Nicolle Flint (Boothby, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

My question is to the Minister for the Environment and Energy. Will the minister update the House on developments following the extraordinary meeting of the COAG energy ministers on Friday? Is the minister aware of any challenges facing Australia's energy security?

Josh Frydenberg (Kooyong, Liberal Party, Minister for the Environment and Energy) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I thank the member for Boothby for her question and acknowledge that her constituents from Mitcham to Blackwood and from Dover Gardens to Somerton Park have experienced the hard economic and community costs that came with the SA blackout on 28 September. It was against this backdrop that the COAG Energy Council meeting was called and ministers came together to find more common ground. We were briefed on the developments in battery storage, on the hardening of infrastructure and on the need for more interconnection between states. We of course had a briefing from the market operator on what happened in South Australia and we had a robust discussion about the aggressive state based renewable targets and the implications that they have.

There was a big breakthrough at the meeting on two key points: firstly, there was an express agreement by the ministers that their primary responsibility is energy security, reliability and affordability; and, secondly, there was an agreement by ministers that there would be an independent review that would be chaired by the Chief Scientist, Alan Finkel, which would look at energy security and provide recommendations to ministers about policy and legislative and governance reforms that may be needed.

But I am asked, 'Are there any challenges to this approach?' The greatest challenge comes from those opposite, with their reckless pursuit of an ideological approach to renewable energy targets without thinking through the implications for energy security. The Leader of the Opposition has a renewable energy target of 50 per cent by 2030. We are told that will require 10,000 turbines. Where are they going to be built? In Maribyrnong, I presume!

Mr Watts interjecting—

Mr Conroy interjecting—

Tony Smith (Speaker) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The members for Gellibrand and Shortland are warned. I was not at all confident that they would hear the warning unless I interrupted the minister. The minister has the call.

Josh Frydenberg (Kooyong, Liberal Party, Minister for the Environment and Energy) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Bloomberg New Energy Finance tell us that Labor's 50 per cent renewable energy target by 2030 will cost at least $48 billion. If you had a $48 billion program, you would expect that you would have a bit of detail to show. So I went to the Labor Party's policies from the last election, and what did I find on page 11? I will quote:

'In government Labor will announce the proposed design details for their RET by 1 October 2017.' We have to wait till next year to even see the detail. But not everybody in the parliament or elsewhere is too happy with Labor. Tony Maher, the National President of the CFMEU, has said he is very concerned about the impact on the cost and jobs of that particular policy. The party that gave us cash for clunkers, green loans, the carbon tax and, of course, the citizens assembly can now not be trusted with the renewable energy target. (Time expired)

Mark Butler (Port Adelaide, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for Environment, Climate Change and Water) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

My question is to the Prime Minister. During the election, at a campaign rally in Adelaide the Prime Minister praised South Australia as a leader in clean energy generation. Why did the Prime Minister champion renewable energy in South Australia before the election only to use an extreme weather event to play politics after the election? Isn't this just another example of the Prime Minister following his party instead of leading it?

Mr Pyne interjecting—

Tony Smith (Speaker) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The Leader of the House will cease interjecting. The Prime Minister has the call.

Malcolm Turnbull (Wentworth, Liberal Party, Prime Minister) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I do thank the honourable member for his question because in asking it he puts his finger on the very central problem that Labor faces with this issue: that they treat renewable energy as an ideological issue rather than a technological issue. The bottom line is simply this: that there are many sources of electricity. There is intermittent renewable. There is hydro. We have many forms of fossil fuel generation. All of them have different characteristics.

What we have to do is take away the ideology and the political claptrap with which the Labor Party surrounds all of their policies and focus on these objectives. What we need to do is ensure that we keep the lights on—something the honourable member's Labor colleagues in South Australia demonstrably failed to do. We have to keep the lights on. We have to ensure that there is energy security. We have to ensure that households and businesses can afford to pay for it—and his Labor colleagues in South Australia have created the most expensive wholesale electricity in Australia. That is very helpful, isn't it, I ask the honourable member—terribly helpful if you want to revive your manufacturing base. Come to South Australia and pay more for your electricity than anywhere else! What an extraordinary proposition.

So you have got to do have energy security and energy affordability, and we have to meet our emission reduction targets as set out in the Paris treaty. So we have to do all three and we have to make sure we achieve them all together. The minister who has just answered the last question set out the importance of doing that and the way he is showing the leadership that the Labor Party in government constantly failed to do and fails to do at the state level in ensuring that we get the measures, the plans that give us security, affordability and emission reduction.

This is a time when we must stop putting ideology into something that is essentially an engineering issue. How do we achieve those three goals? There is a way to do it. We are leading the way.

Mr Perrett interjecting—

Ms Rishworth interjecting—

Tony Smith (Speaker) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The member for Moreton and the member for Kingston will cease interjecting.