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

It's with great pleasure that I rise to speak to this Annual climate change statement by the Minister for Climate Change and Energy and to lend my full support. Certainly the Albanese Labor government came to office with a very clear plan for this nation. It was a plan for jobs and economic growth, for energy prices and cost-of-living relief, for averting climate change and for transforming industry and competing in a decarbonising world. Our plan is comprehensive but it's simple. It's about delivering cheaper, cleaner, more reliable energy. It's about decarbonising our economy and establishing Australia as a renewable energy superpower. Newcastle, my home town, is central to this plan. Newcastle and the Hunter Region have powered Australia for generations and we will continue to do so well into the future. With our skilled workforce, abundant resources, industrial expertise and critical rail and port infrastructure our region is poised to take full advantage of the new energy industries. Let's talk through a few of these now.

Last year, the Albanese government officially declared an offshore wind zone off the coast of Newcastle, paving the way for large-scale production of clean energy and for good, secure local jobs for decades to come. The declared area stretches over 1,800 square kilometres between Norah Head to the south and Port Stephens to the north. It could generate up to five gigawatts of wind energy, enough to power an estimated 4.2 million homes and local industries into the future. For locals that means we could generate almost twice as what power coming out of Eraring coal-fired power station today. We are talking about a big, big generator of clean energy.

Offshore wind projects in the area have the potential to create up to 3,120 construction jobs and another 1,560 ongoing operational jobs. This represents an exciting opportunity for Newcastle. The strong, consistent winds off our coast, our deepwater port, our highly-skilled—

A division having been called in the House of Representatives—

Sitting suspended from 18:00 to 18:11

I will pick up where I was. The strong, consistent winds off our coast, our deepwater port, our highly skilled energy and manufacturing workforce and our existing electricity transmission infrastructure make our region an ideal location. Around the world, offshore wind turbines coexist with bird and sea life as well as thriving shipping industries. I've been fortunate to see this firsthand myself.

Developing a new offshore wind sector in Australia will not only help deliver more renewable energy and help the environment, it will also drive regional investment and create jobs. For Newcastle, this means new jobs in local manufacturing, in construction, in maritime transport, in logistics and tourism—yes, tourism. I know it's been an issue for some, but during my own self-funded fact-finding mission in Denmark and north-east Scotland, I saw firsthand tourist boats taking visitors out to see the wind turbines. It was a whole new area of industry for ecotourism. And it means continued growth for our vocational education and training pathways, our TAFEs and universities.

Novocastrians get it. In fact, just this morning I heard from a constituent in Stockton who wrote to me to express his total support for offshore wind power generation as proposed off our Newcastle-Port Stephens coast. Bruce said:

I'm sick and tired of the purveyors of self-interest who fail to see the many benefits of this essential project. The Jobs outlook during construction and further into the future after completion is substantial and far outweighs the whingers and their self-interest claims of harm to current jobs and the local economy. Please do the utmost to keep this project online and going ahead to help the Nation and the Planet.

Thank you, Bruce.

His sentiments are echoed by the hundreds of people who attended a community rally last Sunday in Newcastle in support of offshore wind. There I saw people gathered from all quarters of our community. Novocastrians were represented from industry, business, environmentalists, blue-collar workers and other concerned citizens. Doctors for the Environment Australia's Ben Ewald spoke about the effects of climate change on our health. He said:

Burning coal is the principal cause of climate change and it's a health priority to get coal out of our electricity system as soon as possible and building wind farms is really the only pathway to get there.

Business Hunter chief executive, Bob Hawes, spoke about the support from the business community. He said:

It's a reality that coal-fired power is turning off, and we must be in a position to replace this with abundant and affordable renewable energy for business, industry and our community.

Newcastle councillor and proud Wiradjuri woman Deahnna Richardson spoke about the importance of transitioning to renewables for the Newcastle community. 'We know that the community wants this project,' she said. 'We know that we cannot continue to burn coal and ship coal out of the Port of Newcastle to the rest of the world forever, but we need to have a way forward for the workers in this community.' This is what distinguishes people in my community from many of those who like to speak about this topic. We have a lot of skin in the game, and yet we're showing leadership in this area. Councillor Richardson said: 'We can't just one day shut down those power stations and shut down those coalmines. We need to have jobs for the future.'

