended that meeting and my constituents more generally know the RET keeps their bills down, they know it helps environment. What they cannot understand is why the government opposes the RET and why the government proposes to get rid of ARENA.

The unanswered question of 'Why?' can be asked about a lot of this government's policies. Where is the evidence base? It is a bit like this government's climate change denialism writ large, where all the evidence points in one direction but the government goes the opposite way instead, preferring prejudice to evidence. I remember being in this place asking the same question not so long ago about the government's attempt to abolish the Clean Energy Finance Corporation. Of course, the Clean Energy Finance Corporation works. It is making money for the Australian people, and yet this government is seeking its abolition. No evidence then, no evidence today. I think in the very near future, no evidence supporting an attack on the RET.

On the other hand, on this side of the chamber, we can and do point to an evidence base of successful renewable energy policies. I remind the House that during our time in government wind power tripled; jobs in the renewable energy industry also tripled to more than 24,000; and Australian households with solar panels on their rooves increased from around 7,000 to more than a million—many of these in new estates in the electorate of Scullin.

Outside of the electorate of Scullin some of the biggest wind and solar farms in the Southern Hemisphere are in Australia. Investment in most of these projects is being driven by the Renewable Energy Target. When Labor was in government, Australia ranked in the top four most attractive places in the world to invest in renewable energy projects. Since the election of this government—the Abbott government—and this Prime Minister began his latest scare campaign against renewables, aided and abetted in defiance of the energy by Mr Warburton, Australian has fallen to ninth on the global index. I fear we have much further to fall.

According to the Clean Energy Council's 2013 report, nearly 15 per cent—14.76 per cent—of Australians electricity came from renewable sources in 2013, enough to power the equivalent of almost five million homes. Nearly $5.2 billion was invested in Australian clean energy in that year, much of it, as I noted earlier, in regional areas. 2013 marked the third successive year that clean energy investment was over $5 billion. And 705 megawatts worth of large-scale renewable energy projects came online during that year. As I said earlier, more than 24,000 people were employed in the industry by the end of that year. Wind turbines alone provided enough energy to power 1.3 million homes. Not enough to deny a scare campaign, but enough to make a real difference to meeting Australia's clean energy future. Total demand for power from the grid fell for the fifth straight year. And I note, for all the concern about cost, that Australians will pay up to nearly $1.5 billion more a year extra for their electricity bills after 2020 should the RET be scrapped.

According to the International Renewable Energy Agency, the nearly 24,000 solar jobs are expected to fall to 12,300 should subsidy cuts be introduced. What does the coalition say to the nearly 11,000 unemployed Australians and their families who would be affected by this; most of these in rural and regional Australia, an area for whom this government speaks a lot about with rhetoric but does so very little for in practice? These are uncomfortable facts for the coalition, facts that they do not want to acknowledge, and for obvious reasons because if they did, they could no longer sustain this extreme position on renewable energy.

All of the progress that was made under the previous government is being undone by this reckless government. It is reckless on its own terms, as Mr Warburton has said, as the bill before us demonstrates, as the success of the Clean Energy Finance Corporation demonstrates and, indeed, as the member for Hughes's lecture on economic history also demonstrates. All this progress is being undone by this reckless government, which is so adept at tearing things down and so ill-equipped at meeting the challenges of Australia's future.

I note that this bill has been referred to the Senate Economics Legislation Committee, which is due to report this week. I look forward to its report and the prospect through it of a more considered debate. I hope that these debates will draw the attention of members of this House to the amendment moved by the member for Port Adelaide. I am reminded of the comments the Prime Minister made this week and last week when he spoke of the fundamental responsibilities of government. Here, we also turn to the fundamental responsibilities of government: when we talk of clean energy, we talk of the chance to safeguard our future. It is not a chance we can pass up.

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

The Australian Renewable Energy Agency (Repeal) Bill 2014 is another shameful part of the government's attack on the renewable energy industry and on the renewable energy policies of the former Labor government. ARENA, which is the subject of this bill, the Australian Renewable Energy Agency, was established by the former Labor government in 2012. It was established as an independent agency, designed to improve the competitiveness of renewable energy technologies in Australia and to increase the supply of renewable energy to Australia's electricity market. It was a part of a comprehensive set of policies designed to reduce Australia's carbon emissions, to reduce Australia's reliance on fossil fuels and to make sure that Australia can play its part with the community of nations in tackling what is, of course, a global problem—that being the global problem of reducing carbon emissions so as to reduce the effects of dangerous climate change, the effects which we are already experiencing here in Australia.

The Australian Renewable Energy Agency works to reduce the cost of renewable energy technology development and increase its use in Australia. It is an agency that provides financial assistance for the research, development, demonstration and commercialisation of renewable energy and related technologies, which develop skills in the renewable energy industry and which promotes renewable energy projects and innovation both nationally and internationally. In that sense, ARENA is like agencies that have been created across the developed world, many of them in nations with which we trade which are designed to the same end—to ensure that we will increase the use of renewable energy in our economy.

As with other of the former Labor government's comprehensive set of policies designed to deal with climate change, to take real action on climate change, ARENA has proved to be a success. It currently supports more than 190 renewable energy projects, drawing more than $1.5 billion in private sector investment. There are a further 190 renewable energy projects in the pipeline which have the potential to draw more than $5 billion in private sector funding. Seventy per cent of ARENA funding has gone to projects in rural and regional Australia, creating jobs for the future in these areas. The axing of ARENA, as with the attacks that we have seen on the renewable energy target by the Abbott government, puts all of those projects in jeopardy—the 190 renewable energy projects already being supported and the potential further 190 renewable energy projects in the pipeline.

The bill risks the investment arrangements already in place for existing projects and would put a complete freeze on future investment arrangements, most notably in New South Wales, the state which has the largest number of projects presently funded by ARENA and some $582 billion of ARENA funding; or the ACT, with some 27 projects and $24 million of ARENA funding; or Victoria with some 24 projects and $89 billion of ARENA funding—all of them having leveraged many hundreds of millions of dollars of private funding.

The attack on ARENA is part of an attack that we have seen now across the board on renewable energy policies and on climate change policies of the former Labor government. It is worth noting that renewable energy policy under our government was a success story, but the facts have never been allowed by the Abbott government to stand in the way of a blind ideological obsession with destroying all real action on climate change and apparently a blind ideological hatred of all things to do with renewable energy.

It needs to be borne in mind that in addition to this bill, which would abolish the Australian Renewable Energy Agency, the Abbott government has also had legislation before the parliament to abolish the Clean Energy Finance Corporation. And of course we have been reading in the media for months that the Prime Minister wanted his renewable energy target review panel to recommend scrapping the renewable energy target altogether.

Nobody could know why the Abbott government wants to put an end to such successful policies that have delivered savings to Australian households, created Australian jobs that drive investment in Australian industries and that are good for Australia's environment. No-one could tell why a set of renewable energy policies that have been resoundingly successful should now be the target of this destructive activity of the Abbott government.

It is worth stating just a few facts about where Australia got to with the policies of the former Labor government supporting renewable energy. During Labor's time in government wind power tripled, jobs in the renewable energy industry also tripled to more than 24,000 and Australian households with solar panels on their roofs increased from around 7,000 to more than a million. In that million are some nearly 6,000 households—5,951 on the latest statistics—in my own electorate of Isaacs. I can now say, proudly, that some nine per cent of households in Isaacs are now running on the sun. That support, putting their money where their mouth is, is something that we have seen right across Australia not just in my electorate but in every electorate. People have been moving to put solar panels on their roofs, supporting what they understand, rightly, to be the correct future direction for the Australian economy, which is towards renewable energy—not to have less renewable energy but to have more of it.

Some of the wind and solar farms in Australia in the large-scale projects are the biggest in the Southern Hemisphere. Investment in most of these projects was driven by the renewable energy target, driven by the set of policies that the former government put in place.

When Labor was in government Australia ranked in the top four most attractive places in the world to invest in renewable energy projects. Since the election of the Abbott government and since the Prime Minister began his latest scare campaign against renewable energy, Australia has fallen to ninth on the global index and, in all likelihood, will fall further. We saw, even before the government makes a decision on the renewable energy target, from the rhetoric that has been employed by the government and from the kinds of attacks that have been made by the Prime Minister and his ministers on renewable energy and on the renewable energy target a collapse in the investment pipeline and a collapse in confidence in the industry. It is extraordinary to think that a Liberal government, formed by a party that once prided itself on its support for business, should be engaged in what is nothing more than an attack on a successful Australian industry. No-one should be in any doubt about the effect of all of the things that have been said by the Prime Minister since coming to office, all of the encouragement that has been given by the Prime Minister and his ministers towards the destruction of the renewable energy target. They are utterly contrary to the things that they said before the election. It is worth bearing in mind what the Prime Minister, as then Leader of the Opposition, said back in September 2011:

Look, we originated a renewable energy target. That was one of the policies of the Howard government, and yes, we remain committed to a renewable energy target … we have no plans to change the renewable energy target.

Going forward a year, The Australian reported that the then opposition leader had told the party room that people saw generating renewable energy as an important issue and the coalition had to commit to it. The present Minister for the Environment said from opposition in February last year:

We will be keeping the renewable energy target. We’ve made that commitment. We have no plans or proposals to change it.

And further:

We have no plans or intention for change and we’ve offered bipartisan support to that.

Just to complete the set, the present parliamentary secretary, Senator Birmingham, said at the Clean Energy Week conference in July last year:

It has been interesting to note the claims being made about what the Coalition will or won’t do. All of it is simply conjecture. The Coalition supports the current system, including the 41,000 giga-watt hours target.

Come government, all of that has been ripped up and all of that has been forgotten. And what we have got, as in so many other areas of policy, is a government that have no intention of keeping the promises they made before the election, that have no intention of keeping faith with the Australian people and that were at all times, it would appear from the way they have been talking since the election, setting out to destroy the renewable energy target. I say again that in renewable energy we have an industry which is serving Australia very well

In that quotation of the then opposition leader, now Prime Minister, in September 2011, he reminded us then that the renewable energy target was commenced by the Howard government. What is perhaps distressing is that the coalition was committed to the renewable energy target at the 2004 election, the 2007 election, the 2010 election and the 2013 election. The coalition has supported the renewable energy target and renewable energy at four elections and, because of the bipartisan support for the renewable energy industry, billions of dollars have been invested in Australia's clean energy industry. What we are now seeing is the Prime Minister walking away from the table and leaving a large prospering Australian industry stranded.

Since 2001, the statistics show that the renewable energy target has delivered the deployment of over 7,000 megawatts of renewable energy capacity. In 2013, renewable energy contributed to around 15 per cent of all electricity generated across Australia. The renewable energy target has delivered more than $20 billion in investment in renewable energy technologies. It has delivered wholesale energy prices as much as $10 per megawatt hour lower than they would be without the renewable energy target. And it has delivered over 15,000 jobs. As currently designed, if left alone by this mob of wreckers who are now the government of Australia, the renewable energy target would create a further 18,000 jobs between 2014 and 2020. That would include some 9,700 jobs that are going to be created in large-scale renewables and 8,700 jobs in small-scale renewables, if the renewable energy target scheme is simply allowed to do its work and is left alone by the government. Total additional investment in large-scale renewables would be nearly $15 billion in today's dollars between now and 2020. Finally—and, of course, this was the great scare that was tempted to be erected with a whole range of false reports, false analysis and false statements that were made by the government bout prices—the renewable energy target scheme, if left to do its work, can deliver both lower wholesale and lower retail power prices.

What is probably disappointing to this government is that the renewable energy target panel did not deliver what they hoped it would, which was to say that there was some dramatic improvement that might be caused to retail prices if the renewable energy target were abolished. Far from it. We have a report that bizarrely says that the renewable energy target scheme was attracting too much investment and was creating too many jobs. As the shadow minister, Mr Butler, has said, what warped world is Tony Abbott living in where too many jobs is something to be critical of? I say again: this is not a government that actually understands business. It is certainly not a government that favours business in any way. If it were, it would be supporting the renewable energy target. (Time expired)

Sharon Claydon (Newcastle, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise today to support the amendments moved by the member for Port Adelaide on the Australian Renewable Energy Agency (Repeal) Bill 2014. When it comes to the environment, climate change and the renewable energy sector more broadly, this government is building quite a reputation. Regretfully, this reputation is nothing short of abysmal. Through this government's actions last month, Australia now has the unenviable record of being the first country to be going backwards on climate change.

This week in the Senate, the government are attempting to divest themselves of responsibility for environmental protection and, instead, hand delegations of environmental approval powers to state and local governments. That is right: they want to hand over decision-making power for nationally significant environmental sites to the premiers and chief ministers of Australia. Leaders like Colin Barnett, Premier of Western Australia, the man who oversaw the controversial WA shark culling earlier this year, will now have carriage of decisions made for the Ningaloo Reef. Will Hodgman, with his axe and saw in hand and bulldozers at the ready, will make decisions about Tasmania's iconic World Heritage listed forests. And Campbell Newman, Premier of Queensland, will be waving in the ships to dredge and dump on our precious Great Barrier Reef. Next in the government's sights are the Australian Renewable Energy Agency, ARENA, and the renewable energy target, both of which carried bipartisan election support but are now ready to be thrown onto the scrapheap by this government that says one thing before an election and does the exact opposite after.

The previous Labor government established ARENA in 2012. It is an independent agency designed to improve the competitiveness of renewable energy technologies in Australia and to increase the supply of renewable energy to Australia's electricity market. ARENA works to reduce the cost of renewable energy technology development and increase its use in Australia. Effectively, ARENA does three things: firstly, it provides financial assistance for the research, development, demonstration and commercialisation of renewable energy and related technologies; secondly, it develops skills in the renewable energy industry; and, thirdly, it promotes renewable energy projects and innovation both nationally and internationally.

ARENA currently supports more than 190 renewable energy projects, drawing more than $1.5 billion in private sector investment. There are currently a further 190 renewable energy projects in the pipeline which have the potential to draw more than $5 billion in private sector funding. Seventy per cent of ARENA funding has gone to projects in rural and regional Australia, creating jobs for the future—areas like my electorate of Newcastle, a regional city in transformation. The Abbott Liberal government's axing of ARENA puts these projects and jobs in jeopardy. It puts the future prosperity of regional areas like Newcastle under a cloud. This bill risks the investment arrangements that are already in place for existing projects and puts a complete freeze on future investment arrangements.

As mentioned, ARENA has seen significant investment into the local economy of Newcastle, with projects continuing to have considerable impact. No fewer than 17 ARENA projects have been either completed or are in progress in my electorate. They are led ably by Newcastle researchers from the public and private sector, with a range of local, national and international partners contributing through collaborative research and/or direct financing. ARENA funding into Newcastle totals almost $60 million, with the total investment figure into the local economy more than doubling when you include the funds invested by partner organisations. At a time when Newcastle is seeing job loss after job loss, the renewable energy sector has been a saviour, a beacon of hope for now and the future. Newcastle has a long history of excellence in the energy sector, positioning us perfectly to become the home of renewable energy generation and future technology.

The lead agency for the majority of the ARENA projects in Newcastle is the Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation, the CSIRO. As our nation's premier research agency the CSIRO has by itself made scientific breakthroughs that change the way we live and how others around the world live. Its breakthroughs and new technologies have enriched and saved lives: wi-fi, extended wear contact lenses, Aerogard and the first influenza vaccine—the CSIRO is behind all of them. The list is impressive and goes on and on.

Breakthroughs in the clean energy sector are now being seen as well. Earlier this year, in Newcastle, the CSIRO announced a breakthrough in solar energy generation. For the first time, solar energy was used to generate the hottest supercritical steam ever achieved outside of fossil fuel sources. This breakthrough has been described as the equivalent of breaking the sound barrier and confirms the potential of solar energy to be used to drive power station turbines now fuelled by coal or gas. It is a truly remarkable feat and an important breakthrough for our planet's future. It is but one of the many projects in Newcastle that have benefited from the creation of ARENA.

