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

This week we've seen the Productivity Commission's report expressing concern about competition in our banking sector. What better example of lack of competition in our banking sector than what we've seen from our big four banks, with their anti-coal rhetoric, their appeasement of extreme left-wing, anti-coal zealots, and the statements they have made supporting the war on coal?

I could pick any of the four big banks, but in the time available I'd like to look particularly at what the National Australia Bank have done in this area in their war on coal. Last year, the National Bank admitted to sending out a press release saying that they were not going to lend any money to the Carmichael coal mine. That's fine. But it turns out that they were never even asked for a loan. So they sent out a press release saying they weren't going to lend money to a project, but they hadn't been asked to and had no idea of the parameters of it. They did so simply to fill their anti-coal rhetoric to appease extreme greens.

Secondly, just before Christmas we had a press release from the National Australia Bank saying:

NAB has an important role to play in the orderly transition to a low carbon economy.

This statement is nothing other than politically correct absolute nonsense. Regarding this so-called transition to a low-carbon economy, if we look at the numbers from the International Energy Agency we see that wind and solar currently make up 0.8 per cent of the world's energy supply. Their prediction, with all the billions and billions of dollars of subsidies, is that by 2040 the number for wind and solar will get to 3.6 per cent of the world's energy supplies. In 2040, all the predictions are for more coal, more oil and more gas.

Recently, the US Energy Information Administration put out their projections to 2050. At the moment, the US economy is 85.2 per cent driven by fossil fuels. Their prediction, throwing in again all the subsidies and all the wonderful new renewable resources that will come on board, has it at 79.2 per cent by 2050. This idea that there is some transition to a low-carbon economy is simply a myth.

The NAB press release continues: 'It is critical to ensure Australians can have access to secure, reliable and affordable energy.' Continue to have access to affordable energy? The state of South Australia has the highest electricity prices in the world! Today The Daily Telegraph ran an article about AGL in which they compared the price consumers pay for electricity in New South Wales, which is close to 40c a kilowatt-hour, to that paid in the US state of Virginia, where the CEO of AGL comes from, where they enjoy a price of 15c a kilowatt-hour—less than half the price. Is it any wonder why? When we look at the figures for Virginia, whose electricity is supplied through the PJM market, yesterday at 3.30 pm just one per cent of the supply of electricity going to Virginia was from renewables—99 per cent was coming from coal, gas or nuclear. That's why the prices in the US are so much lower.

So, rather than running their anti-coal rhetoric, I think the best thing for our big banks is to look at some of the numbers, which show how misguided that is. Last year thermal coal prices were 33 per cent up for the year, exports to Japan from Australia grew 50 per cent, and China's coal consumption was up 5.2 per cent. The International Energy Agency is forecasting that world demand for coal will increase by another 200 million tonnes to the year 2022, yet we have our big banks running anti-coal rhetoric, coal being one of our most important exports and one of the most important competitive advantages this nation has.

It is not the job of the big banks to try to appease extreme left-wing green groups. This harms the economy. The best thing the banks can do for our economy is to ensure that Australian businesses can take advantage of what are the true competitive and comparative advantages this nation enjoys—and that used to be low-cost energy. It is no longer, because of this war on coal. This war on coal must end.