That was echoed by many at the rally. Jo Lynch from the Hunter Community Environment Centre said that researchers had found no causal link between wind farms and beached whales, despite what many—sadly, politically motivated—opponents of offshore wind would have you believe. Ms Lynch said that the project needed to be developed responsibly but that it was needed due to the very real threat of climate change.

Jasmine Loades and Joanna Tavita, two formidable young wharfies from the Maritime Union of Australia, spoke about their experiences working at the Port of Newcastle unloading wind turbines from ships and the job security that they hoped the offshore wind industry would bring to them and their families. 'It means more work for us and more work for the region,' Ms Tavita said.

The Albanese Labor government is fully focused on driving the transformation to renewable energies. That's why we've set ambitious but achievable policies and why we can't take our foot off the pedal when it comes to our goals. We're investing $70 million into developing a hydrogen hub in Newcastle, which will create jobs and boost Australia's renewable hydrogen industry. This is the first major agreement struck in Australia that delivers a government investment commitment to a regional hydrogen hub. The funding will build the infrastructure needed to produce up to 5½ thousand tonnes of renewable hydrogen every year. Most of the hydrogen will be used by the Orica ammonia and ammonium nitrate facility to help make their products emissions free. Hydrogen will also be made available for refuelling hydrogen buses and trucks at the hub. Construction of the facility is expected to begin in 2025 and operations to commence in 2026.

We've also committed $16 million to the New Energy Skills Hub in partnership with the University of Newcastle, and we've budgeted $2 billion for the Hydrogen Headstart Program so Australia stays in the green hydrogen game. Six applicants have now been short-listed for the program, including two from Newcastle—fantastic news for our region. The six applicants are amongst the largest renewable hydrogen projects in the world and represent a total electrolyser capacity of more than 3.5 gigawatts across various end users.

Since coming to government, we have given the safeguard mechanism teeth, requiring our biggest industrial emitters to reduce their emissions by 4.9 per cent each year. This is equivalent to taking two-thirds of all the cars off our roads by 2030. And on Sunday we released our preferred model for the New Vehicle Efficiency Standard, to ensure Australian families and businesses can choose the latest and most efficient vehicles. Our electric vehicle discount has contributed to an increase in electric car sales, from around two per cent when we came to office to close to nine per cent over the first three quarters of last year. We've funded and have commenced the rollout of our Driving the Nation charging program, which will see fast chargers approximately every 150 kays on our highways.

We've signed funding agreements to deliver more than 50 community batteries around Australia, and the broader expression-of-interest process for a further 342, through ARENA, is well underway. We've established the Net Zero Economy Agency, to have a laser-like focus on the economic opportunities for the regions, industries and workers at the centre of the energy transformation. We've established the National Reconstruction Fund, with targeted investment of $3 billion in renewables and low-emissions technologies. We've released the Critical Minerals Strategy and topped up the Critical Minerals Facility to the tune of $2 billion so that we can see priority investments in the minerals needed for the clean energy transformation. We've opened all funding streams for the Powering the Regions Fund and we've recapitalised the Clean Energy Finance Corporation.

We are not wasting a single moment in government. There is so much to do. We cannot go back to climate wars in this country. We cannot look back. There's an exciting future ahead for all of us.

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

Coal and gas are the leading causes of the climate crisis, and Labor is addicted to more coal and gas. Last year, Labor approved five new coal and gas projects. There are 92 new coal and gas projects in the pipeline, and today, at the start of 2024, Labor in Queensland just approved the country's biggest new greenfield coalmine. After the cyclones, fires and floods in Queensland, they're approving new, huge coalmines that will last for ages. Labor are kidding themselves. We can't have a safe future if we keep opening new coal and gas mines. Labor are far more concerned with what the coal and gas corporations want than with what will keep people safe.

The corporations are making billions of dollars in revenue, and many of them aren't even paying a single cent in tax. You have to wonder how they're getting away with it. Well, last week, we discovered how. It was $863,000. That's how much money Labor took from the coal and gas corporations and their lobby groups in their first full year of office alone. Santos, Woodside and the Minerals Council of Australia all coughed up big. What did it get them in return?