But actions by this government are putting future breakthroughs in the clean energy sector in danger. The incredible researchers behind this solar energy breakthrough work every day with a cloud hanging over their future. They are in danger of losing their jobs through this government's $115 million attack on their organisation—with more than 700 job cuts at CSIRO already announced. And that is before ARENA is abolished, as this bill attempts to do, and the government's continued attack on the renewable energy sector through their loaded report and actions on the renewable energy target. As we see this government make decision after decision to put the renewables industry under threat, I want to make sure that the Newcastle based ARENA projects are not forgotten. It is important that they are acknowledged and put on the record in this place. Who knows how long they will continue under this promise-breaking government.

As I mentioned, the CSIRO are the lead agency on most of the Newcastle based ARENA projects. Current or completed ARENA projects lead by CSIRO in Newcastle include:

Also in Newcastle, ARENA is supporting the Australian Photovoltaic Institute on a number of projects. The institute is developing an interactive live solar map of Australia that tracks the uptake and impact of PV across Australia. They have also completed a project that assessed a range of ways in which customers and electricity utilities might participate in a distributed energy market. And then there is Granite Power Limited, who are working on a solar supercritical organic Rankine Cycle for power and industrial heat that will demonstrate an innovative CST system's ability to provide 24/7 electricity using integrated solar thermal storage and operating as an automated pilot plant in conjunction with a gas heater. And, finally, there is the University of Newcastle, project partner on many of the listed projects, who took the lead on the completed fabrication of thermionic device using advanced ceramics project that created a working prototype of a thermionic energy converter which directly converts into electricity the heat generated by concentrated sunlight. The contribution of ARENA funding and organisations like the CSIRO and the University of Newcastle have added enormous value to Newcastle, and their research is making advances across the world.

All of these projects make it clear that Labor's renewable energy policies are a success story. But they are now under attack from the Abbott Liberal government. In addition to this bill to abolish the ARENA, the Abbott government also had legislation before the parliament to abolish the Clean Energy Finance Corporation, and, as we have read in the newspapers over the past few weeks, the Prime Minister wants to scrap the RET altogether. His loaded RET review, prepared by hand-picked climate change deniers, is no doubt the precursor to government actions to destroy the renewable energy sector in Australia by abolishing the RET.

The RET is doing exactly what it was designed to do, and no-one really knows why the Abbott government wants to put an end to such a successful policy, which delivers savings to Australian households, creates Australian jobs, drives investment in Australian industries and is good for Australia's environment. The RET, I might add, is a policy that has enjoyed bipartisan support and was introduced by the Prime Minister's own mentor, former Prime Minister Howard. It has had, as we have heard, bipartisan support over many elections. Even the current Prime Minister, in 2011, made that clear, when he said:

Look, we originated a renewable energy target. That was one of the policies of the Howard Government and yes we remain committed to a renewable energy target. … we have no plans to change the renewable energy target.

In February last year, the now Minister for the Environment said:

We will be keeping the renewable energy target. We’ve made that commitment. We have no plans or proposals to change it. We have no plans or intention for change and we've offered bipartisan support to that.

On that basis, I would have thought that both the Prime Minister and the Minister for the Environment would have been stepping up, after the Warburton review was released last week, to reaffirm their commitment to the existing RET, or perhaps even that the Minister for Industry would have stood up to fight for the renewable energy sector. Sadly, for our economy and for our planet, we have not seen any positive action for the environment or the renewable energy industry from the relevant ministers or the Prime Minister, in either the week since the report was handed down or the year since they were elected. I suggest that the Prime Minister, the Minister for the Environment and the Minister for Industry need to change their tune and join the overwhelming majority of Australians in their support for renewable energy in Australia, by keeping ARENA and by letting the RET continue to do what it was designed to do. It is the very least they could do. (Time expired)

Stephen Jones (Throsby, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Parliamentary Secretary for Regional Development and Infrastructure) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The legislation before the House today, the Australian Renewable Energy Agency (Repeal) Bill 2014, is part of the government's dogged campaign to destroy and dismantle the policies and the programs that were put in place by the former government to implement a clean energy future. We have seen it with the legislation to dismantle the price on carbon—something that I will return to during my address; the attempts to kill the Clean Energy Finance Corporation, an organisation to set up and fund on a commercial basis those commercial projects which are very bankable but which, for reasons best known to the banking sector, are not attracting the finance that they should otherwise deserve; and, of course, the bill before the House today, the bill to abolish the Australian Renewable Energy Agency.

We knew that we were in a bit of strife with this package of reforms when we heard that devastating admission by the Treasurer himself, who told us that he breaks out in a sweat every time he drives past a wind farm. It must be a terrible trip from North Sydney down to Canberra, as he has to avert his eyes as he drives past the wind farms on Lake George. But never mind; like some latter-day Don Quixote riding his wooden horse, he comes in here waving his wooden sword and says, 'I'm going to do away with all of that'—not tilting at windmills but destroying them. That is what this legislation is designed to do. This legislation—and the whole approach of this government since they were elected—is to dismantle the package of reforms that were put in place to give us a clean energy future.

I want to say a few things about the Australian Renewable Energy Agency. It is an independent agency set up in July 2012 by the Labor government as part of a package of reforms. It was provided with approximately $2.5 billion worth of funding, and it has got two objectives. To improve the competitiveness of renewable energy technologies is its first objective. The second objective is to increase the supply of renewable energy in this country. One of the things that it was focusing on doing was directing funding towards those bodies which had ideas which were beyond the brainwave stage but had fallen a lot short of commercialisation—so organisations with a track record of being able to turn an idea, an invention, into something that is able to be commercialised and then attract finance from the private market.

ARENA are doing pretty well, I have got to say. Every dollar of ARENA support is leveraging around 1.8 times that amount from the private sector. They have the runs on the board. Let us not forget that they have only been up and running for a little over two years—two years and two months. They have already set a world record by funding a program that has set the highest temperature stream ever produced using energy from the sun. ARENA has funded the Perth Wave Energy Project, which is set to be the world's first commercial-scale wave energy array that is connected to the grid and able to produce, in addition to the energy, desalinated water. They are building Australia's first off-grid solar farm, to power Rio Tinto Alcan's bauxite mine and the Weipa township in North Queensland. And they are constructing the largest PV power station in the Southern Hemisphere, 15 times the size of Australia's largest existing solar farm. AGL has estimated that the station will create over 450 jobs for rural and regional New South Wales in the construction phase, with more local jobs created to support the construction workforces. Once the plants are operational, there will be about five permanent jobs in each of the locations where they have been put in place.

One of the most important things about the work of ARENA, Deputy Speaker Scott—and I know you will be interested in this, being a member, as I am, who represents a regional electorate—is that over 70 per cent of ARENA funding has gone into regional and rural Australia. You know, as I do, the devastating effect that lay-offs have on regional employment. Given the fact that they are struggling with drought and a whole heap of the impacts that are facing primary producers at the moment, when you see projects like this with the capacity to produce good, long-term jobs in regional Australia, you would think any sensible government would be grabbing those opportunities with both hands.

In my own electorate, ARENA funded a $2.2 million investment under the previous Labor government through the Emerging Renewables Program. In 2012, they funded BlueScope to produce an integrated, and I might say aesthetically pleasingly, solar rooftop system that integrates what we all know as the Colorbond rooftop system—an Australian invention that has now been commercialised and is one of the best corrugated iron roofing systems in the world. You can imagine the capacity if that proud local Australian company, BlueScope, is able to integrate solar technology in the coating and therefore into the product of Colorbond. It will take that flat metal product to a whole new level.

ARENA is working with BlueScope to fund that program, which is providing three important benefits to the steelworks in my electorate. Firstly, it is helping to maintain BlueScope's operation on the south coast. Secondly, it is creating new markets in Australia and overseas for new and innovative products. Thirdly, it will reduce the cost of rolling out clean energy solar power. It will do this by ensuring that the solar system and the roofing can be installed at the very same time, whether it is at the time the roof is being replaced or at the time the house is being built. You can imagine the benefits that that will have in the housing and construction sector.

The parliamentary secretary, the member for Paterson, Mr Bob Baldwin, was so impressed with the project that was funded by ARENA he even came out in June this year to take credit. Obviously, he could not take credit for the idea, because it was an idea that was funded under a Labor government, but he was out there to cut the ribbon—in that time-honoured fashion. He came out there to take the credit and to congratulate BlueScope—and in the process pat himself on the back for such an innovative and important project. I have got to say that, if it is good enough to go to my electorate and cut the ribbon and announce the importance of this project, it has to be good enough to come in here and back the agency that made it possible.

It is often said that Australia has boundless natural resources. In fact, we sing about it in our national anthem. The Climate Institute estimates that Australia has enough clean energy to potentially power over 14 million homes—well over half the housing stock within this country—and remove pollution equivalent to taking 11 million cars off the road. There is strong growth in Australia's alternative electricity sector, with an additional 38,000 megawatts of generating capacity projected to be installed by 2030. This includes the renewable energy sector including wind, solar, bioenergy and geothermal—as well as gas, which is not so renewable. It is also estimated that, in net terms, close to 34,000 new jobs will be created in Australia's electricity sector by 2030. That includes over 7½ thousand permanent ongoing jobs and close to 21,000 construction jobs. Something that interests me as a representative of an electorate with a strong manufacturing sector is that it is expected to create over 5½ thousand jobs in the manufacturing sector. The vast majority of these jobs are going to be in the renewable energy sector, because that is where the main game is. Initiatives such as the legislation before the House today put all of that at risk.

I want to say a few things about the renewable energy target, because it has been in the news. As I said at the outset, it is a part of this government's dogged determination to dismantle and destroy the package of reforms that was doing something about giving Australia a clean energy future. The renewable energy target was supposed to be bipartisan policy. The now Prime Minister and the so-called environment minister said in the lead-up to the 2013 election, hand on heart, that they were committed to the renewable energy target. In fact, Tony Abbott, the Prime Minister, said, 'We originated a renewable energy target'—that is right; he took credit for it. 'That was one of the policies of the Howard government. Yes, we remain committed to a renewable energy target, and we have no plans to change the renewable energy target.'

There have been a few people who have been reminding the Prime Minister of that over the last few weeks—and that is because we have just seen a report which has sent a shudder down the spine of the 20,000 people who earn their livelihood directly in the renewable energy industry. What we have seen since the announcement of the Warburton review has been a capital strike. We have seen an absolute capital strike. We have seen the fact that the renewable energy sector at the moment is unbankable because of the uncertainty. They talk about sovereign risk. There is no greater sovereign risk going on in Australia at the moment than that which has been inflicted by this government on the renewable energy industry.

But we should have known—the writing was on the wall—when the Prime Minister decided to appoint Dick Warburton, who I do not cavil with. He is a distinguished Australian and a very successful businessman. You can only imagine the conversation that went on between the Prime Minister and Mr Warburton when he approached him to head this review—Prime Minister: 'G'day, Dick; its Tony here.' Mr Warburton: 'Prime Minister, how are you? It has been a few days—how are you?' Prime Minister: 'Dick, I want to appoint you. We are scouting around and we need to appoint a few people to some government boards.' Mr Warburton: 'I am very interested Prime Minister. I am always willing to serve my country.' Prime Minister: 'We had you pencilled down for the renewable energy target, the RET review.' Long silence. 'Prime Minister, there's a problem with that. You that I'm a climate change sceptic. You know that I'm on the record as opposing this.' 'You're just the man for the job,' says the Prime Minister. 'We had you picked out as just the bloke to do this review.'

I do not criticise Dick Warburton, a distinguished Australian, but frankly, when you appoint a climate change sceptic, at best, somebody who has a hostile objection to the renewable energy industry, you are hobbling any perception that this could be anything other than a fit-up job. Indeed, that is what the rest of the community is seeing it as. Is there any reason there has been a capital strike on this industry? It is a capital strike with devastating impacts. We have seen tremendous growth in the renewable energy sector, tremendous employment growth. We have seen over 20,000 jobs not just in the capital cities but particularly throughout regional Australia. In many instances, we have seen the renewable energy sector taking the pressure off electricity prices for ordinary households.

Never has that been more obvious than during the recent heatwaves we have experienced in eastern Australia, particularly in south-eastern Australia over the last two summers. We saw temperatures soar into the 40s and, as you would know, people then switch on their air-conditioning units. Had there not been a renewable energy target, therefore creating a renewable energy sector, the old coal and gas power companies would have been doing what they have always done—charging exorbitant rents, because they do not make much money during the normal period but they make their big profits when it is peak pricing, charging enormous prices to the retailers, passing them on to the households. But for the renewable energy target and the renewable energy sector, we saw prices coming down, particularly during peak times. That is why I and many on this side of the House say, 'If you want to put downward pressure on electricity prices, you will keep the RET, you will put in place the package of market based reforms, which have a chance of reducing carbon emissions, and you will keep your hands off the only package which is going to give us a clean energy future.'

Andrew Leigh (Fraser, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Assistant Treasurer) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

We are back again in the House debating climate change, after a period of months in which members of the government have, one after another, begun attacking Australia's moves to deal with dangerous climate change. A GLOBE-Grantham survey looked at parliaments around the world and how they were acting on climate change. It covered over 60 nations, accounting for about 90 per cent of global emissions. It found that only two nations were backsliding on tackling climate change: one was Japan, which was shutting down nuclear reactors in the wake of the Fukushima disaster—understandable, you might say; the other was Australia. Australia is now one of only two nations in the world that is backsliding on tackling climate change. It should not be that way because Australia emits more carbon pollution per person than any other country in the developed world and we stand to lose as much as any other country in the developed world. The Great Barrier Reef is a fabulous asset to Australians, not just for those of us who want to visit it but also for the economic benefit that tourism brings.

Australian agriculture could be threatened by unchecked climate change and we have now seen, as a result of record temperatures, the Bureau of Meteorology introducing a new colour to its temperature maps in order to account for the new high temperatures Australia is seeing. This has consequences. We know that natural disasters will become more frequent if climate change is left unchecked. We know it has health consequences. We know that the impacts of extremely hot days on the health of particularly older Australians can be significant. So climate change is an issue we need to do something about.

Thankfully we have not only good advice from scientists saying the climate change is happening and humans are causing it but also good advice from economists on the most efficient and effective way of dealing with it. But that is where the good news ends because this government has appointed climate sceptics to review the renewable energy target in the form of Dick Warburton and to advise the government in the form of its number one business adviser Maurice Newman, who seems to be writing the same opinion piece week after week, saying that climate change is a fraud and a hoax, that it is all a big con put on by those great bastions of global communism, NASA, CSIRO, the Australian Academy of Science and many others.

It would be comical were climate change not such a serious issue for Australia, but we know that, if we do not act now, then the cost for future generations will be higher. A new book put out by one of my Harvard professors, Dale Jorgenson, looks at the cost to the world of unchecked climate change. It estimates, as a result of rising seas and the extinction of plant and animal species, that the cost of climate change amounts to nearly $1.6 trillion annually worldwide. His book, Double Dividend, looks at how pricing carbon pollution can not only reduce the impact on the environment but can also provide fiscal revenue which can be used for a beneficial purpose. That was what Labor did in government. We increased the price of pollution and we decreased the price of work by cutting taxes.

Under this government we are seeing the opposite because this government has repealed the carbon price, the most effective and efficient way of dealing with climate change, it has lost revenue and, therefore, has to increase income taxation, in direct contravention of the pre-election promise. So the double dividend has become a 'double cost'. The government has lost not only the ability to deal with dangerous climate change but also the revenue with which the former Labor government was able to reduce taxes and encourage work.

Now we are seeing this attack on sensible climate change supports extending to the renewable energy target—again, a broken promise. On 29 September 2011, Tony Abbott said:

Look, we originated a renewable energy target. That was one of the policies of the Howard Government and yes we remain committed to a renewable energy target.

He went on to say:

… we have no plans to change the renewable energy target.

