David Gillespie (Lyne, National Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

People in the Lyne electorate are now facing 20 to 30 per cent increases in their electricity bills. Around the National Electricity Market, electricity prices continue to rise regularly. All this is self-made harm on the back of really bad energy policy. The national energy market rules and the renewable energy targets that deliver continual subsidies for wind farms and solar panel farms, and the restrictive trade practices the National Electricity Market rules install, prevent coal-fired power stations from remaining economic. These rules have led to the closure of several big power stations, the latest being Liddell. Finally, there is someone who has grown up and deals in reality rather than models, and someone in the New South Wales government has realised that, if Eraring closes, New South Wales and the whole grid will probably collapse. It's not like a tree fell onto a wire, and there is a blackout in a suburb. When a grid collapses, you get Adelaide mark 2.

We need to realise there is no-one in the world who is doing what Australia is doing. Our renewable energy plan for 43 per cent, let alone 82 per cent, reminds me of fairyland. I know people are in love with the concept of renewables but they are very dilute, intermittent, low-energy density forms of energy. They are weather dependent; they're not available all around the clock. You are putting 10 times more minerals into solar panels and batteries which don't generate anything. They consume way too much of our precious minerals on this earth.

People have got to realise we need high-energy density to have an industrial system. If we have a dilute and intermittent energy system, we won't be able to have energy the way we do. Cities won't operate. Data centres will need their own independent energy sources. Your charging relies on a grid with a lot of energy. The trouble with too many renewables means all the plans go out the window, because you have to charge the batteries.

The cost of it is ridiculous. Princeton University did their repowering America for 2050 plan. They've done that with Melbourne University and Queensland University, and we've got repowering Australia. It's only going to cost $7 trillion!