Santos donated over $110,000 to Labor last year. Santos also wants to open up the new Barossa gas fields and faces staunch opposition from the local First Nations community and millions of people around the country. Are the donations to Labor the reason why the resources minister announced her decision to change the rules for Santos to fast-track their project and ignore the concerns of the locals? Labor also rammed through the sea dumping bill, so that Santos could dump their emissions in East Timor's waters, and approved 116 new gas wells to be fracked by Santos in Queensland. What a return on Santos's dirty donation to Labor. It was a big return on investment for Santos.

Next on the list is Woodside. They donated $55,600 to Labor. Woodside wants to open up one of the world's most polluting projects, the Burrup Hub, off the coast of the Kimberley. It's an existential climate threat that will release six billion tonnes of emissions and that requires the approval of Labor's environment minister. I bet Woodside reckon that they'll get it. Then there are the lobby groups—the ones who are always crawling over parliament urging Labor to keep backing new coal and gas mines and threatening anyone who doesn't with public campaigns funded by coal and gas. To keep the doors of the ministerial suite open, APIA, the key lobby group, and the Minerals Council both gave Labor $68,000 and $85,000 respectively.

These corporations are driving the climate crisis, but they can't do it without Labor, and they're getting Labor's support. These corporations are driving the extreme heat, the floods and the fires that people are living through right now. But Labor is giving them the go-ahead. Labor's pipeline of over 90 new coal and gas projects will ensure that the heat will be worse, the floods will rise faster and the fires will burn hotter. Labor's policies mean insurance will cost more—if you can get it! More households will have to be rebuilt. More lives will be destroyed. Labor is giving these greedy, dangerous corporations the go-ahead to mine and burn more coal and gas. Labor is not only complicit in the mining and burning of coal, the leading causes of the climate crisis; it's colluding with companies who want to burn down the world for profit.

The Minister for Resources now flies off around the world spruiking our coal and gas—these dangerous products which are currently cooking the ocean, melting the glaciers, killing off endangered species and threatening people's lives. So many former Labor ministers now work for the coal and gas sector, tucking into the gravy train of an industry which we don't need, which doesn't employ as many people as people think, which doesn't pay much tax and which is threatening our environment, our food, our water, our air and our lives. Did you know this, Deputy Speaker? Every formal resource minister in this country of the last 20 years now works for coal and gas corporations or their lobby groups. That's where they went after they left.

This industry doesn't pay enough tax, and some in this industry pay no tax at all. Labor could make this industry pay its fair share of tax and could use it to ensure everyone has mental and dental care covered fully under Medicare. Instead, Labor's tearing up the Beetaloo basin, shipping it offshore and not even getting the tax that could be used to help wipe student debt, ensure that no-one lives in poverty or ensure that everyone has an affordable home.

Labor loves to wax lyrical about national security as much as the coalition, but there's no national security in a climate crisis. Former heads of the Defence Force have been telling us that the No. 1 threat to our national security is the climate crisis because it will spark massive instability in our region and set off a cataclysmic chain that will threaten our very security. And what is the response? Our nation is under threat, and the politicians are in bed with the enemy. The enemies are coal and gas corporations. They are mining and burning our future, and they are getting support from Labor and Liberal.

We are tough in this country; people are tough but people have a limit. How long could you live in a tent or a shipping container while you try to rebuild, nervously listening to the weather forecast to see if there's a rising river or if there are catastrophic fire conditions on the cards? There are thousands of people around the country who are still building back from the fires and floods of years gone by, and more and more people will join them thanks to the new coal and gas mines being opened by Labor.

The first step to fixing a problem is to stop making the problem worse. You can't put the fire out while you're pouring petrol on it. Every new coal and gas project that is approved by this Labor government puts people's lives at risk. It puts their livelihoods at risk, it pushes up insurance premiums and it threatens our precious natural environment. In 2024, as so many people are struggling, literally, to keep their heads above water, as massive climate fuelled disaster after climate fuelled disaster make so much of our country unliveable for so many people and pushes people to the brink, we cannot be opening one more new coal and gas project. These massive projects that Labor is approving could spark off a climate chain reaction, a tipping point, after which it will be impossible to reverse the damage. That is what the scientists fear: that we will pass the climate tipping point and future generations will not be able to unwind the damage they face. That is why what we do now will reverberate for decades to come and will set the course for future generations.