The Australian on 20 June 2012 reported:

… the Opposition Leader told the partyroom that people saw generating renewable energy as an important issue and the Coalition had to commit to it.

The Minister for the Environment, as he calls himself, said in a speech on 27 February 2013: 'We will be keeping the renewable energy target. We have made that commitment. We have no plans or proposals to change it. We have no plans or intentions for change and we have offered bipartisan support to that.' And, lest anyone could be in doubt that the coalition's support for the renewable energy target extended to support for its precise target, Senator Birmingham said in a speech to the Clean Energy Week conference on 24 July 2013:

It has been interesting to note the claims being made about what the Coalition will or won’t do. All of it is simply conjecture. The Coalition supports the current system, including the 41,000 giga-watt hours target.

That was—just over a year ago—Senator Birmingham committing the then opposition, now the government, to support the renewable energy target.

But we have seen, instead, the coalition putting in place a RET review, headed by climate sceptic Dick Warburton, which comes to the conclusion that the renewable energy target should be rethought because of the impact it has on existing generators who do not use renewables. That is right: the primary concern of this government is not consumers—because the RET review very clearly shows that electricity prices are lower as a result of the RET putting more supply into the market. It is not, of course, bad for those who work in the renewable energy sector, who have seen the number of jobs triple in that sector to more than 24,000 jobs. It is not bad for Australian households, only 7,000 of whom had solar panels on their roofs when the Rudd government was elected in 2007, and now one million of whom have solar panels on their roofs. And it is not bad for wind power, which has tripled in total generation capacity in Australia.

The Treasurer might think that wind farms are a blight on the landscape, but, frankly, I think that the Treasurer ought to be more concerned about the health effects of unchecked climate change. We are now seeing, in the United States and in China, a renewed focus on dangerous climate change because of the concern about clean air. President Obama launched his initiative on climate change at a children's asthma centre, reflecting the impact that dirty air can have on human health. China is now setting up emissions trading pilots covering hundreds of millions of Chinese and it is looking at a national scheme to 2018. As we know, President Obama's first choice in dealing with climate change was putting a price on carbon pollution. Unable to get that, he has moved to a second-best approach, part of which encourages states to put a price on carbon pollution. California has just done that—and its economy is significantly larger than Australia's. And the US and China, as we know, are engaged in negotiations about the pledges that they will put on the table ahead of the Paris talks in 2015.

Australia's climate denialism was brought into sharp focus when the Prime Minister visited Canada and stood next to Stephen Harper and declared that he would be part of something you might think of as a 'coalition of the unwilling'—climate change sceptics united; a coalition of conservatives across the globe—standing for the new flat-earth movement, that climate change is not happening. But barely were the words out of his mouth when we had David Cameron in the UK running as fast as he could to say that the UK supported an emissions trading scheme. Conservatives in New Zealand under John Key also supported an emissions trading scheme. And why wouldn't they? It is not a left-right issue; it is a matter of pragmatism. Putting a price on carbon pollution is the most effective and efficient way of achieving outcomes.

The bill before the House looks at the Australian Renewable Energy Agency, and we on this side of the House are proud to support renewable energy. In the ACT, there have been 27 projects worth $59 million that have been backed by ARENA. Twenty-four million dollars of that funding came from ARENA; the remainder came from the private sector.

Encouraging investment in renewables must be part of a long-run Australian future in which we decouple carbon pollution from economic growth. Australian businesses have the ingenuity and the ambition to be able to continue to grow in a clean, green environment, and the notion that the way in which we produced electricity in the 1960s is absolutely right for the 2060s is taking an ostrich approach to public policy.

Australia needs to back renewables because renewables are not only putting downward pressure on power prices but also allowing us to reduce Australia's carbon footprint. We know that if we do not reduce Australia's carbon footprint the impact could be considerable. The risk is that if Australia does nothing then, by the time we have to engage in dealing with climate change, the impact on the Australian economy will be larger, not smaller, than if we begin today by taking modest steps.

The government's unwillingness to put the health of Australian children before its own political needs concerns me deeply. Australia needs to be part of the global movement to tackle climate change. When we look at the economic research that is being done on this, it is very clear that a cap and trade approach is the right way to go. A cap and trade approach when applied in the case of acid rain under George HW Bush in the United States produced all of the abatement that had been projected but at a third of the cost. Why did it manage to do that? Because, when you back the ingenuity of the market, you are often surprised to see the ways in which the market is able to reduce carbon emissions. One of my favourite examples of this occurred simply as a result of labelling. Tesco, the British supermarket company, decided that it would label the carbon emissions on its products, and a potato chip manufacturer was shocked to discover that its carbon pollution was higher than it had expected. It looked into it a little further and it turned out that what had been happening was that it had been buying potatoes from growers at wet weight—the growers had been keeping them in green houses using extra electricity to get more water into them, which then had to be boiled out during the cooking process. They switched their buying process to buy dry weight and their carbon footprint fell, whilst also saving money. There are many illustrations of this kind in which it is possible to achieve significant reductions in carbon emissions and to do so in an equitable way.

What is striking about this government is that they are backing the big end of town at every turn. We know that climate change threatens the most vulnerable. Lower income Australians are less likely to live in houses with air conditioning; they are less likely to hold the insurance that people fall back on when natural disasters strike. Lower income Australians are suffering as a result of the payment cuts being put in place by this government, driven by the budget hole that they have created as a result of scrapping the carbon price. When we look overseas, we can see many low-income people around the world for whom climate change is an existential threat—people living in subsistence conditions in low lying Pacific atolls and people in countries like Bangladesh, which is likely to be severely impacted by unchecked climate change. We have the ingenuity and the mechanisms to deal with dangerous climate change, but we have a government which is unwilling to listen to the experts and is instead appointing sceptics and backing the big end of town over the most vulnerable.

Gai Brodtmann (Canberra, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Parliamentary Secretary for Defence) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I wholeheartedly oppose the repeal of the Australian Renewable Energy Agency because it is a backward step for our country and it will have a significant effect on our ability to compete in a low carbon future. Labor is fully committed to ARENA and to its role in improving the competitiveness of renewable energy technology and increasing the supply of renewable energy in Australia.

It has been interesting to listen to the speeches over the last few weeks from people around the community, but particularly government members, about the great work being done by ARENA—how it is investing in world-class renewable projects, providing certainty to the sector and creating jobs. However, while those opposite acknowledge the considerable success of ARENA, they still want to get rid of the agency through the Australian Renewable Energy Agency (Repeal) Bill 2014. I assume this is purely for ideological reasons rather than for the great benefits generated by ARENA, not just in terms of developing and supporting world-class renewable energy projects but most importantly in terms of creating jobs for Australians right across the nation.

I want to go into the background of ARENA. Labor established ARENA in 2012 as an independent agency designed to improve the competitiveness of renewable energy technologies in Australia and to increase the supply of renewable energy to Australia's electricity markets. ARENA provides financial assistance to organisations, largely through grants. It has been providing these grants to nearly 200 renewable energy agencies or organisations for development projects. I note that 70 per cent of ARENA's funding has gone to projects in rural and regional Australia—that is, 70 per cent to country Australia. The Abbott government's axing of this body and its very important work puts many of those projects and jobs in jeopardy.

I also want to talk about a few of the 200 projects that ARENA has supported to date, including 27 projects based right here in the ACT. The projects that I want to talk about today are quite extraordinary. They focus on solar energy and on improving the way in which we generate solar energy. One of the projects here in the ACT is an Australian solar energy floor casting system. ARENA has put just over $3 million into this project, and it has a total project value of $7.6 million. The lead organisation for the project is the CSIRO. As we know, those opposite have a complete disdain for the CSIRO. I think they are getting rid of about 500 jobs there. This is not really surprising, given the fact that they do not even have a minister for science. Why would they respect a world-leading organisation such as CSIRO, which produces extraordinary research that benefits not just Australia but countries around the world, particularly the agricultural sector?

The partners of this extraordinary project are the Australian Energy Market Operator, the Bureau of Meteorology, the University of New South Wales, the University of South Australia and the US National Renewable Energy Laboratory. It is not just Canberra but also academic organisations, laboratories and bureaus right across Australia that see the benefit of this investment. This project was developed because there was difficulty in providing accurate supply and demand forecast models on solar energy, and so the project sought to improve those models and, through the process, increase commercial viability and ensure the stability of the electricity gr

The benefits of the project are that it would produce the most advanced operational solar forecasting system available and, through its unique research-access to data, provide a platform for knowledge sharing for researchers, investments industry and governments. It not only has an immediate effect, being able to better forecast what was happening in the solar space, but also has a knock-on effect of benefits for the academic community, industry and government.

The other project I will highlight today is worth just over $4 million of ARENA funding and has a total project value of just over $15 million. The lead organisation of this project is the wonderful Australian National University. Its project partners are the UNSW, Trina Solar and Tempress. The locations involved are interesting: Sydney, Changzhou in China, Vaassen in the Netherlands and here in Canberra. This project is interesting for the fact that it is looking to focus on advanced surface and contact technologies to improve solar cells. The project benefits are to develop advanced industry-ready cell designs that reduce costs and increase efficiency, and to access new markets. The benefits of these improvements will flow to Australian customers through the project partner Trina Solar, which is one of the largest suppliers of solar panels in Australia.

There is another project here in the ACT to do with solar panels, specifically for the relatively hot and arid Australian environment. Unfortunately, the photovoltaic modules are not optimised to operate in Australia, so significant improvements are required in energy yield. Module failure rates tend to affect the production of solar, because these panels are not optimised to operate in Australia. This project, through just over $500,000 of ARENA funding and $1.2 million in total funding through the ANU, is designed to improve solar panels so that they gave greater cost effectiveness of PV in Australia, to provide a better understanding of PV module degradation in Australian conditions and also to make locally manufactured PV modules more competitive in the Australian market and, I suppose, the international market—particularly in those areas where the circumstances are similar to Australia, those hot, dry and arid areas.

These are extraordinary projects that are just some of the 200 ARENA has supported to date. It is extraordinary to think that they could be no more. On 1 July this year, ARENA celebrated its second anniversary. It has been in existence for two short years and has succeeded in shifting Australia's energy landscape. Under Labor's renewable energy policies, wind power generation has tripled. The number of jobs in the renewable energy sector has tripled, and the number of households with rooftop solar panels has increased from 7,400 to almost 1.2 million. Labor's renewable energy policies have been a success story but are now under attack from this government. This government is seeking to undo that important work, and it is important work that has significant benefits for regional and rural Australia. Why is ARENA so important for renewable energy? We have learned from renewable energy markets overseas that stable, long-term policy provides the renewable energy industry with the certainty it needs to expand. In Australia, ARENA is an important part of this long-term policy setting.

We should be learning from the rest of the world. The number of countries with renewable energy targets more than doubled between 2005 and 2012, with at least 118 countries—over half of the world's countries—now having renewable energy targets in place.    Of these, 109 countries have policies to support renewables in the power sector. Currently 19 of the G20 member countries have some sort of renewable energy support policy, and all of Australia's top 10 trading partners have policies to promote renewable energy. Worldwide, an estimated five million people work directly or indirectly in renewable energy industries, and that is going to grow. Global investment reached US$243 billion in 2010, an increase of 30 per cent from 2009. This is a growth industry. In order for Australia to maintain its competitiveness in the international arena, we have to develop industries that will be able to compete in a low-carbon environment, in a low-carbon world and in a low-carbon market. The move proposed by the government is regressive. In addition to getting rid of ARENA, the government is considering getting rid of the renewable energy target, either by scrapping or significantly weakening it. It is not just an attack on the renewable energy sector through ARENA but also an attack on the RET.

As we all know, the RET was introduced by the Howard government in 2001 as part of its climate change strategy and sought to increase renewable electricity generation by an additional two per cent by 2010 on top of existing generation. Until now it enjoyed bipartisan support. It is quite extraordinary that it enjoyed bipartisan support for such a very long time. The target was subsequently expanded in 2009 by the Rudd government to 20 per cent of all electricity generation by 2020.

Despite the now Prime Minister and ministers promising prior to the election not to change the RET, saying, 'We have no plans to change the renewable energy target', a number of ministers have now vowed to abolish it. Despite this promise, we now hear that the RET is placing 'upward pressure on power prices.' Consequently, we had the Warburton review. As a result of that review, the whole renewable energy industry is in a complete state of flux and uncertainty.

Modelling has established that the abolition of the RET would see no reduction in household power prices and cause carbon emissions to climb by 15 million tonnes a year on the back of a nine per cent increase in coal fired power. The modelling, commissioned by the Climate Institute, the Australian Conservation Foundation and the World Wildlife Fund, indicated that for a household consuming 6½ megawatt hours of electricity annually—which is the New South Wales average—reducing the renewable energy target would add about $35 to the annual power bill Most of this increase would take place after 2020. For the same household, an abolition of the renewable energy target would add about $80 a year to the annual power bill. The modelling indicated that reducing the renewable energy target would cost the federal budget about $680 million in extra funding to meet Australia's target of five per cent emissions reductions by 2020, This would be in addition to the socialised costs amounting from higher levels of pollution, which the model estimated conservatively to be about $14 billion.

Not surprisingly, we learnt last week that the government's apparently independent review of the RET recommended that it significantly weaken or even scrap the target. But this recommendation is completely out of step with what the Australian community wants.    A recent Newspoll, published in The Australian on Wednesday 20 August, showed that 98 per cent of Australians support renewable energy. I would like to take the few minutes I have left to read from just a couple of the emails that I have received from the Canberra community on this issue—some of those 98 per cent of Australians who support renewable energy. This letter from a constituent says:

May I register with you my strong objection to any proposal to weaken or reduce the Renewable Energy Target. Any such step is retrograde and gives no benefit to the community at large, whilst encouraging the fossil fuel industries.

Another constituent says:

The Renewable Energy Target has been remarkably successful in building clean wind energy throughout regional Australia. With bipartisan support, it has driven over $18 billion of investment thousands of jobs, delivering community benefits and bolstering rural economies.

Clean wind energy guards Australian consumers against the risk of power price rises. It cuts the wholesale cost of power and reduces our exposure to the swiftly rising price of gas.

These are just a few of the views of the 98 per cent of Australians who support renewable energy. With the world moving towards renewable energy—I think 19 of the 22 G20 member countries have some sort of renewable energy support policy in place—it is just extraordinary that this government should swim against that tide.

This government's attack on renewable energy is an ideological one. Scrapping the ARENA and scrapping the RET will do nothing to reduce power prices. It will be devastating for the renewable energy sector in Australia. Most importantly, it will lead to job losses, and it will put Australia behind the rest of the world when it comes to renewable energy. We on this side completely oppose this retrograde step.

Tim Watts (Gellibrand, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Deputy Speaker, we on this side of the House understand the importance of research and development. With R and D comes the medication that saves you an expensive and risky operation; the social networks that allow millions around the world to connect with a swipe of the finger; and the technology that allows cars to drive themselves. And when we look to solve our complex environmental problems, research and development must play a key role in reducing our carbon emissions and in addressing climate change. Nowhere is this clearer than in the area of energy development. We are blessed in this country with unlimited wave, wind and solar power. What is limited is our ability to harness this power through our existing renewable energy technologies. It is essential to invest in research and development so that we can improve this capacity. If we can more effectively harvest energy from our renewable sources, we will be able to power the homes of Australian families far more effectively, while protecting Australia's environment. We will be able to create thousands of jobs within the renewable energy sector at the same time. We will be able to move into a future where our energy capacity is determined not by what we dig out of the ground, but by how we harvest the energy found all around us.

However, investment in research and development can come at a high cost for the organisations that undertake it. Quite often, the companies undertaking the research cannot absorb high R and D costs into their product budgets—so new, innovative solutions occur at a slower pace and at a higher price than in the national—and the current global—interest. In these areas, effective government investment in research and development can do wonders for the industry in question. This is particularly true in the case of renewable energy, where investments in research and development can pay off in vastly improved storage capacities. They can create wind farms far more effective at capturing wind power, and solar panels far more effective at saving sunlight. These investments can create a renewable energy sector that generates cheaper and more environmentally friendly energy—keeping the costs of energy down for Australian families, and addressing climate change at the same time. These investments put Australia at the forefront of renewable energy development around the world, adding to our export of green technology, and creating more jobs at home in Australia.

