Adam Bandt (Melbourne, Australian Greens) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I move:

That this bill be now read a second time.

We shouldn't have to introduce the Snowy Hydro Corporatisation Amendment (No New Fossil Fuels) Bill 2021 today, but we do because, in the middle of a climate emergency, the government has made it clear that it wants to use public money to make the climate crisis worse at the same time as slowing down investment in renewables in New South Wales. This bill will stop them. This bill will prohibit Snowy Hydro from developing, constructing or being involved in the development or construction of new fossil fuel-based electricity generation capacity, from acquiring, purchasing or otherwise investing in or being involved in acquiring, purchasing or investing in new fossil fuel-based electricity generation capacity and operating or being involved in the operation of new fossil fuel-based electricity generation capacity.

This bill explicitly does not deal with the fossil fuel assets that Snowy Hydro already owns. We do have to deal with that and we know we need to wind down our existing fossil fuel generation capacity. The Greens have a clear position on this. The transition to 100 per cent renewables needs to be completed in the next decade if Australia is to do its fair share of limiting global heating to 1½ degrees Celsius. This bill does not seek to address the existing assets of Snowy Hydro but seeks to prevent the government from making the problem worse, because this government has made it clear that it intends to invest in new fossil fuel-based electricity generation in the middle of a climate emergency.

The timing of this bill is critical. Minister Taylor, upon receipt of the report of the Liddell Taskforce, made clear that the private sector has until April to invest in 1,000 megawatts of new dispatchable capacity and that, if the private sector fails to deliver, he will proceed with building a new gas plant in the Hunter. I want to be clear. The government wants to use public money in the middle of a climate emergency to invest in a new gas-fired power station. No-one wants this gas plant. The Liddell Taskforce, which the minister set up to look into the closure of the Liddell coal-fired power station and which he relies on to justify this push to build a new coal-fired power station, did not recommend 1,000 megawatts of new capacity, as the minister continually claims. In fact, the study that the Energy Market Operator task force asked for said that the capacity gap in 2025 would be only 215 megawatts. Minister Taylor just made up this supposed 1,000-megawatt gap.

Let's say, for the sake of the argument, that a gap exists, what has the private sector done between that announcement last year and now? Origin have announced a 700-megawatt battery at their Lake Macquarie site. Neoen have announced a 500-megawatt battery in the Central Tablelands. CEP.Energy have announced their intent to build a 1,200-megawatt battery at Kurri Kurri—the exact same site that Minister Taylor has proposed for his gas-fired power plant.

Is that that going to stop Minister Taylor? No, it doesn't look like it. The minister has made it clear that he's not interested in dispatchable capacity unless it comes in the form of gas. All the rubbish from this government about being interested in technology and not taxes is just a hollow slogan, because when the sector steps up and says, 'We will make up for the shortfall in the form of renewables and storage,' the minister says: 'Well, that's not good enough. I'm going to make it gas and I'm going to take money that could be going to schools and hospitals and instead use it to force investment in fossil fuels.' Don't worry that RepuTex has found that it's cheaper to replace Liddell with renewables and batteries than gas. Ignore the clear statements, as the minister does, from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change and the International Energy Agency that there's no more room in the carbon budget for new fossil fuel infrastructure. The minister is being reckless, both on the climate front and on the economic front.

To be frank, it ' sad that this bill needs to be introduced today. The public owns Snowy Hydro; we hold 100 per cent of the shares. The government has the power right now to tell Snowy Hydro to stop investing in new coal- and gas-fired power plants, and that would make this bill redundant. If Minister Taylor and Minister Birmingham wanted to, they could tell Snowy Hydro to invest in new batteries instead, or renewables in the Hunter and Latrobe valleys. But we have a government which is not interested in representing the will of the public—a government not interested in addressing the climate emergency and keeping Australians safe. It's not interested in representing the over 70 per cent of Australians who want us to be a global leader in climate action.

What we have instead is a government that is interested in providing billions of dollars in subsidies for the fossil fuel industry and helping out those massive multinational companies like Chevron and ExxonMobil which offshore billions in profits while paying zero dollars in company tax. They make millions of dollars in donations to political parties and that might go some way to explaining why the minister is taking the stance that he is. And we have super-rich billionaires like Gina Rinehart, Clive Palmer and Rupert Murdoch, who think they can buy elections and make decisions about the future of Australia, instead of us the people, which may go some way to explaining why the minister is taking the stance that he is.

That's why we need this legislation. The government has proven itself completely incapable of addressing the climate emergency and dealing with public money responsibly, so it falls to this parliament to hold it accountable. We cannot let the government invest in new gas. We cannot let the government build new gas infrastructure. We know that we must bring down carbon pollution rapidly if we're to have any hope of keeping a safe climate for all the people on this planet. This parliament must hold the government to that responsibility.

I commend this bill to the House and I call on all members in this place to support it. In my remaining time, I invite the seconder to this bill to speak.

Trent Zimmerman (North Sydney, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Is the motion seconded?

Zali Steggall (Warringah, Independent) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I second the Snowy Hydro Corporatisation Amendment (No New Fossil Fuels) Bill 2021. This bill will make a substantial amendment to the Snowy Hydro Corporatisation Act 1997. Snowy Hydro began in 1949 with the construction of the nation-building Snowy Mountains Hydroelectric Scheme. It was a mammoth project that captured Australia's imagination and showed what was possible when we put our brilliant engineering minds to the task. Snowy has provided much-needed energy to the cities and towns of the east coast of Australia; it's part of our history.

But since 1949, the remit and scope of the organisation has changed. It's now an end-to-end integrated energy provider. It now has several generation assets and offtake agreements, with multiple renewable projects on the east coast. On 14 September last year the energy minister told the Australian Press Club that should the energy industry not fill the gap left by the closure of AGL's Liddell coal-fired power station that the Australian government would use Snowy Hydro to build a 1000-megawatt gas generator at Kurri Kurri. Let's be very clear at the outset: new gas in the Hunter should not go ahead and it's entirely unnecessary.

In last year's Integrated System Plan, the Australian Energy Market Operator made it clear that we may use existing gas assets more but that we would not need new gas assets. Batteries and pumped hydro would be sufficient as coal retires in the next decades. In last year's Electricity statement of opportunities, AEMO also stated that the shortfall in New South Wales caused by the closure of Liddell was likely to be less than 200 megawatts by 2023-24. This was also before the CEP.Energy announcement on 5 February of a 1,200-megawatt battery at the very place that this gas generator was supposed to be: in Kurri Kurri. AGL, too, has lodged initial development documents for a new big battery of up to 500 megawatts to help offset the Liddell closure. So it's clear that, where the electricity providers are heading, they are dealing with this gap and they're dealing with it as the market dictates. The market is not saying new gas; the market is saying batteries.

Since November 2020 an abundance of new battery projects has been proposed for Australia, totalling some 3,000 megawatts. It raises an interesting point. Why is the energy minister threatening to build a gas-fired generator when the market is choosing batteries? The market doesn't want to choose gas, because it knows it's going to be a stranded asset down the line. So, why should we spend public money developing a gas generator? I can only presume that this is pure politics, because the government has made no secret of its desire to woo the people in the Hunter Valley with, I would suggest, a false promise of this gas generator. It's a doomed effort, and I'm very cynical about the way the government and the minister are proposing to use a public asset, in the form of Snowy Hydro, to support what can only be seen as a political endeavour, not an endeavour for the public interest. This bill will make sure this never happens by mandating that Snowy Hydro and other group companies— (Time expired)

Debate adjourned.