We are in the critical decade. We are in a climate emergency. We are in an era of global boiling according to the UN Secretary-General. In response to that—yes, we need to have a debate about how quickly we're going to cut our emissions in this country, but the first thing we should do is stop making the problem worse. There should be no new coal and gas projects—no more excuses and no more lies, Labor.

Helen Haines (Indi, Independent) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise this evening to speak to the Annual climate change statement 2023 tabled by the Minister for Climate Change and Energy. The annual climate change statement is a reporting requirement legislated by the Climate Change Act 2022. The objective of the annual climate change statementis to promote accountability and ambition as we respond to climate change. It requires the minister to consider the independent advice provided by the Climate Change Authority and to share this advice and the government's response with the public.

Independent expert advice and public accountability of government are key elements of a successful democracy, and they're especially critical when it comes to the issue of climate change—so fundamental to the future of our country, including to my constituents in Indi. This is why I worked with the government in 2022 to amend the Climate Change Act. The first of my successful amendments requires the minister, via the annual climate change statement—this statement—to report on the impacts of the government's emissions reductions policies on rural, remote and regional Australia. This includes reporting on the social, employment and economic benefits being delivered by those policies in rural and regional Australia. My second successful amendment requires the Climate Change Authority to advise on the benefits for rural and regional Australia of recommended changes to Australia's emissions reduction targets. The advice given must also detail the physical impacts of climate change on rural and regional Australia.

I am a steadfast supporter of efforts to transition the Australian economy to renewable energy. My amendments have the clear aim of ensuring that the government's actions in support of the transition deliver economic, employment and social benefits for all of Australia, including rural, remote and regional Australia. These amendments are especially important, given regional Australia will host the vast majority of the renewable energy infrastructure set to be built.

Beyond the context of this act, I've worked with committees across my electorate of Indi and with all levels of government to seize the opportunities presented by renewable energy, energy efficiency and the new industries they will unlock. I've engaged constructively with the government of the day and have put forward bills that would both accelerate the energy transition in Australia and benefit regional communities, because, with good policy, with well-designed policy, this doesn't need to be an either-or scenario.

The Australian Local Power Agency Bill and my cheaper home batteries bill were designed to do just that: lock in genuine benefit sharing with the transition to renewables. Disappointingly, the government has so far largely failed to support and empower regional communities as central actors in energy transition. This failure is clearly evident in its Annual climate change statement 2023. With my amendment, the statement is required to detail the benefits and other impacts of the government's policies on regional communities, yet the efforts of the government to fulfil this obligation are paltry.

The Annual climate change statement is 92 pages long with over 37,000 words, yet only 280 words are dedicated to detailing regional impacts. Furthermore, almost all of these 280 words are dedicated to the challenges and needs of communities with fossil fuel industries as they transition. Now, such work is critically important, and I wholeheartedly support the work of the Net Zero Economy Agency in this space. However, the annual statement fails to detail the actual impacts of Commonwealth government policies to date on these communities. Critically, the statement also fails to detail the impacts of government policies on traditional agricultural communities that are now finding themselves host to renewable energy infrastructure. Again, I want to be clear: there are many farmers right now that are taking advantage of this transition and hosting very successful renewable energy projects alongside their farming enterprises.

Beyond the impacts on regional communities, though, the statement refers to community engagement for renewable energy infrastructure projects. Community engagement in the statement is framed as a means of securing social licence for projects. This is not nearly good enough, because I'm seeing firsthand in the electorate of Indi the real impacts of renewable energy projects on communities. Regional communities are playing host to almost all of the infrastructure needed to deliver Australia's clean energy transition: solar PV, wind, battery and transmission infrastructure. Communities in Indi such as Bobinawarrah, Meadow Creek, Ruffy, Dederang and others are facing the prospect of significant renewable energy being developed in their area with little or no information on the impact, either positive or negative, that these projects will have on their committees, let alone the real benefits that they could receive and share if this is done well.