Government investment must always be managed effectively so that there is as little waste as possible. We must ensure that taxpayer funds are spent on the research that will have the most value for the Australian people. We must make sure funds are allocated for their commercial, not political, value. It is important to have an independent agency that can effectively manage this task. This is the crucial role that the Australian Renewable Energy Agency, ARENA, plays. It ensures that our renewable energy sector continues to grow and to develop. It does so not only by investing in renewable energy projects—and by doing so, encouraging private sector investment so that our renewable energy sector grows—but also by investing in research and development, so that we can discover the technology that will make our renewable energy industry even more effective in the future. In this way, government investment takes our renewable energy industry into a new and exciting future. ARENA uses these two tools to work towards a broader goal: to create a larger, more competitive, renewable energy industry in this country.

ARENA has had significant success in reaching this goal in recent times. Since its creation by the Gillard Labor government in 2012, it has invested $940 million into renewable energy development. This in turn has encouraged over $1.8 billion of investment from other sources for new projects. Every $1 of investment from ARENA has leveraged at least $1.80 from industry and other groups. In particular, ARENA is investing much of this money in research and development for renewable energy. We have seen investments of $462 million in early-stage research and development; $1 billion into transforming pilot-stage programs into large-scale development; and $1.1 billion into deployment of these projects so that they can become competitive.

The efforts of ARENA have led to investment in over 190 renewable energy projects across this country. They have led to significant technology breakthroughs, creating a renewable energy industry with world-class technology. Thanks to ARENA investment, we have seen the highest-ever temperature of steam produced using energy from the sun recorded by researchers from the CSIRO. We have seen the creation of the world's first commercial-scale wave-energy array in Perth, which produces both electricity and desalinated water. We have seen investment in the largest solar power station in New South Wales and Australia's first off-grid solar farm in remote Queensland. ARENA is helping to create a renewable energy industry that creates cheaper and more efficient power for the Australian people. It is also creating more jobs for Australian workers, particularly in regional Australia. Over 70 per cent of ARENA funding has gone to regional and rural areas in Australia.

It is clear that ARENA's efforts are working—and they are working well. Combined with the work of the Clean Energy Finance Corporation and the renewable energy target, we saw the renewable energy industry under the previous Labor government become a resounding success. Under the previous Labor government we saw the production of wind power triple and we saw solar panels on Australian households increase from approximately 7000 households across the nation to over one million—making a significant impact on the energy bills of these households. We also saw jobs in the renewable energy sector triple to an industry that now employs 24,000 people across the country.

These policies have created a positive impact on Australia's households, Australia's job market and, of course, Australia's plan to address climate change. Deputy Speaker, it is clear that if you truly believe in the future of our renewable energy industry, you must believe in developing that industry for the future. And targeted government investment through independent agencies, such as ARENA, as well as the work of the RET and the CEFC, are crucial to achieving that goal. Unfortunately, the Abbott government has made it clear that science and technology are at the very bottom of their agenda. Right off the bat, they have shown their disdain for scientists by abolishing the minister for science and excluding the position from the Abbott Cabinet. They followed this by slashing scientific funding in May's budget, cutting more than $1 billion out of scientific research and, through the deregulation of university fees, stopping the dreams of aspiring scientists in their tracks by doubling the price of a science degree and putting an extra penalty on students who pursue research studies after the completion of their undergraduate degree.

The Abbott government have saved their most poisonous venom, however, for the science of climate change. When you start this policy area with the viewpoint that the science of climate change is 'crap', as our Prime Minister does, any action you take on the issue is likely to be half-hearted at best. This lacklustre approach can be seen through the Abbott government's ruthless dismantling of the carbon price in this country. It can be seen in their Direct Action policy—a policy so full of political hot air it might add a couple of degrees to the world's temperature by itself. It can also be seen in the political weight given to the opinions of the honourable Member for Flinders by the cabinet. Those on the other side of the House have been known to joke and mock that carbon dioxide emissions are a weightless and invisible gas. The same could well be said of the reputation of the environment minister after 12 months of the Abbott government—a man of so little weight political weight that he has been rolled on every major climate change decision by the Abbott government. If only we could harness the energy from the environment minister being rolled by the Abbott government, Australia's renewable energy industry would have a rosy future, indeed! Despite writing his thesis on the importance of putting a price on carbon, his view is given little credit in the cabinet. We are talking about a minister who asserts the government is 'working on' the Million Solar Roofs program, despite the government defunding the program in the mid-year economic forecast. This is a minister who goes around claiming that the government is committed to the renewable energy target at the same time his Prime Minister undermines the RET completely by appointing a climate sceptic to review the success of the scheme and make recommendations for its future. This is a minister who was considered such a lightweight he was removed from the renewable energy target review process, even though it was already populated with climate-denying cranks and Abbott government cronies.

Such blatant undermining of the most senior voice for the environment in the Abbott government shows just how little the Prime Minister cares about climate change policy. It is an approach also a cabinet who seem not to be able to make head or tail of coalition climate policy. As recently as last Tuesday, the Parliamentary Secretary for Industry announced $21.5 million for solar research funding under the ARENA banner. And yet last week we saw the minister in this chamber arguing to abolish ARENA, the very body best equipped to allocate that funding. What all this adds up to is an attack by the Abbott government on the renewable energy sector for reasons of pure ideology. This ideological extremism is writ large all over their threats to cut the renewable energy target, their attacks on the Clean Energy Finance Corporation and the abolition of ARENA seen in the bill under consideration today.

This bill not only freezes future investment in the industry, it risks the investment arrangements that have already been implemented by ARENA. It risks investment in the 24 projects in my home state of Victoria, which, while receiving only $89 million of ARENA funding, have attracted $198 million of private investment. It risks investment in another 178 projects around the country, which have a total value of less than $10 million. This is investment in the small projects, research grants and scholarships, where the dice are being rolled and new, innovative technology is being developed. It is bad enough that the Abbott government is willing to ignore the development of science and technology in our country, particularly in relation to the renewable energy industry, but that they are also willing to ignore the economic benefits that flow from the development of this industry is extraordinary.

When Labor was in power, Australia was in the top four of the most attractive countries in the world for renewable energy investment. Since the election of the Abbott government, we have fallen to ninth place. The Abbott government is actively discouraging foreign investment in an industry which contains what President Obama of the United States has called 'the jobs of the future'. Indeed, I recently had a stakeholder in the renewable energy industry remark to me that, if the Prime Minister really believed we were 'open for business', why was he closing the door on one of the most important industries for Australia's economic future? Other energy companies have spoken out more publicly about the impact that the Abbott government's plans for renewable energy—in particular their plans to gut the renewable energy target—will have on their companies. The managing director of Infigen Energy recently remarked that 'financial devastation' awaits the 24,000 people who work in the industry. So the Abbott government—in pursuing their anti-science, anti-climate-change agenda—have hurt Australia's environment and Australia's economic future and they are doing so in the face of overwhelming opposition from the Australian people. In an opinion poll published in the Australian as recently as 20 August, 95 per cent of Australians said they supported renewable energy. Only two per cent of the Australian population—only two per cent!—agreed with the coalition's regressive world view. That is less than the 6.1 per cent of Australians who think we should abolish the federal government!

There is hardly an issue upon which Australians are more united, yet the Abbott government seems content to fly in the face of environmental benefits, economic benefits and overwhelming public support in scrapping ARENA in the bill before the House today.

Investing in science and technology is investing in our nation's future and it is investing in our children's future. For our future to remain clean, green and economically prosperous, we must ensure the technology that powers our renewable energy industry is the best that it can be. Targeted government investment—which spurs the growth of this industry and creates innovative new ways of producing energy—should be encouraged by government, not axed and undermined as is the case under the Abbott government.

The Australian Renewable Energy Agency has worked wonders in encouraging the development of our renewable energy industry. It has invested in hundreds of projects around Australia and created thousands of new jobs. It has invested in an industry that is supported by 98 per cent of the Australian people. Yet the Abbott government is willing to sacrifice this great agency that is doing great work on the altar of an out-of-touch ideology. It is an ideology that does not believe in climate change, despite the overwhelming evidence of scientists around the globe, and an ideology that prefers to put ribbons and bows on puffed-up farming schemes rather than to take any real action on climate change.

The abolition of ARENA, along with threats to the CEFC and the RET, threatens to take our renewable energy industry back to an era when sunlight was only for sundials and windmills were only for Don Quixote. Labor will never stand for such reckless disregard for Australia's environmental and economic future. We oppose this bill and all efforts by the Abbott government to torpedo Australia's renewable energy industry and our environmental future. This bill is a prime example of the extreme and out-of-touch agenda that the Abbott government has introduced since its took government.

This is a policy that may play well over a sherry and a cigar after an IPA symposium, but it will cause the Australian public to run screaming in horror when it reaches the real world. Labor will not allow Australia's climate policy to be hijacked by an undergraduate culture war. We will fight this extreme, out-of-touch agenda in this chamber, we will fight it in the Australian community and we will fight it until we return to this place a government that believes in fighting climate change and believes in investing in the renewable energy industry for the benefit of both the Australia economy and our environment.

Clive Palmer (Fairfax, Palmer United Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The Australian Renewable Energy Agency, ARENA, is an organisation that is helping Australia become a leader in the renewable energy sector. It is a sector that is set to expand rapidly across the globe. ARENA is investing in renewable energy projects, supporting research and development activities and supporting activities to capture a share of knowledge. To date, it has funded 192 projects by allocating $938 million to their funding. This has produced projects that are worth $2.6 billion, and the fund has $2.5 billion to spend on projects.

After extensive discussions with former US Vice-President Al Gore, the Palmer United Party is determined to vote in the Senate against this bill that will wipe out ARENA. By doing so, the Palmer United Party will also be preventing the Abbott government from breaking yet another election promise. Renewable energy is a growth industry and renewable energy is a rapidly expanding industry that is investing billions of dollars at a time when investment in other areas of the economy is waiting. It has created $20 billion of investment already and could generate another $14.5 billion out to 2020, simply if the government kept its election promises. But the government wants to kill ARENA and has commissioned its hand-picked friend Dick Warburton to try to kill the renewables industry via an assault on the renewable energy target. Mr Warburton's report is dead on arrival.

In its promises before the election the government made itself very clear that there would be no changes to the renewable energy target. The Prime Minister said in 2011: 'We have no plans to change the renewable energy target.' The Minister for the Environment, Greg Hunt, and the then energy spokesman, Ian Macfarlane, said before the election:

The coalition is not proposing and has not proposed any changes to the target…

Senator Simon Birmingham, Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister for the Environment, said:

Can I make clear, the Coalition supports the current [RET] system, including the 41,000 GWh target.

Palmer United is ready to hold the government to account and to vote down any changes along the lines recommended by Mr Warburton. That is why his report is dead on arrival.

I note Mr Warburton has chosen to personally attack me in the Financial Review, saying that I was engaged in 'crazy' and 'dumb' politics because the Palmer United Party was opposing 75 per cent of the government's agenda. I will not return the personal insult to Mr Warburton, but I will say we are proud to oppose many of the government's proposals—especially and particularly those like Mr Warburton is proposing that would harm Australian families and business.

On the price effects of the RET, I would like to acknowledge the efforts of Dick Warburton and his team in taking six months, spending $6 million and reading 23,000 submissions to reveal what we already knew: the RET brings new companies with cheaper prices into the market. It looks like the only winners from this proposal will be the big energy companies. Why would we reward the same companies that have been ripping off Aussies for decades? The Prime Minister is not just breaking his promise to retain the Renewable Energy Target he is breaking his promise to try to maintain cheaper electricity prices in Australia. He is thinking in the short term, despite the fact that in the long term the RET pushes down our electricity bills because we are generating a big chunk of our power with free fuel.

By Palmer United ensuring the savings from the abolition of the carbon tax were passed on, we reduced electricity prices. Origin Energy in Queensland has announced an eight per cent reduction in electricity prices. That is why the Palmer United Party will not be supporting any RET change or reduction in the Senate. We will be voting for lower prices and greater competition for Australian consumers.

When the review of the RET was announced, the Prime Minister said that the RET was causing 'pretty significant price pressure in the system.' Will the Prime Minister now admit that he was mistaken and agree with his review of the RET that said impacts on retail electricity prices appear to be small? If the government is truly concerned about the cost-of-living pressure on Australian families, as it has repeatedly claimed, then it would be announcing today that it has no intention of making any changes to the RET.

Putting solar panels on your roof is a great way to protect your family from higher electricity prices. Millions of households have done it and many more millions want to. The changes to the Small-scale Renewable Energy Scheme proposed by the Warburton RET review threaten ordinary Australians from being able to significantly reduce their electricity bills. The review proposed changing the Small-scale Renewable Energy Scheme, which helps working Australians put solar PVs and solar hot water on their roofs. If this government is really concerned about cost-of-living pressures on ordinary Australians, it should announce that it is rejecting these changes to the Small-scale Renewable Energy Scheme.

Before the election, the Prime Minister promised to cut the cost of living for everyday Australians. Installing solar is one guaranteed way people have to slash their power bills. On average, a household will slash its power bill by 65 per cent when it installs solar. There are two million households that prove this point, and there are millions more that want to get solar. People on low incomes, self-funded retirees, pensioners and community groups have all invested their own money to slash their power bills.

Moving to the issue of industry uncertainty, when the government was elected it claimed that Australia was open for business. This stands in stark contrast to the instability that the government has created in the renewable energy sector. The uncertainty that the RET review has created is causing billions of dollars of investment to be put at risk. The government needs to bring this uncertainty to a swift end by standing by its election promise that there will be no changes to the RET.

The RET was responsible for creating 24,000 new jobs and if left unchanged will create an additional 18,400 jobs by 2020. Ninety per cent of additional renewable energy generation in the period since its inception is attributable to the RET. It doubled Australia's renewable energy capacity in the period between 2001 and 2012. If the Prime Minister wants a prosperous and wealthy Australian economy, then we should be using every resource that we can to support this country. If we have a huge amount of untapped resources above our heads, such as sunlight and wind, we should capture it and use it to power our economy.

In relation to other industry reaction, the sugar industry used to burn sugar cane waste as fast as they could to get rid of it. With $600 million of investment under the RET, they now burn it a lot more efficiently and export renewable electricity to the grid. The RET review recommendations are pretty disastrous for them. They have a further $1 billion or more of potential projects at existing sugar mills in Queensland—projects that bring jobs into regional Australia, help grow the industry and generate renewable electricity in the regions close to population centres where the energy is needed. Putting 8,500 gigawatt hours of renewable energy into the Queensland electricity market will bring more competition and drive down electricity prices for Queenslanders, but it will not happen without the RET.

The RET is not just good for big cities it also brings valuable jobs and investment to regional Australia. ARENA is also supporting the sugar industry by supporting projects to help convert waste into energy. This sees millions of dollars flowing into an industry that the LNP has abandoned. The National Party is kicking sugar farmers in the guts. The renewable energy target and ARENA are driving investment in this industry, yet Dick Warburton, the Prime Minister and the National Party want to end this support. The Palmer United Party will not be part of that. On the other hand, Mr Warburton is proposing a range of unsupportable measures to weaken the renewable energy scheme, such as allowing woodchips from native forests to be burnt and counted as renewable energy. That would be crazy; only plantation timber is fit for such a purpose. The measure proposed by Mr Warburton to allow native forest wood waste into the RET would not only be bad for the environment but wreck consumer confidence in the scheme.