I know that there are some bad-faith actors in this debate who are ideologically seeking to oppose the transition completely, without putting forward any realistic alternatives to reach net zero emissions. But as this rollout happens, many farmers, landholders and communities have legitimate questions and concerns, and, as I've said many times, a legitimate question or a legitimate concern becomes a complaint if it's not listened to. They want to know about things like fire risks—potential or real—impacts on insurance premiums and how farmers and regional communities can truly benefit, and they should know. This goes well beyond mere social licence to operate.

What I've heard from these communities is that these concerns are rarely addressed. In almost all cases, community engagement and benefit sharing has been disappointing at best and non-existent at worst. Take the Strathbogie shire communities in my electorate, for example. These communities have long-term energy security issues. In fact, many communities in the shire of Strathbogie have experienced up to 17 power outages in the last four months. They're on the edge of the grid and their energy security is appalling. These same communities are at the forefront of a renewable energy project proposal of wind turbines and transmission lines that are being touted as part of the solution to keeping the nation's lights on. But under the proposal, it's unclear if this energy project would keep the lights on for this local community, which will see these turbines and transmission lines in their backyards.

That is why, last year, I worked with Senator David Pocock on the terms of reference for an independent review into the community engagement on renewable energy infrastructure developments. That inquiry was commissioned by the Minister for Climate Change and Energy, Chris Bowen, and was led by the Australian Energy Infrastructure Commissioner, Andrew Dyer. The review held a series of roundtables across the country, including in Wangaratta, where they met with local governments, businesses, landholders and community groups from Indi—communities like those from Meadow Creek, Dederang, Barnawartha and the Strathbogie Ranges.

Mr Dyer finalised his report in December last year. I'm pleased that, last Friday, standing beside the National Farmers' Federation, Minister Bowen made the findings and recommendations of that report public and accepted in principle all of the report's recommendations. The government's acceptance of this report is an indication they are beginning to see community engagement not as a box that needs to be ticked but rather as a genuine process that aims to secure beneficial outcomes for all those involved.

This report gives state, territory and Commonwealth governments a road map for improving how people are consulted when energy projects are developed in their communities. The review made several recommendations that require the Commonwealth to work with the states and territories. These include ensuring best-practice complaints handling via state and territory ombudsmen, reforming planning laws to better recognise no-go and inappropriate locations for projects and identifying opportunities for benefit sharing between communities and developers.

I'm calling on the government to have the community engagement review recommendations at the top of the agenda when the Energy and Climate Change Ministerial Council meet for the first time this year. I also urge the government to fund, under the upcoming budget, a number of its recommendations, including setting up an independent body to design and operate a developer rating scheme so communities know whether they are dealing with good-faith proponents when they get a knock on the door or a letter in the post.

The government must also set up a communications program that provides local communities with details and time frames for the energy transition. Communities shouldn't be left to do this work alone. The government has so far failed to adequately fulfil its obligations under the Climate Change Act to detail how its policies benefit regional Australia. I urge the government to remedy this shortcoming through stronger policy action and better information sharing. Implementing the recommendations of the community engagement review, and implementing them quickly, is a good place to start.

There are major opportunities this government must take up to empower regional communities to play a role in the energy transition and to truly benefit. Let this be a gold rush for rural and regional Australia.

James Stevens (Sturt, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I appreciate the opportunity to make a statement on the Annual climate change statement 2023 that the minister has delivered to the parliament. It is an opportunity to reflect on the great challenge that is before us of achieving a net zero situation in this country and on this planet by 2050.

Indeed, I take this opportunity to firstly express my deep appreciation to the member for Fairfax, our shadow minister for energy and climate change, for the depth of work that he has already done on and his exploration of the opportunity to embrace civilian nuclear energy generation for this country, Australia. Nuclear, as we know, of course, is a zero carbon emissions technology. It is also completely reliable and a source of baseload power. As someone who is from South Australia, I know a lot about what happens when you don't have reliable baseload power.

In the state of South Australia—in, as we would believe Australia to be, a First World country—in 2016, our entire electricity grid collapsed for four hours. In South Australia we'd just had, months earlier, our final coal station, the Northern Power Station at Port Augusta, close down, and South Australia was very much reliant on an interconnector with Victoria. When the system lost power, that interconnector triggered a safety mechanism, and the grid went down for the whole state of South Australia for a period of four hours. It was something that no-one could ever have believed would happen in a First World nation like Australia or a First World state like South Australia. It dramatically sharpened the minds of South Australians and their awareness of how important it is to have a reliable electricity system.

That's why I welcome and am very excited by the work of the shadow minister and our opposition leader, Peter Dutton as we in the coalition develop a policy position on embracing civilian nuclear generation as an option for the grid in this country. There's no debate about nuclear in South Australia—except from the Greens, I suppose. In South Australia, it's the position of the Liberal Party and the Labor Party that we welcome and are excited about the opportunity of the AUKUS submarine construction, which will be eight nuclear submarines built at the Osborne North shipyard in Adelaide, which means that eight nuclear reactors are coming into the bellies of submarines in metropolitan Adelaide. The moment this was announced as a prospect for South Australia, I concede the South Australian Labor Party were the first to absolutely embrace nuclear and nuclear generation to be domiciled in suburban Adelaide.

That is still the position of the South Australian Labor Premier. In fact, he has been even more fulsome in embracing the issue of nuclear and the opportunity of nuclear and standing up to Prime Minister Albanese on this issue and being very prepared to entertain civilian nuclear generation in the state of South Australia. I commend that position. I was on Q+A with him a few months ago, where he made the very clear point that, in his view, there was absolutely no safety risk with nuclear generation whatsoever. He said that to an audience that wasn't necessarily very supportive of his perspective on that. I commend him and contrast him with some of the scaremongering on the issue of nuclear. Frankly, I simply do not believe there is any credible path to achieving net zero by 2050 in this country without nuclear. It'll be hard enough with nuclear, but without nuclear we are proposing to be, effectively, the only nation on the planet with a credible pathway to net zero by 2050 that, according to this government, won't have nuclear in the mix of consideration.

It remind me of the fact that a lot of people get very confused about what getting to net zero means. They think, because there are a lot of slogans out there, that getting to net zero means net zero electricity generation. That is one of many complex parts of decarbonising the economy. The most challenging one for which there are no serious solutions, particularly without nuclear, is industrial production—industrial transformation. For example, steel is seven per cent of global emissions. If we get to zero-emission electricity, that is completely irrelevant to the production of steel. Blast furnaces don't run on 24-volt electricity. At the moment they run on metallurgical coal. To achieve the kind of industrial chemistry you would need in steel—this also applies for cement and a whole range of industrial processes that are, by some measures, about 30 per cent of emissions—you need heat that cannot be generated through electricity in any commercially viable way. That is the reality of the industrial chemistry. Nuclear is absolutely a potential heat source for certain types of industrial heat, and, if we're living in a world without steel and cement, others can explain that to the people out there on the street, because I don't think that's people's expectations. So we’re going to need to keep making steel. We're going to keep needing cement and a whole range of things that are currently produced through industrial processes that emit carbon and cannot be replaced by electricity, whether or not that is sourced from renewables. It's much like the transport sector, which has significant challenges in it that can't be overcome purely from zero emissions electricity. So nuclear has to be considered.

I also don't understand why those who don't believe in nuclear are so frightened of the debate on nuclear or of giving people the option of generating electricity from nuclear. Some say it's not economic. Well then, you have nothing to fear. If it's not economic then the private sector will determine that, and it won't invest in it. In this country, thanks to Paul Keating, we have a private national electricity market that is driven by investment decisions. But we have a moratorium on nuclear, a ban, that is legislated. It says that you're not even allowed to consider it. For those who would say that it's not economic, take away the moratorium, and your position that we shouldn't have nuclear will evidently be the right one when the financiers and those who look at business cases for these come along and say, 'The economics don't stack up.'