Queensland and the Sunshine Coast, to most Australians, have plenty of sunshine. Using the power of the sun to generate energy makes sense, and this is nowhere more the case than in my home state, the sunshine state of Queensland, where solar has been enthusiastically embraced. Queensland now leads the world in the uptake of household solar, with nearly 400,000 solar homes together generating 1.1 gigawatts of power. This makes Queensland rooftops the fourth-largest power station in the state. In my own electorate of Fairfax, nearly 14,000 homes are powered by the sun—that is, nearly one in four homes. Helped by policies like the renewable energy target, my constituents have invested $104 million of their own hard-earned money into putting solar panels on their roofs. These people have been motivated to take control over ever-increasing power bills and to do their bit for the environment, but they have also been angered by ongoing attacks from politicians like the Premier of Queensland and the Treasurer of Queensland, who recently likened these homes owners to 'champagne sippers and the latte set.' The reality is quite different. Many of the people who have gone solar are from lower- and middle-income households. They are young families, retirees, people without a decent roof space but worried about their electricity bills and people like Fay, an 81-year-old pensioner living in a retirement village in Currimundi. Fay estimates that at least half of her fellow villagers have also gone solar and invested their own savings in a 1.5 kilowatt solar system, helped with a rebate from RET. Fay says that her solar provides a huge relief every time she gets an electricity bill, but she has been frustrated by the chopping and changing of government programs. Fay said to me: 'It is not fair or reasonable for one government to promote solar and the next government to take it away.'

The renewable energy target has also helped drive jobs and investment on the Sunshine Coast. There are over 100 small and medium solar businesses and installers on the Sunshine Coast. There are also bigger manufacturing operations like Latronics, an inverter company based in Caloundra, which is providing its product to 30 countries and selling it around the world. The Sunshine Coast Regional Council has plans for a 10 megawatt large-scale solar farm near Coolum incorporating 50,000 solar panels. This will provide 50 per cent of the council's electricity needs, save ratepayers millions of dollars and help create a clean-tech hub on the coast. It would be the first large scale solar farm built by a council in Australia. All this is at risk if the RET and ARENA are axed.

In the few weeks since the Palmer United Party announced it would not support the Australian Renewable Energy Agency (Repeal) Bill 2014, my office has been inundated with handwritten letters from people in my area in Queensland and from around the country who have been calling on the Palmer Party to ensure that the future of solar stays strong in Australia. I can tell those people today we have heard you. The Palmer United Party will do the right thing by the people of Australia, the industries of the future and the jobs they are generating. We will save the renewable energy target and the Clean Energy Finance Corporation. We will not be voting for this bill, so that will save Australia's Renewable Energy Agency as well.

Laurie Ferguson (Werriwa, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Tonight I speak in accord with a significant number of constituents in my electorate, most recently Katy Carolan of Rossmore and Angelina Al Kaaby of Austral, who seek that the Australian Renewable Energy Agency be preserved, that the renewable energy target be retained and that the Clean Energy Council be supported. It is surprising that we are debating the Australian Renewable Energy Agency (Repeal) Bill 2014 this evening, because the man who is now the Prime Minister of this country—who rushed around the country shoving factory workers into photographs with him, sometimes at the behest of employers, and raving about people being liars and spreading untruths—said on 29 September 2011:

Look, we originated a renewable energy target. That was one of the policies of the Howard government and yes we remain committed to a renewable energy target. I certainly accept that the renewable energy target is one of the factors of the current power system which is causing prices to go up but we have no plans to change the renewable energy target.

We all know that this contrived investigation by Mr Warburton, an acknowledged sceptic in the area of climate change, was basically designed to soften up the electorate on behalf of corporate interests concerned at the way their cost structure was being undermined by the spread of solar in this country.

Tonight, we are dealing with an organisation was legislated for in 2011 and was operative from July 2012. It has put significant investment into renewable energies—into their spread and particularly into novel technological developments—to reduce carbon pollution. By doing that, it has mobilised far greater finance from the private sector. As many other speakers have said, most of these developments are in rural and regional areas, for obvious reasons: the availability of alternative energy sources there, the lack of effect upon households et cetera. It has to be stressed that we see a significant number of National Party members not speaking in this debate, possibly because of the proportion of that development that has occurred from this particular measure in rural and regional areas. We have heard figures. One of the outcomes is 1.2 million households with solar. I will summarise later some of those developments.

Perhaps Nicholas Stern—the Chair of the Grantham Research Institute on Climate Change at the London School of Economics and Political Science, and President of the British Academy and someone acknowledged for serious work in this field previously—had in mind this government in particular when he said:

Unfortunately, the current pace of progress is not nearly rapid enough, with many rich industrialised countries being slow to make the transition to cleaner and more efficient forms of economic growth.

The lack of vision and political will from the leaders of many developed countries is not just harming their long-term competitiveness, but is also endangering efforts to create international co-operation and reach a new agreement …

Delay is dangerous. Inaction could be justified only if we could have great confidence that the risks posed by climate change are small. But that is not what 200 years of climate science is telling us. The risks are huge.

That is the reality that is being articulated by a significant thinker in this field. He also noted:

The IPCC has concluded from all of the available scientific evidence that it is 95% likely that most of the rise in global average temperature since the middle of the 20th century is due to emissions of greenhouse gases, deforestation and other human activities.

That is the reality that is denied by many opposite. They have been told: 'Go through the motions. We should pretend we believe in climate change. There are a lot of people out there who are listening to these international bodies. People have picked up that we are not scientists. Perhaps these people that are talking about climate change, around the world after major studies, are not self-interested; perhaps they actually do know something about this field. We had better pretend that we actually do recognise climate change.' But we all know from the occasional outburst, the occasional indiscretion, that many in the government opposite are not too supportive of that reality.

I note that, as this government undertakes this very unfortunate initiative to basically undermine renewables, to undermine alternative sources of energy and to undermine the international effort against climate change, the International Energy Agency has made some comments about the international trend at the moment. They are not an affiliate of the Australian Council of Trade Unions; they are not associated with the British Labour Party or the German Social Democrats; they are a respected international agency that specialises in this field. Their comments about what is happening around the world and what should be happening here are very apposite:

Wind, solar and other renewable power capacity grew at its strongest ever pace last year and now produces 22% of the world's electricity, the International Energy Agency said on Thursday in a new report.

… … …

Maria van der Hoeven, the executive director of the IEA, said governments should hold their nerve: 'Renewables are a necessary part of energy security. However, just when they are becoming a cost-competitive option in an increasing number of cases, policy and regulatory uncertainty is rising in some key markets. This stems from concerns about the cost of deploying renewables.'

And, by Christ, I think Australia might be in the category she is alluding to there. She went on to note: 'Hydro and other green technologies could be producing 26% of the world's electricity by 2020'. That is a credible international source that says there is a 'lack of nerve' at the moment; governments driven by corporate interests, driven by a lack of knowledge, driven by a lack of courage, driven by an inability to face up to crisis, and driven by an inability to understand that if we do not do something the situation is going to be exacerbated.

As I said earlier, there has been a heavy concentration of developments in this sector in rural and regional areas: Alinta Energy at Port Augusta, a solar thermal feasibility study for a stand-alone solar thermal plant; Doomadgee Solar Farm in the Gulf of Carpentaria; a solar photovoltaic diesel hybrid, allowing diesel generators to be turned off—1.26 MWP of solar photovoltaic generation. That of course is typical of what is occurring in this field. There has also been funding of credible academic authorities such as Swinburne University for wave energy farm research. Mr Ivor Frischknecht, the CEO of ARENA, the group that is going to be abolished by this government, described the world's first redeployable large-scale solar diesel hybrid in regional Queensland as: 'a viable renewable energy alternative that could equally be used to assist in international relief efforts'. That is another area that is not too interesting to this government, which has slashed foreign aid. But that particular initiative in trying to counter the threat of climate change could be utilised, because of its ability to be moved, to help foreign aid efforts.

What we are seeing here now is a total repudiation of commitments that were given to the Australian people; that this government would not undermine ARENA; that it believed in it. It somehow associated itself with some of these changes. As someone said earlier, the minister introducing this bill is at pains to basically tell us of the wide benefits that have occurred from this organisation. They have been very positive about outcomes. But then the bill comes along and it is actually designed to destroy ARENA. This country has a responsibility to take a lead—rather than to be a retrograde nonplayer in international agreements—and not to move towards inaction.

In 2010, the Climate Analysis Indicators Tool from the World Resources Institute in Washington DC has noted—and it has been made with slight variations every other year before and after since it became an international issue—that per capita emissions in Australia at that point were 27.4; UAE, 38.2; USA, 23.5; and Canada, 22.9.All four of them, interestingly enough, were amongst the people at the back of the field when you look at their lack of activity. So there is a responsibility in this country to be in the lead rather than undermine the move towards alternatives.

As noted by Kofi Annan's Global Humanitarian Forum, the interesting thing is:

Nearly 98% of the people seriously affected, 99% of all deaths from weather-related disasters and 90% of the total economic losses are now borne by developing countries. The populations most at risk it says, are in sub-Saharan Africa, the Middle East, south Asia and the small island states of the Pacific.

While we sit on our hands and undermine the need to act, the people most unable to cope with this are in those underdeveloped countries.

An article by John Vidal in The Guardian Weekly noted that:

in the estimates of Kofi Annan's foundation.

In conclusion, I very firmly oppose this measure. It is not an issue for which the government has a mandate. Clearly, they tried to delude the Australian public that it would be business as usual in this particular sector. It is a situation where an organisation has been successful. It has engendered action. It has engendered finance from the private sector and it has accomplished very worthwhile renewable activity.

Jill Hall (Shortland, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The Australian Renewable Energy Agency (Repeal) Bill 2014 being debated is yet another example of the regressive, backward-looking approach of the Abbott government to renewable energy. Whilst Australians are calling out for more renewable energy, this government is doing everything it possibly can to ensure that our energy supply remains dependent on old technologies while discouraging research and technological development of renewable energy.

The Australian Renewable Agency or ARENA, as it is widely known, has the slogan of building tomorrow's energy infrastructure and its goal is to do this by lowering costs and increasing the use of renewable energy. I think that is something that all Australians support.

Over the last week or so I have been receiving numerous emails from my constituents encouraging me to support ARENA and vote against any moves by this regressive Abbott government that says one thing before and another thing after an election. They have encouraged me to oppose the abolition of ARENA and vote against any changes to the renewable energy targets—targets when, coupled with ARENA, will deliver better and more dependable energy long term and give us a longer life span. ARENA also looks at new technologies which are the gateway to the future.

ARENA has a proud record. It has invested $1 billion and another $1.8 billion has been leveraged from industry and others. That is a significant contribution to renewables and renewable research. ARENA is managing more than 180 projects—that is including fellowships and scholarships—worth $2.8 billion. Of these, 15 projects have been completed and there have been more than 40 variations to maximise results. An additional 37 projects are in contract negotiations.

ARENA supports and recognises new and immature technology solutions that are high risk. They are the innovators. They encourage innovation as opposed to those on the opposite side of this House who have a very narrow, short-sighted vision for the future that is rooted in the past rather than looking towards new technologies and research. ARENA also shares information that supports industry rollout as well as to the wider community.

This government stands condemned for its action in this area. ARENA has over 190 projects worth $2.5 billion, of which 15 are completed, and there is ongoing investment and research in so many other areas. There is another $7.7 billion worth of projects under construction, and these projects are innovations, technologies, that would not have come to fruition without the work of ARENA and where it is at at the moment.

Shortland is an electorate where solar energy has been embraced. People in Shortland have converted to solar panels, solar homes. There are 4,885 solar homes in Shortland and it is generating 12.2 megawatts of clean energy. Around 18,500 jobs nationwide have been created by clean energy, renewable energy and solar energy in particular. There has been a $36.6-million investment in solar power saving 15,266 tonnes of CO2 and $2.7 million on power bills. Since November last year, an additional 19 families in Shortland electorate have moved to powering their homes by renewable energy.

As well as bringing investment and benefits to the whole community, renewable energy is a growth area for jobs in new technologies and new industries and it looks to the future. Now, unfortunately for us in Australia, the government are a government of climate change deniers. They give lip service to the fact that climate change is actually an issue. They pretend that they are concerned about CO2 emissions. But every single action that they take in this parliament says they do not believe in climate change, they do not care about climate change and they are going to do nothing to bring about changes, to develop renewable energy or to invest in the technologies and sciences of the future. They only give lip service. They only pretend to be interested in climate change. Otherwise, why would they be abandoning ARENA? Otherwise, why would they be actively considering getting rid of the renewable energy targets that are so important to the future of the renewable sector and so important to the environment we live in, the ecology and the future of this nation?

I really believe that those on the other side of the House need to go back to the drawing board. They need to determine what they really believe in. I know there are members on the other side of this House that actually accept the fact that climate change is a reality, that we need to take action for the future, that we need to invest in these new technologies and that ARENA actually plays an extraordinary role in our society and in our country. Any organisation that for $1 billion of investment can gain $1.8 billion is certainly doing what it was set up to do.

I think no issue is a more defining issue between us and those on the other side of the House than climate change. As I said that, I thought, 'Actually, practically every issue we debate in this House is a defining issue.' Those on the other side of the House were prepared to bring down a cruel budget that really hurts those people who can least afford it. On this side of the House we support people that look to government for support. I think about our approach to health care and the approach of those on the other side of this House to health care. I think of our approach to the environment across a wide variety of areas and then I think about how those on the other side of this House approach it. I think about fairness, I think about equity and I think about discrimination. And then I look at the way those on the other side of the House approach those issues and I hesitate to say that climate change and our approach to it is the real defining issue.

Practically everything we debate in this House, how we debate it and even ensuring that the democratic process is in place defines us. We saw this morning a piece of legislation rammed through this House. It was introduced with the parliamentary secretary standing up and giving a second reading speech saying that he moved that the bill be read a second time. That was the extent of his speech. There was no legislation in the House for us to look at. This is the quality of the Abbott government. It is a government that looks back to the past and does not embrace new technologies. It does not look to promoting industries such as solar, bio-energy, hybrid enabling, ocean, wave, wind or geothermal energies. This is a government that is prepared to sit on its hands and rely on the technologies of the past.

ARENA has overseen a lot of innovations and a lot of programs. There was the Emerging Renewables Program, which supported the development and early-stage deployment of renewable energy technologies. The Southern Cross Renewable Energy Fund was funded under the Renewable Energy Venture Capital Fund. The venture capital fund is a very important aspect of ARENA that supports those emerging projects and industries. ARENA supported high-value Australian renewable energy knowledge by increasing awareness of renewable energy solutions and by sharing research knowledge. That is very important because the sharing of knowledge is how industries develop and build upon the findings and research of other industries. This decision to abolish ARENA is a really backward step when it comes to that area.

ARENA also provided funding for the Accelerated Step Change Initiative for exceptional and commercialised projects not captured under other renewable ARENA programs. ARENA has announced many initiatives. There has been funding announced by the parliamentary secretary. ARENA is providing $2.5 million for 12 cutting edge solar research and development projects. Once again, all these projects are under threat simply because we have a government that has no vision, has no initiative and has no commitment to see that we have a viable renewable industry going into the future. Some of those projects are enhancing existing technologies to advance emerging technologies in photovoltaics, solar and solar storage—all really important areas that we need to come to terms with within the solar industry and for progressing the solar industry into the future.

ARENA going will cost thousands of jobs across rural Australia. The agency is responsible for researching and supporting renewable projects and emerging technologies, such as concentrated solar energy. Many of these projects are carried out in rural Australia. That being the case, I am sure that we can look to National Party members standing up in this House and speaking out and opposing the abolition of ARENA! Wind and solar are examples of industries that are vitally important in the country—and for local earthmovers and the people who build the roads. People who maintain them are looking at moving to a more renewable approach to energy.

With the abolition of ARENA Australia will be taking a backward step. This is a government that does not value ideas. This is a government that does not value new technologies. This is a government that looks to the past. This is a government that stands condemned for its attempt to abolish ARENA.

Alannah Mactiernan (Perth, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise to join in the condemnation of the attempts by the government to repeal the legislation surrounding ARENA. We have some confidence that this legislation will fail to get support in the Senate. But, of course, that is only half the task. Obviously, even if this very important research entity within Australia, the Australian Renewable Energy Agency, remains, it is important that it continues to get funds.

I do not believe that the move to abolish ARENA is really principally about the government being climate change sceptics. I think it is grounded in a far more fundamental problem, and that is one where the leadership of the current government is actually just not interested in any vision of the future; its primary interest is to unravel anything that was put in by the previous Labor government. It has no agenda beyond that of student politicians. Indeed, the Prime Minister and many of his henchmen really approach politics as student politicians. This is all about sticking the rough end of the pineapple up the opposition; not about having any vision of what we need to do to take this country forward.

It is almost unbelievable that we do not have any understanding of the importance of government funded research and development in this area—how critical it is for us to have research and development of these sunrise industries so that we have an economic future. We have been told that we have to demolish the car industry, we are going to withdraw support from the car industry and we are going to see tens of thousands if not hundreds of thousands of jobs lost—but, not only jobs lost; our advanced manufacturing capability reduced. We are going to see submarines and battleships going to be constructed offshore—again, losing that advanced manufacturing capacity. Here we have yet another industry that we are turning our backs on. Forget climate change. The most socially conservative person could understand the importance of ensuring that we have some skin in the game of renewable energy. Let me quote Mark Diesendorf, associate professor from the university of New South Wales, who says:

There is no rational reason for a political person to oppose the growth of renewable energy in Australia. These are new industries being implemented by small and medium-sized businesses, creating jobs and supporting technological innovation.

Let us understand a little bit about how we get new industries, how we get to the stage of the development of the internet; the development of the algorithm that underpins the search engines; the development of touchscreen technology; the development of wi-fi; the development of radar. Each and every one of these—things that are underpinning the 21st century technologies—each and every one of those innovations had at their heart government investment. It is really important, for innovation to thrive, that we have government investment. In those cases by and large the investment came out of the investment in defence technologies. But there were very creative collaborations between institutions, between the private sector and the public sector. If we do not do that we really will not see these technologies develop in this country.

They will develop. Do not let any of us think that we are not going to see great leaps forward in renewable energy over the next 10 years. The question is: do we want Australia to be part of that? Do we want to be in the game of development or do we want to sit back there and become just become technology takers? We are not going to have a role if we do not get in there and invest. Look at the fundamental functions of ARENA. They fund research in collaboration with research institutions and the private sector. They go for demonstration projects, they go for pure research and then for the early stage commercialisation of renewable energy projects. All of this is really important if you actually understand how technology develops, how we go from an idea to a commercially realistic project. Let me quote a paper put out by the International Energy Agency in 2011 in which they talk about how critical it is that we have investment at this particular stage. It states:

Significant challenges, mostly linked to a lack of joined‐up policies to reduce investor risk and the resulting funding gap, hamper the smooth … transition from demonstration to deployment for viable—

technologies—

The absence of adequate financing means that the point at which innovative energy technologies might be deployed in the market and prove themselves on a large scale may be delayed or at worst fail, a phenomenon commonly termed the commercialisation 'valley of death'.

Indeed, this was the very place where ARENA was targeting their work: they were ensuring not just the pure research and the demonstration project but the early stage of commercialisation—avoiding that valley of death. That is what ARENA was doing and that was enabling an enormous number of Australian companies to engage and develop technology and a wide source of renewables.

This development is not going to stop because we stop ARENA. The world is not going to stop doing this. Renewable energy will not stop being developed. Let me quote Steven Cohen, a professor at Columbia University in the School of International and Public Affairs. He said:

The need for low-cost and reliable energy is going to grow … Engineers and businesspeople all over the world see the demand and are working to figure out a way to generate supply. In the global economy, the old line fossil fuel companies will not be able to prevent the diffusion of new technology once it is developed. Ask Kodak what happened to companies that do not change their strategies to reflect the emerging technologies.

That is what we are doing in Australia—we are acting as if we are Kodak. We are in there backing it 100 per cent. We are saying that the technology we are going to go with, the technology we are going to persist with, is the fossil fuel technology and that that is our business model, and that we are not going to be part of this new emerging industry that is happening around the world.

Just in the last couple of weeks, we have seen companies like Suntech, the Chinese solar energy firm, announce that they are going to close their local research arm and close-down the research projects that they had in Western Australia. Suntech have been investing more than $3 million a year in Australian research and development. Because of the decision of this government to close down ARENA, the decision of this government to put under question the renewable energy target and its decision to demolish carbon pricing, Suntech are moving their effort out of Australia, and no doubt will be working, as they are, in China and in India to develop these emerging markets. Let us remember this: we are not going to stop this development. ARENA is not going to be there. That is not going to stop the research being undertaken, but it is going to stop us having a meaningful role in it.

Seven of China's largest subeconomies already have emissions trading schemes and now China have announced that it is going to rollout its national market for carbon permit trading in 2016. They will be a major hub. South Korea is going to be launching its scheme in 2015. Indonesia, Thailand and Vietnam are drawing theirs up. You can see what is happening. We have a mob of Luddites here in this place—people who do not actually understand the technologies and industries of the 21st century and the role that government research and assistance in the early commercialisation of these projects play in ensuring the development of some home-grown technology. We are going to be left behind in this game.

The wonderful work that we have seen happening in Australia and in Western Australia will pretty much come to a grinding halt. One WA company that we were talking to recently told me that they are aware of several projects that were in discussions with ARENA—really good projects. Several were large scale—10 megawatt to 30 megawatt solar projects on the south-west interconnected grid. Another project was a plantation fuel biomass project on the south-west interconnected grid and several large-scale solar projects on the north-west interconnected grid. The combined value of these projects would be over $500 million and the vast majority would have been funded from private sector investment. Again, to ensure that we get over that hump, that we move beyond and do not fall down into the valley of death, it is important that we have government assistance at that critical time to allow that research to take place and for that early commercialisation to be derisked, to some extent, for the private sector.

I want to finish by quoting the Australian Academy of Science from 2010. It says:

Australia’s renewable energy future poses important national choices. We can adopt the reactive path of minimisation of known economic costs, leading to the slow uptake of renewables mapped above. Or we can be proactive in stimulating research and installation of renewables, a path that will lead to a more rapid uptake. The second option has the potential to put Australia at the leading edge of renewable energy technology, an objective of particular importance to the Australian Academy of Science. It may also have the potential for sustainable job creation and stimulation of export business opportunities. Government policies are crucial in determining both the rapidity of evolution and the future potential net economic value of our energy future …

So forget this being an argument about climate change. It does not have to be an argument about climate change. This is an argument about where Australia is going in the 21st century, to participate in the new sunrise industries. This is quite clearly an industry in which there is enormous investment going on around the world. We have just pulled the rug from under the Australian industry. Shame on you, Mr Abbott, and your government.

Tony Zappia (Makin, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Parliamentary Secretary for Manufacturing) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Since coming to office the Abbott government has done all it can to erase any reference of climate change from its policies and publications. Climate change is rarely mentioned by government members and the words have been effectively deleted from government publications and any other printed material that the government issues. Where the government has been able to do so, it has also disbanded, abolished or defunded every climate change initiative that was set up by the previous Labor government.

We are told that the government does not even want to mention the topic at the G20 meeting, which is to be held later this year here in Australia. It is such an important issue and the government does not want to talk about it.

I commend the member for Perth on her contribution to this debate on the Australian Renewable Energy Agency (Repeal) Bill 2014. I heard her mention only a moment ago that China has now committed to a full national emissions trading scheme by 2016. Over 30 per cent of the global emissions that come from that country—one of the biggest emitters—are now going to be part of an emissions trading scheme. That is the kind of commitment that I would have thought countries such as Australia should be making rather than back-pedalling and walking away from any action on climate change. We heard earlier this year that the US is also making strong commitments, as are so many other countries. Again, I am not going to go through all of them, but they have been mentioned by so many other speakers in this debate.

The issue will not go away just because the government does not want to talk about it or because the government wants to defund or dismantle anything to do with climate change that was previously established. Might I say that not everything was established by the previous Labor government. Some initiatives date back to a previous coalition government, yet the government now wants to walk away from anything to do with climate change and global warming.

The concerning thing about that is that this is happening at a time when the scientific advice relating to climate change is becoming much clearer and much more certain. As I said a moment ago, we are now clearly out of step with what other countries are doing and, quite frankly, I can understand why we are now being criticised by other governments of back-pedalling.

Consistent with the Abbott government's theme of denying climate change—and I note the comments from the member for Perth who said that perhaps it is not that they are simply in denial but that they simply want to undo everything that Labor does because that is the nature of their political thinking—doing away with the Australian Renewable Energy Agency is simply another part of that process.

It is clearly an ideologically driven decision that makes no economic sense and no environmental sense. It is also another broken promise of the Abbott government. Last August, before the election, environment minister Greg Hunt said:

We are keeping ARENA and ARENA is the body looking at specific support for development projects in the solar space.

That was one year ago. Contrary to the environment minister's assurances just prior to the election that they would keep ARENA, the Abbott government now wants to scrap it. It is even more illogical, given that only in June this year the industry minister was singing ARENA'S praises in the Federation Chamber, when he said, 'ARENA has allocated in excess of $1 billion for renewable energy projects in Australia, with a further $1.8 billion being leveraged from the private sector.' He went on to say:

But we certainly expect some great results from those programs that have already been funded under ARENA.

So why would the Abbott government want to wind up a program that was, to use the minister's words, 'getting great results, creating jobs, attracting co-investment of nearly two to one and producing world-leading renewable energy technology'? I believe the government wants to because, firstly, it wants to wash its hands of climate change. Secondly, it wants to because the Abbott government wants to prop up the energy companies and the fossil fuel sector, which will undoubtedly be the beneficiaries of a reduction in renewable energy investments in this country. The minister effectively acknowledged that in his second reading speech, when he said:

This government supports the energy and resources sector. We recognise it as one of our economy's most significant drivers of jobs, private sector investment and national revenue.

So the minister acknowledges that it is really the energy sector and the resources sector that the government is interested in and nothing else. The fact is that, since it was established in 2012, ARENA has supported more than 190 renewable energy projects. I understand that there are about another 190 in the pipeline. If they were to get the support and funding that they need and get off the ground, that would also bring in an additional co-investment of around $5 billion. We are talking about significant amounts of capital that will be going into these projects in addition to the money that ARENA itself would put into them.

ARENA has done its job and, in conjunction with the Clean Energy Finance Corporation, which members in this place would recall the government also wanted to abolish—and I suspect the government will now want to also abolish the renewable energy target, given the report that was handed down last week—we have actually seen a transformation in this country with respect to our energy sources.

Wind power has tripled, renewable energy jobs have tripled to around 24,000 across the country and the latest figures show that we have about 1.3 million homes with solar panels on them and some 840,000 homes with a solar hot water system on them. Those figures speak for themselves. The programs and the investments made in them have undoubtedly worked and have been successful, and the figures clearly show that. But that is not in the interest of the energy companies and that is why I suspect there is pressure on the government to wind back ARENA and close down the Clean Energy Finance Corporation, and the next step will be to do away with the renewable energy target.

I want to talk for a moment about the jobs that were created as a result of the investments in clean energy technology—the 24,000 jobs that span the country. Most of those jobs are in manufacturing and, again, most of those jobs in the manufacturing sector of this particular category are in regional and rural Australia. They are jobs that support and sustain country towns and country regions more than anything else—two to one, 70 per cent. It will be those communities that will be hit hard when we defund ARENA and those jobs are lost, or the new investment is simply not there. It also goes to the issue of manufacturing jobs. My understanding is that, in Germany, clean energy technology now accounts for more jobs in the manufacturing sector than the automotive sector. That highlights the opportunities that are there if governments are prepared to look forward rather than back and invest in what the future holds rather than what the past holds. It is very concerning that we are losing jobs in manufacturing—and this will be a severe blow to manufacturing—at a time when manufacturing in this country is already under immense pressure as a result of this government's decision to cut hundreds of millions of dollars of industry assistance to the manufacturing sector and turn its back on the automotive sector by not supporting the car makers, and now it will create so much uncertainty with respect to Defence contracts and who is going to get those jobs. Manufacturing is already doing it tough and this is going to be a real blow.

I quote from a manufacturer in my electorate of Makin. They opened up the business only two or three years ago. I refer to the business Tindo Solar. They made a submission to the renewable energy target review and said:

The long-term stable framework of the RET policy has provided the confidence for Tindo to establish the solar PV manufacturing plant in 2011.

They went on to say:

The weakening of the SRES—

the Small-scale Renewable Energy Scheme—

will impact significantly on the solar industry. Tindo Solar as a manufacturer and installer of solar systems nationally would be impacted significantly—which would certainly lead to job losses. This would happen right at a time when the future looks bright for Tindo with imminent expansion of our workforce …

That is straight from the horse's mouth. That is from a manufacturer set up in 2011—I have been through the brand-new plant—that manufactures solar panels and competes with the rest of the world at a competitive price, with a new type of panel that was previously not available, and yet their business is being put at risk because of the policies of this government. There would be many similar stories, I have no doubt, but I can speak about that one with a degree of personal understanding because I have been through the plant.

It is my view that this government is making decisions for the wrong reasons. It does not make economic sense, it does not make budgetary sense, it does not make business sense and it does not make environmental sense to walk away from ARENA and, for that matter, all the other initiatives that were committed to by previous governments with respect to climate change. The reality is that our climate is changing. Human activity is significantly contributing to that change, and the changes are raising the risks and costs that will be faced by mankind across this planet in the years ahead. We have a program in place that is getting results and yet we are going to—if this government has its way—walk away from it.

The last point I want to make about the foolishness of the policies of this government relates to the costs associated with many of the decisions of government. Many members opposite quite often come into this place, including those who spoke in support of this legislation, and talk about the $1.3 billion that is going to be saved by the government by abolishing this measure and how we need that money. They never talk about the impact of these kinds of decisions in dollar terms. I will quote from an article put out by Dr George Crisp, a Perth GP and a member of Doctors for the Environment. He talks about the real health costs associated with climate change and the way we are polluting the air through the burning of fossil fuels. He refers to four or five different studies that have already been done. I quote from his press release. He said:

… the Australian Academy of Technological Sciences and Engineering estimated the annual externalised costs of fossil-fuel generated electricity in Australia to be $2.6 billion.

The next example he uses is from Harvard University. He said:

Paul Epstein at Harvard Medical School found the health and environmental consequences of coal cost the US economy between one third and one half a trillion dollars each year.

He alluded to a third example and said:

The 2011 US EPA review of their Clean Air Act concluded that every dollar spent on cleaner air produced $30 in health benefits.

He went on to say:

European studies findings are similar, estimating that health savings more than outweigh costs of emissions reduction, and that those benefits continue to accrue over time.

The case is quite clear: there is very good reason to continue with the policies that are already in place. There is a requirement for us to do so because the rest of the world is acting and because we have the scientific advice that says that we should be doing something about it. We have programs, projects and policies in place that are delivering the results—and that is admitted to by the minister—and yet we want to walk away from them, all because of political ideology. This side of parliament does not support this measure and I certainly do not, because I believe it is wrong and I believe we will pay dearly for it in the years to come.

Warren Snowdon (Lingiari, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Parliamentary Secretary for External Territories) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I commend the member for Makin for his very erudite elucidation of the issues surrounding this piece of legislation. I have been hearing bits of the debate during the course of the day, and I have heard nothing from the government that is anything like a convincing argument. That raises a number of serious questions which have been alluded to during the course of the debate. The member for Perth spoke about the Luddites on the other side of the chamber. I am not sure they are all Luddites, but they have clearly had their understanding of the need for environmental action in this regard, and the importance of ARENA, suppressed by the ideological motivations that, no doubt, come from the leadership and from the minister responsible for the environment. No clear-minded person, no good-thinking person, could come to the conclusion that ARENA is not worth keeping and does not make a significant contribution to the Australian community.