I'm very confident that, technologically, nuclear will change dramatically in the years and decades ahead. We are told by everyone in this debate that apparently every other technology, whether it's battery or these renewables, will make dramatic advances over the next few decades except nuclear. Apparently, that's the only one. There's no chance whatsoever that the way in which nuclear technology works today will transform and improve in the years and decades ahead, while left-wing governments around the world are pouring billions of dollars into research and development into nuclear at the same time.

So, as we reflect on this climate change statement and how difficult the challenge will be to get to net zero in 2050, it is fraudulent to say that you're committed to getting to that, but you would rule out a form of technology that could help you achieve it. We can have a debate on these things, but that's very different to saying: 'I'm not prepared to have a debate on it. We're going to make a certain type of technology illegal in this country and not considerate as part of bearing the burden of a very challenging and complex task that we're all committed to achieving by 2050.' So I reflect on the challenge that the statement presents, and I congratulate the shadow minister and the opposition leader for the leadership they are providing on this topic. I look forward to having this debate towards the next election. I certainly commend an agnostic approach, considering all and any options technologically for the very important task of achieving net zero by 2050.

Josh Wilson (Fremantle, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I'm just going to respond to a few of the things that the member for Sturt was saying in relation to the Annual climate change statement 2023 which raises the question of how Australia makes progress towards its commitment to net zero by 2050—a commitment made by the current government. It wasn't something that the former government had any strong interest in, and the member for Sturt has just come and talked exclusively about how nuclear energy is required to get there. He said a few things that I think should be rebutted, and the first is around having a debate.

I'm going to give him the debate that he asked for, and it's just one of many debates that have occurred on this issue. In fact, it's pretty much an ongoing conversation. There was a Ziggy Switkowski review under the Howard government in 2006. There was a royal commission, I think, in South Australia. There have been multiple committee inquiries. In fact, in the last parliament there was an inquiry that the former government caused to be undertaken by the Standing Committee on the Environment and Energy that the member for Warringah and I were on. I was deputy chair of the committee. It was chaired by the opposition's energy spokesperson. It was on the viability of civilian nuclear energy, and it concluded that it wasn't viable at this stage. I think all it could bring itself to say from the point of view of the government members was that this idea of small modular reactors should be kept somewhere on the blackboard to be thought about from time to time. But there were no steps taken by the former government to deal with the very sensible EPBC prohibition of civilian nuclear power in Australia. That was put in place under the Howard government. Again, there were no steps by the former government to do that—just as there were no steps taken further down the path of nuclear energy, just as there was no actual national energy policy of any kind. We have been watching the Nemesis program, and it is a reminder of the terrible knot that the former government got itself into around the National Energy Guarantee. The NEG was probably the closest thing they got to a national policy. There were 22 energy policies that they toyed with. I think the NEG was the one they got closest to and failed to deliver.

Now that they're in opposition, of course, the energy policy they have is to bring in nuclear. One of the reasons you don't take the prohibition away is that the first thing you would need, if you were to contemplate civilian nuclear in this country, would be the whole apparatus that would go around governing it. I'd encourage the member for Sturt and anyone else who thinks that would be a good idea to go and look at the annual budget for that regulation and all the associated agencies in the United States. It runs to tens upon tens upon tens of millions of dollars. That's the first thing you'd have to do. Then, of course, you'd have the nuclear white-shoe brigade sniffing around for every little bit of money they could get for all of these wild pilot projects and other kinds of wild goose chases, frankly.

The member for Sturt belled the cat. He argued against himself, I thought, pretty well when he mentioned that nuclear technology hasn't changed in 70 years. It's not a new industry. We've been told over and over again for literally the last 30 years that the next amazing magic generation of nuclear technology will arrive and will be safe, cheap and all of these other things, and it just doesn't occur. Renewable energy and those related technologies provide the starkest contrast that you can imagine, because the improvement in the learning curve, in efficiency, in technology and in the cost curve are there for all to see. The stuff keeps getting cheaper, and it keeps getting better and more effective.