We all know that ARENA works to reduce the cost of renewable energy technology development and has been very successful in increasing its use in this country; that it provides financial assistance for the research, development, demonstration and commercialisation of renewable energy and related technologies; that it develops skills in the renewable energy industry; and that it promotes renewable energy projects and innovation both nationally and internationally. I am reminded by the shadow minister that ARENA currently supports more than 190 renewable energy projects drawing more than $1.5 billion of private sector investment and that these 190 projects in the pipeline have the potential to draw more than $5 billion in private sector funding as well. And 70 per cent of ARENA funding has gone to projects in rural and regional Australia, creating jobs for the future of those areas. It is that aspect of this that I want to talk about. The people who have got most to benefit from research and innovation in alternative methods of energy production are people who live in high-cost areas remote from major cities and towns and in remote parts of this country.

I note that in June the Senate referred the provisions of this bill to the Senate Economics Committee for inquiry. There were 130 submissions received, one of which came from the Centre for Appropriate Technology, an organisation based in my home town of Alice Springs. I am grateful to Lyndon Frearson, the CEO of CAT Projects, for allowing me to quote liberally from that submission because it makes substantial sense and provides a practical example of how the Australian Renewable Energy Agency has been able to assist organisations and businesses in remote and regional Australia.

CAT Projects evolved as a commercial engineering services on of the Centre for Appropriate Technology in 2008, specialising in renewable energy services to remote communities and pursuing opportunities to utilise CAT's intellectual property in commercial and international settings. CAT is a unique organisation in this country. It is wholly owned and governed by Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islanders and has an Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander board. It has its head office in Alice Springs, with national outreach offices in Western Australia, Queensland and the Northern Territory. CAT has worked for over 30 years bringing people and technology together to deal with basic technological challenges in remote parts of Australia. This approach is grounded in effective engagement and sustainable outcomes facilitated by innovative and effective responses to these challenges. CAT project solutions are people focused, innovative and practical and they acknowledge the important relationship between people, place and technology. It is a proud locally owned company. CAT Projects, in its submission to the Senate Economics Committee, pointed out that CAT projects, by dint of its submission, is well placed to comment on the efficacy and importance of ARENA as an agency. As a company based in remote Australia, CAT Projects deal daily with the impact of high energy prices associated with isolated diesel and gas power supplies.

I understand that most people in this chamber, including in the government, have got absolutely no bloody idea what happens in the bush. They have got no idea what happens in rural and remote Australia. They have got no real idea of what powers communities in remote parts of the Northern Territory or of the costs involved. I say to the government that, if you raise your eyes a bit and have a look at what is going on in the bush, you will appreciate what CAT is doing. Existing projects such as grid extensions and large capital intensive power supplies have proven to be inappropriate for remote Australia. Hence, thinking differently about energy supplies, the technologies that are used and the financial structures that are used to develop them is vital.

ARENA, through its Regional Australia's Renewables initiative and its Community and Regional Renewable Energy Program, has been explicitly dealing with these issues. The continuing existence of ARENA has been of critical importance to remote and regional Australia. There are a range of barriers in the bush, not least of which is that remote and regional areas have some of the highest marginal costs of power generation anywhere in the country. And yet they are located in areas with some of the highest renewable energy resource potential—including, particularly in my communities, solar power.

With high energy costs being a key barrier to further development of northern and remote Australia, alternatives to the existing modes of generation, transmission and consumption of electrical energy must be considered, if only to act as a hedge to fluctuations in energy prices. There are a number of issues that we need to deal with—a common set of structural barriers to deployment of renewable energy sources in remote communities. They include issues to do with governance, supply chains—the intellectual supply chain, the labour supply chain, the logistical supply chain—finance and capital constraints. ARENA as an agency has recognised the importance of incentivising innovation with respect to these barriers, with a specific focus on not simply throwing money at the issues, rather asking industry, utilities and other government agencies to consider how different approaches to business can materially address the barriers previously identified.

A key example of this—and this is a very important example—is a project with which CAT Projects have been involved for some time and which is presently in the final stage of negotiating a funding agreement with ARENA: the Voyages Yulara 1.8-megawatt PV system. Yulara is a tourist township some kilometres from Uluru. It consists of five separate accommodation facilities and associated infrastructure, with attendant services, including a primary school, a medical clinic and emergency services: police, fire and ambulance. The resort is wholly owned by Voyages Indigenous Tourism Australia Pty Ltd, a subsidiary of the Indigenous Land Corporation. Power is supplied to Yulara by a combination of diesel and compressed natural gas, trucked daily 440 kilometres from Alice Springs. The cost of generating a supply of energy to Yulara is in excess of $300 per megawatt hour, excluding any margin for overheads and profit by the supplier. The integration of a large PV array, with a peak daytime penetration of around 30 per cent, was reviewed by CAT Projects on behalf of Voyages in 2013. Even the most conservative estimates of the costs of the development, future energy costs and the value of the energy generated from the PV plant indicated that the project had a high probability of being viable in its own right.

There were some issues. In the first instance, Voyages did not have the internal capacity to appreciate or manage the technical risk associated with the project, the energy supplier did not have the access to capital to support the project, and the regulatory environment made it prohibitively difficult for a third party to establish the PV system in its own right. Without intervention, the opportunity to drive down the local long-term costs of energy would be lost. Enter ARENA. The ARENA I-RAR program acted as a catalyst for Voyages to reconsider the project and how additional support from ARENA might help resolve the barriers that had been identified. Critically, the mere presence of ARENA as an active agency willing to fund projects in this space gave substantial confidence to the board and management of Voyages that the project would be successful.

As a direct result, Voyages made an initial expression of interest through ARENA for funding for a 1.8-megawatt PV plant, with the funding requested being between 15 and 20 per cent of the projected capital cost. ARENA accepted the EOI and advised that Voyages could proceed to a full application, and they did. Voyages were required to complete detailed design documentation for the project, then go to tender and include the locked-in tender prices as part of the final submission. Voyages did this. They completed the tender process with the assistance of CAT Projects in June 2014. The pricing that was returned, along with the financing proposals, was substantially better than what had been originally estimated and resulted in Voyages being able to be confident that the plant would be built and financed without direct support from ARENA.

The final negotiations with ARENA have resulted in an agreement for ARENA to fund a knowledge-sharing program for the project in order to disseminate the lessons learnt as well as some of the up-front design and development costs. The value of this contribution from ARENA is now around six to seven per cent of the total project cost. This process has proven the important catalysing role of ARENA as an independent agency. Through being present and engaged with industry, ARENA has been able to build confidence and collaboration between end consumers of energy, technology suppliers and the financiers who support these projects. It is very clear that, were ARENA not in existence, the Yulara plant would not be proceeding at any time in the foreseeable future and that there are many other projects around remote and regional Australia that would suffer a similar fate—and no doubt will—as a direct result.

Russell Broadbent (McMillan, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Tell the nation what ARENA is.

Warren Snowdon (Lingiari, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Parliamentary Secretary for External Territories) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Don't we know, mate? I will come to it in a moment. I am just conscious of time. It is a sure and certain view of CAT Projects that the repeal of ARENA and the subsumption of its roles into a larger department will have a materially detrimental effect on the long-term development of regional and remote Australia. I am 100 per cent certain of this—absolutely certain. CAT Projects strongly support ARENA, as do I. The previous Labor government established ARENA in 2012, as an independent agency designed to improve the competitiveness of renewable energy technologies in Australia and to increase the supply of renewable energy to Australia's electricity market—exactly what has happened at Yulara.

I say to members opposite, as I said at the beginning of my contribution, that they need to look beyond their own little piles as they think about this bill. They need to understand its implications not only for them but most particularly for those people who live in high-cost areas, where the cost of electricity production is exorbitant and innovation is required. Innovation based on good science, good engineering, good technology and decent investments by informed investors and enlightened organisations such as ARENA can make a material difference to the outcome and mean that, in the long term, we have got sustainable energy supplies to the most rural and remote parts of Australia—for people who deserve better attention than they are getting from this government. I say to the government—and others have made this contribution before—get over being climate sceptics. We know climate change is real. It is about time you actually took heed of not only the science but the very, very good work that is being done in Australia around alternative energy production and renewable energy. Just get over it and do not proceed with this silly piece of legislation which is going to do harm to all of us.

Melissa Parke (Fremantle, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Assistant Minister for Health) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise to argue against this bill, the Australian Renewable Energy Agency (Repeal) Bill 2014, which represents another serious blow to Australia's ambitions and achievements when it comes to renewable energy. Abolishing the Australian Renewable Energy Agency, known as ARENA, will jeopardise Australia's renewable energy future. It will mean a serious delay in our progress towards a decreasing reliance on fossil fuels. It will mean falling behind in a fast-growing and competitive global industry generating 21st century jobs and it constitutes a further retreat in Australia's contribution to combatting climate change.

ARENA supports growth in Australian renewable energy production and supply right across the innovation chain, from research and development to demonstration projects and to the deployment of new technology. Since its creation in 2012, ARENA has invested $940 million and has mobilised $1.8 billion in private capital in support of more than 190 projects—70 per cent of which are in rural and regional Australia. There are another 190 projects with a combined value of nearly $8 billion currently under consideration. On average, the ARENA funding model has leveraged 2.2 times the quantum of public investment in private capital contributions to approved projects.

It should be a matter of pride to all Australians that, within the set of innovative projects made by possible by ARENA funding, including some which constitute Australian firsts, this critical Labor government program has actually supported two world-first projects. The CSIRO's advanced steam generation project has set a world record for producing the highest temperature steam ever created using energy from the sun. The Carnegie Wave Energy project, in my electorate of Fremantle, is on track to be the world's first commercial-scale wave energy array, delivering both renewable energy and emission-free desalinated water.

As the representative of a community that has consistently urged governments at every level to provide leadership in renewable energy and sustainability, I am pleased to have supported Carnegie Wave Energy since its earliest efforts to design, test, and apply its very exciting wave energy technology. Indeed, I spoke about it in my first speech to parliament. I am glad that through ARENA funding, in addition to support provided by the WA government, the Fremantle Carnegie Wave Energy technology will soon be making a contribution to the delivery of renewable energy in Australia, and no doubt overseas as well. Another project supported by ARENA in WA has been a feasibility study for the Perenjori 20MW Dispatchable Solar Tower Project.

Without ARENA as an important part of the Labor government's suite of policies and programs in this space, which also included the renewable energy target, the Clean Energy Finance Corporation and the carbon price, Australia would still be lagging the rest of the world in terms of new energy sources and energy-efficiency technology. For those who say that such technology should find its own way in the market without government assistance, it has to be remembered that our existing stationary hydrocarbon power infrastructure was created with very significant public investment and ongoing subsidies. Indeed, in today's West Australian, it is noted that, while household electricity prices in WA have risen 86 per cent since the Barnett government was elected in 2008, the state government subsidy for the provision of electricity still amounts to $600 million each year.

Last week in this parliament we were honoured to have the opportunity to hear from former Japanese Prime Minister, Naoto Kan. He discussed the social, political, economic and environmental impact of the Fukushima nuclear disaster three years on and what can be learned from this devastating incident. Mr Kan is a strong advocate in Japan for the transition from nuclear energy to renewable energy and urges Australia to continue to look to renewables rather than nuclear energy or fossil fuels in confronting the challenge of global warming. Mr Kan described how he looked out of the window as he flew over Australia's vast, beautiful and expressive landscape and realised the extent to which the Australian continent has the greatest opportunity of any country to utilise its natural renewable energy potential, whether in the form of solar, wind, wave or geothermal energy. In fact, to illustrate his point, Mr Kan noted that he had visited Fremantle's Carnegie Wave Energy project when in WA earlier last week.

I am grateful to one of my constituents, Gordon Payne, whose submission to the Senate inquiry, notes:

Many leading specialists in the world in the area of energy economics are predicting a major shift around the world to renewable technologies. Solar panel costs have fallen dramatically, and battery storage cost are also trending sharply downward. The same specialists look with envy at Australia’s resources in renewable energy. But they are amazed and concerned that we have not developed these resources to any great degree, and that we not doing enough in-depth research into our renewable energy potential. ARENA was set up to address these concerns in 2012. It is short-sighted to withdraw this agency so soon. It seems that a political decision has been made which ignores Australia’s long-term interests, and which is aligned to the interests of the non-renewable energy sector. Renewable energy projects are great employers and with the mining boom winding down, we have an opportunity to make a transition to a future economic model that includes lots of renewable energy. Agencies like ARENA are vital to this transition.

Another of my constituents has noted in an email to Minister Hunt, which was copied to me, that, 'We have capability and we have capacity but we have neither dreams nor commitment.' Subsuming ARENA within the Department of Industry and providing a ridiculously small $15 million by way of an annual allocation shows the government's short-sighted, visionless approach and its predilection for favouring the established, yet unsustainable energy producers.

When ARENA was created by the former Labor government, I argued in favour of its legislative foundation and its policy logic by making reference to the global progress on renewable energy investment. At that stage, in late 2011, I was pleased to be able to make reference to a report commissioned by the United Nations Environment Programme and undertaken as a cooperative endeavour between the Frankfurt School-UNEP Collaborating Centre for Climate and Sustainable Energy Finance and Bloomberg New Energy Finance. The report noted that in 2010 new investment in renewable energy in the developing world outstripped the quantum of investment from developed countries for the first time—$72 billion as against $70 billion; whereas in 2004, the ratio was four to one in favour of developed nations.

Globally, the investment in renewable power and fuels grew 32 per cent from 2009 to 2010 and constituted 5.5 times the investment in 2004. That was the global environment into which ARENA arrived. Since that time, Australia has begun to find its rightful place in the burgeoning worldwide renewable energy industry through appropriate government assessment and facilitation. As part of a comprehensive and carefully linked suite of programs and policies designed to put Australia on the path to a clean energy future, ARENA has assisted in developing the next generation of affordable renewables by working to improve the competitiveness of renewable energy technologies.

Since 2012, ARENA has proved the logic and value of this approach. Any government of good sense would allow it to continue its vital work in assessing and supporting worthy projects in the name of Australia's clean energy and green job future. Current and future ARENA projects should play a leading role in maintaining Australia's place at the forefront of research and innovation. This R&D would of course lead to the further discoveries we need to help our nation achieve a properly diverse energy profile and to make our contribution to tackling climate change.

Now, sadly, that incredible and necessary surge, which has already proven its value, and which has so much more economic, social and environmental value in prospect, is being cut off at the knees by a government whose chief obsession is to undo the progress and leadership that the Australian people wanted to see from their elected representatives and that the former Labor government worked hard and collaboratively to deliver. It is hard to imagine a government with a less positive agenda: no to renewable energy, no to universal public health care, no to support for single parents and to age and disability pensioners and carers, no to equality in education, no to unemployed young people, no to the global poor and dispossessed, no to environmental protection. That is no way to govern any nation, let alone a country with a strong, progressive culture and tradition like Australia.

Ed Husic (Chifley, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Parliamentary Secretary to the Shadow Treasurer) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I got an email the other day. It is not the first one. I got a few actually from constituents writing to state how proud they are as Australians by the fact that our country has embraced renewable energy and what we have achieved so far with our renewable energy targets. I will not go through the whole of this email but it asks me, as their local member of parliament, what is my position on this issue. Helen who lives at Willmott said, 'Will you support keeping the RET as it is or will you support changes to it?' While this debate is about the Australian Renewable Energy Agency, it is also about whether or not we think this sector is important, provides value, and is worth pursuing. In terms of ARENA, it is.

When asked about whether I support renewables and whether I support the RET, of course I do. Any person with an ounce of common sense would think that, if we have finite resources which we use for the generation of energy and if it has been demonstrated that the way we are generating energy at the moment has an impact, that we need to find ways to offset that impact and, if there is a smarter way of generating energy and if we can look at, for instance, how to make the use of renewable energy a more efficient process, that is, apply research to see how we can generate renewable energy in a much more efficient way, you would do it. You would say, 'This is the way to go. It makes common sense.'

ARENA has dedicated nearly $940 million, which it has invested, with $1.8 billion mobilised in private investment. It has been doing a massive amount of work in the context of the broader push to make Australia's renewable energy sector a lot more vibrant and a lot scale stronger. It makes perfect sense. Those opposite have gone from a position where they said they would support ARENA but on coming to office they have changed their mind and they said they would support the RET.

We have seen Dick Warburton's efforts. This is a bloke who has sworn eye patches on both eyes when writing about the renewable sector. How he can recommend that a sector has an important role to play in the generation of energy in this country but pretty much sign a death warrant for that sector by seeing the end of RET escapes me and it escapes common sense. You need to work out why it is that those opposite are doing this. We have got it all wrong. There are no policy reasons for why they are doing this. They committed to it before the election and said that they would keep ARENA and keep RET, but then they committed to the review. A lot of people recognise the way this government works, that at its very heart it has pulled apart all the architecture, the framework that was there to support us generating energy in a much more efficient way, and by efficient I mean recognising that there is a cost which comes about as a result of generating energy through the use of coal, that we have a cost to pay in the clean-up.

Look at one of the biggest domestic political issues affecting China right now—that is, what are going to do about pollution? With pollution in some of their biggest cities so bad, there are serious concerns about peoples' longer term health. The government knows it is a major political issue. Whenever their political representatives are gathered, there is a focus and a recognition on generating energy in a much cleaner way, in changing the way people behave so that human activity that is causing that pollution has to change.

Governments in different parts of the world know that they have to do something about this. While all these other governments are spending their time finding ways to generate energy efficiently, more effectively and more cleanly, and to do it in a much more sustainable way, while the world is going one way this government is adamant it will go backwards. The rest of the world is going forward; this government has shifted into reverse gear. Why is that when you look at what ARENA is doing, at what is being achieved in terms of the renewable energy target and you look at the way Australians have responded?

For instance, when Labor went into office in 2007 about 7,000 homes in this country had solar panels on their premises. Look at Australia today . There are 1.2 million roofs with solar panels on them. At the peak in 2011-12, 7,000 a week were being installed. You can see that the community has supported renewable energy, in particular solar energy. The community has embraced it

There have been, obviously, some criticisms about the way that feed-in tariffs have operated and the way that that might have distorted the market. But if you then go to the issue of whether, for example, the RET and the embracing of renewable energy actually had an impact on wholesale and retail power prices, you can cite a raft of studies that demonstrate that that was not the case—that they have not been causing an upward tick in prices. The reality is that the biggest chunk of increases in electricity prices has been overwhelmingly as a result of the way that state based distributors, network owners, have invested in their networks and been able to obtain price rises to reflect that investment. So that has been the biggest driver of power price increases in this country—a fact, ignored by those opposite. The renewable sector has not had any impact, when you look at it, in relative terms, on the increase in power prices.

So why would this government be doing what it is doing in terms of trying to scale back ARENA and in terms of what it is doing with the RET, as has been announced in the last few days, and the report that has been handed to government? Why would it be doing it? Why would you want to get rid of a sector that is creating 24,000 jobs in this country, and the offshoots of that—the other people, the other companies, the other firms, and the other sectors that have benefited because of the work that they have obtained as a result of this increase in demand? Why would you do that? The installation of major wind-turbine facilities in different parts of this country is helping generate energy in such a way that, in some cases, you can see the increase in the share of energy production. Why would you get rid of a sector that is helping to be able to offset the increase in demand for energy that we have experienced?

Actually, what you are seeing now, for the first time, is a drop in demand. That is for a number of reasons. People are using energy a lot more wisely. Energy efficiency standards in homes are having an impact. Renewable energy is available and you can see the impact of that taking up a greater share of energy production generation in this country. You can see all of this happening. So you can actually witness—and we are one of the first generations to witness— a change in the way that energy is being generated and in the way that it is being used. So, if we are part of that, what is it that motivates this government to change its mind about what is happening with ARENA and what is happening with the RET?

Again, they committed—they said that they would commit—to ARENA and the RET. The now Prime Minister, before he was opposition leader, actually argued for a carbon tax. He said that the simplest thing to do was to apply a carbon tax—that was in 2009. You have got him saying that on the public record. And now he has built himself a reputation for tearing apart everything that has to go with the way in which we generate energy in this country and to avoid the way in which we operate when it comes to energy generation. So they have committed to ARENA and to the RET, but they have changed their mind on that.

You have a person who has gone from being a backbencher to an opposition leader to a Prime Minister, who has changed, at every step of the way, his position on the way in which we tackle emissions and on the way that energy is generated. And now we have got to this point, where we are debating the demise of ARENA. The thing is: I think that you have to look at the way in which the Prime Minister got to the job in the first place. Look at the way he got to the job of becoming opposition leader. Again, this is a person who had argued for a carbon tax. Tony Abbott, the member for Warringah, had argued for a carbon tax, and then recognised the palpable sense of outrage in the coalition over the deal that was being done back in 2009 in setting up the CPRS or the emissions trading scheme then, and recognised that the only way to stop it was to take the top job. So what he did was to coast in on the sentiment that existed in the coalition; he surfed that to the top, and he got rid of the member for Wentworth from that role because of the depth of feeling that exists on the other side of the chamber in dealing seriously with this issue.

When they were in opposition they set up all these ginger groups. You see that now that they are in government; there are ginger groups all over the coalition. In a climate where wages growth is the worst it has been for decades, there are ginger groups that are arguing for the abolition of penalty rates. Then you see that there are ginger groups that are arguing for taxation reform on employee share-ownership schemes; they have had a really great run on that. And then we have seen this other ginger group form on the RET, arguing against the renewable energy target and arguing for changes to a scheme that was introduced by John Howard.

Clearly what we are seeing here is not the triumph of policy; what we are seeing here is the triumph of politics within that side, because no-one could seriously believe, on policy terms, or on their own commitments in times past, that they were serious about having a genuine reluctance to embrace what ARENA does or what the RET does. What this is about is the Prime Minister heading off at the pass the growth of another outbreak of the Neanderthals that exist within the coalition, dominating policy and potentially dominating his job. On no grounds—on no logic; on no common sense—can you argue for what is being put forward in this bill or what is being put forward in terms of the RET. This is not about saving the climate; this is about saving the PM's support within the coalition—ensuring that he keeps feeding the Neanderthals that exist on that side of the fence, who argue against the common sense, logic, fact and data that say that what we have been doing as a nation on renewables is the right thing to do.

You simply cannot see how this is going to benefit us into the longer term. When we have an opportunity to, as I say, transform the way that we generate energy in this country, and to ensure that the work of ARENA continues, in making sure that renewables become more and more efficient, then that is the way to go—not what is being put forward in this bill. We need to continue our commitment to the development of renewable energy generation in this country and to ensure that, in years to come, when we do need to make the moves that other countries are making, we are not left floundering and that we are ahead of the curve and not behind it as we always seem to find ourselves in these debates.

Michael McCormack (Riverina, National Party, Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister for Finance) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

It is a pleasure to sum up the second reading debate on the Australian Renewable Energy Agency (Repeal) Bill which repeals the Australian Renewable Energy Agency Act 2011.

Now I note that some of those opposite have used this debate as a grandstanding opportunity to talk about Renewable Energy Target Scheme and other policies but, if we focus on the bill at hand, we will see that the government has—as mentioned many times in the House during the debate—committed $l billion, to more than 200 projects. It will be honouring these commitments and is keen to see them succeed.

This bill gives effect to the government's decision to close the Australian Renewable Energy Agency, ARENA, and deliver budget savings of almost $1.3 billion. This bill represents part of the government's commitment to make the structural changes necessary to achieve savings and return the budget to surplus. The bill also transfers management and decision-making on ARENA's functions to the Minister for Industry and to his department. This is how it should be.

The ARENA board, statutory chief executive officer and chief finance officer positions will go, with the Minister for Industry to be responsible for ARENA investment decisions. This legislation, once passed, will enable the minister to have far greater oversight of future expenditure and that currently in ARENA's pipeline. The repeal of the ARENA Act will also enable efficiencies and synergies by transferring management of ARENA's existing commitments and other functions into the Industry Department.

There were and are some good people involved in ARENA. There is no question about that at all; they are good people with good intentions and they have worked hard. But how long is the government, which is facing a budget emergency, expected to prop up an agency which was established merely to meet the political whims of the Greens at a time when Julia Gillard was prepared to do and say anything to save her political skin?

The coalition has been quite up-front about the state of the nation's finances. Labor was handed the very best set of economic figures when it won office in November 2007, for the first time since March 1996. Unbelievably and inexplicably, less than six years later, Labor left the incoming Abbott-Truss government with the worst books in Australia's history. Granted, Labor had to contend with the global financial crisis of 2007-08. I admit that. But nothing can excuse the member for Lilley for the six deficit budgets which plunged this nation into the depths we now find ourselves. And he knows it.

The return of ARENA's uncommitted funding will deliver a saving of almost $1.3 billion to the budget. In the context of the debt and deficit legacy left by Labor, that is necessary. Every saving helps to reduce the awful mess with which this nation was saddled from the six years Labor was in office.

Like so many other Labor-Greens schemes, ARENA had its shortcomings. Consider the following as just one example of how the Labor-Greens alliance chucked hard-earned taxpayers' dollars at ARENA for no environmental benefit. Ocean Power Technologies Australasia sought to develop a wave power station off the coast of Victoria near the city of Portland. The plant, to be built in three phases with a total capacity of 19 megawatts, was awarded a $66.46 million grant under the Renewable Energy Demonstration Program, a $435 million competitive grants program designed to accelerate the commercialisation and deployment of new renewable energy technologies for power generation in Australia.

Funding also went to the Oceanlinx 1MW Commercial Wave Energy Demonstrator, based in South Australia. The Oceanlinx commercial wave energy demonstrator was a 3,000 tonne structure measuring about 21 metres wide by 24 metres long. The device was designed to sit in shallow water, using oscillating water column technology to generate 1MW peak output. The Oceanlinx patented OWC and air turbine technologies were combined in Oceanlinx's greenWAVE device, designed to be a highly efficient energy converter with no moving parts under water. As waves rise within the OWC, it was designed to drive a column of air ahead and through a turbine to generate electricity.

In February 2014, construction of the device was complete and it was intended to transport the device from Port Adelaide to Port McDonnell for grid connection and 12 months operation and testing. Transportation took place on 1 March and was expected to take about four days. On 2 March 2014, complications were experienced during transportation of the device, just 24 hours into the operation. The device was set down in shallow waters off the Fleurieu Peninsula in South Australia. As a result of the transportation complications, the device was damaged beyond repair. This monstrosity remains visible offshore at Carrickalinga.

In July 2012 Oceanlinx had received nearly $4 million in funding—taxpayers' dollars—from the Emerging Renewables Program, administered by ARENA, to support the development of renewable energy technologies.

Labor leader Bill Shorten said this was the very kind of project ARENA had to fund with taxpayers' dollars. At the same time, he condemned the coalition for wanting to get rid of ARENA. Yet three days later—going back to this Victorian project I talked about earlier—the bombshell dropped. Plans to build the world's largest wave power project in Portland were scrapped. The $230 million bid to harness the ocean's currents was shelved by Ocean Power Technologies and its subsidiary Victorian Wave Partners. Victorian Wave Partners and OPT Australasia director Gilbert George told Warrnambool's The Standard that the project was simply too large and the parent company, OPT Incorporated, based in the United States, had decided to withdraw following a review.

Here's another ARENA flop. A renewable energy company was handed nearly $5 million in federal grants, taxpayers' dollars, and was then put into administration. The member for Maribyrnong continues to insist we need more of this sort of taxpayer-subsidised things to pretend we are cooling the planet. Taxpayers are not that easily hoodwinked. If Labor had thrown all the money it wasted in six years of office in the ocean, now that would have made waves.

But after talking about some of the wasteful projects funded under ARENA, I would remind the House that there are around 200 good projects, worth $1 billion, that this government supports and will honour. We will seek to get outcomes from these investments to advance the renewable energy industry towards commerciality. The government remains committed to the development of renewable energy technologies in Australia. I'll say it again: more than $1 billion in funding is available to support around 200 ARENA commitments to existing renewable projects, with a total project value of $2.8 billion. These projects span the technology development chain from PhD research to near commercial deployment and include a broad range of technologies, such as solar, marine, biofuels, integration and storage technologies. These projects represent a significant investment by the coalition, by the government, by the nation, in renewable energy. The government is keen to see these existing ARENA projects delivered in the coming years and the knowledge we gain from them shared broadly to allow further development of the renewables sector.

It is also worth remembering that there is and will continue to be good work occurring across Australia to improve environmental outcomes in a way that makes good business sense, including in my electorate of Riverina. The 13 local councils I represent all promote biodiversity measures to lessen the effects of salinity and sustainability in their day-to-day operations.

The meatworks at South Gundagai, Wagga Wagga and Yanco, all mightily relieved the carbon tax has gone, thanks to this government, do all they can to lessen their carbon footprint while at the same time producing quality protein for hungry and growing markets.

JBS Riverina at Yanco is Australia's largest integrated feedlot and processing facility. The facility has a feedlot capacity of 52,000 head with a two-shift operation five days per week processing 600 head of the highest-quality grain-fed beef cattle. It employs 430 full-time employees, underpinning the workforce of the neighbouring Leeton and Narrandera shires. Major international markets for the product are the European Union, Japan and the United States of America. The JBS Riverina premium product is served at top-end restaurants right across our nation.

The carbon tax had a significant job-destroying impact on the competitiveness of the export orientated meat industry. Higher electricity and gas charges have been incurred. JBS cost structures to process a beef animal in Australia is twice that of the US—and that goes right throughout our abattoir industry—their biggest competitor in international markets. The repeal of the carbon tax has been a major step forward in unwinding these costs.

There is in place a program to efficiently produce compost from our manure at JBS Riverina. This compost is used in garden remediation in Sydney and across New South Wales. JBS Riverina has a major water re-use strategy through irrigation of its farming land. It is all important, because it is all about sustainability, renewable energy and getting the job done without big government grants. This is commercial reason, commercial reality. The business is about being sustainable whether in farming practices, water and energy use and animal health and welfare.

I would like now to respond to some of the hysterical—and they were hysterical—assertions made in the member for Charlton's contribution last Thursday. Let's not forget the member previously worked for Greg Combet, the former climate change minister, for six years, helping devise the job-destroying carbon tax package which many blame for eroding trust in Labor—and that is so true. The member has strong union backing—that is typical—and outlined his intentions the day after last year's election in a Newcastle Herald article headed: 'Conroy to stick to local issues.' Maybe he should do just that instead of repeating wild claims such as quoting the Garnaut report forecasting that if climate change is not combated we will see a 98 per cent reduction in farming in the Murray-Darling area. That is totally ridiculous. The greatest danger to irrigation farmers in the Murray-Darling Basin faced in recent years was the man-made drought forced on them by the Labor-Green alliance.

As with so much of what we heard from those opposite during this second reading debate, what we heard from the member for Charlton was hysteria rather than hard facts. The facts are these: $1 billion is a lot of money for any industry and the hard fact is that we have a budget mess we have to clean up. We were elected to do so. We are getting on with the job of doing it and we will do it. So we are focusing on getting the most out of that $1 billion and returning uncommitted funds to the budget to help us repair the mess. It is all about accountability—that is what we stand for; that is what we represent.

This bill implements our decision to abolish ARENA. In doing so, it will enable us to realise the administrative efficiencies of bringing ARENA activities into the Minister for Industry's department, bank the savings from uncommitted funds and get on with the all-important job of getting the most out of what has already been invested. I commend the bill to the House.

Russell Broadbent (McMillan, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The question is that the amendment be agreed to. There being more than one voice calling for a division, in accordance with standing order 133 the division is deferred until 8 pm.

Debate adjourned.