Nuclear just hasn't been that kind of technology. It's no good pointing the finger and trying to blame other people for it. That's just the nature of the beast. The fascination that those opposite have developed—or have been sucked into, in my view—around small modular reactors is part of that problem. We looked at that very closely in the inquiry I talked about before. The CSIRO GenCost analysis showed that small modular reactors are not going to be all that different in their exorbitant capital costs and operating costs than the existing, larger-scale nuclear technology. Since the time we had that inquiry, some of the darlings of the SMR fantasists, like the NuScale project in the United States, have literally fallen apart. We had that inquiry, and the chair—now the opposition energy spokesperson—and other nuclear devotees were falling over themselves to get NuScale to present to us. And they did. They gave evidence to that inquiry, and they put forward all of the usual pie-in-the-sky nuclear vendor claims about how little it would cost and the price at which NuScale would be able to deliver nuclear-generated electricity.

Then, as the next few years went on, between 2019 and now there were a series of updates. Every update, the project timeline went out by another two or three years, the capital costs went up by another few billion and the operating costs went up by several tens of dollars per megawatt hour until, eventually—not that long ago, because it was late last year—NuScale went 'poof!' and disappeared. The project fell over because it was, frankly, not viable. They gave an update to the market. Capital costs had gone up by 2½. Operating costs and the delivery price of electricity, even with the subsidy that the new Inflation Reduction Act of the Biden administration provided, still put it at an exorbitant cost. That cost is not faintly comparable to what is being delivered by wind and solar at about exactly the same cost as what you'd get from coal or gas, but it does have incredibly long and uncertain timelines and massive capital costs.

That's the reality of the SMR fantasy. It doesn't exist. People can make whatever claims they want about it. This is a darling project of the member for Fairfax. Someone might want to go back through Hansard and do a search on NuScale and the member for Fairfax. My God, there will be love letters about NuScale and what a wonderful thing it's going to turn out to be in every one of those leather-bound volumes that we get in our offices or that are in the bookshelves around here. That project is defunct. That project has gone because it didn't stack up. That's the reality of nuclear. The member for Sturt thinks that it's a clever thing for Australia to waste time, money, energy and hopes on nuclear technology. It's a bizarre proposition, and it seems to be the only proposition when it comes to the energy emissions reduction strategy that those opposite have—a technology that is ferociously expensive and that takes a long time. If Australia were to entertain the lunacy of civilian nuclear power, we would not see a single watt generated from that technology inside of 15 years. That's the reality of it. By that time, it would be, what, 2038, and 2050 would be only a decade away. But it would be ferociously expensive. It's inflexible, and it's not what our evolving energy system needs.

And it comes with all these risks. Again, I don't know why the member for Sturt was so blithe or flippant about the risks of nuclear technology. We have seen in the current conflict in Ukraine the largest nuclear reactor in that country, Zaporizhzhia, on a number of occasions in jeopardy because of the nature of the conflict, with the possibility that its power supply would be interdicted. If that were to happen, if they were to lose the ability to run their cooling systems, we would basically get Chernobyl all over again. People said, when Three Mile Island happened, 'That'll never happen again,' and then, after Chernobyl, 'That'll never happen again.' Then, of course, we had Fukushima, in the incredibly technologically savvy, developed and sophisticated country of Japan, where they're now putting tonnes and tonnes of irradiated water into the Pacific Ocean because there's nothing else that they're going to do. The clean-up for Fukushima will run for another 25 years. It's going to be $600 billion-plus by the time it's finished. That is the reality.

You can have the nuclear fantasy, the nuclear dreamland, where suddenly a technology, after 70 years, becomes miraculously cheap and safe in a way that it has never proved to be—it's an industry that, after those 70 years, doesn't have anywhere to put the high-level waste that gets produced; there is still nowhere on earth that that gets stored—or you can have sanity. You can have renewable energy and energy efficiency and storage and all the things that the Albanese Labor government is putting in place as we chart a path towards net zero by 2050.

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

I rise to respond to the second annual climate statement, delivered last year by the Minister for Climate Change and Energy, and the Climate Change Authority's annual progress report. I have to note that the debate in this place is still fairly disappointing. We are seeing, yet again, the coalition dig the hole a little deeper, if it's possible, in this policy area, with a complete void of credible response and policy and an insistence on going down a pathway that is just not feasible. They insist on talking of only nuclear in a situation where time and cost are of the essence. They are the two primary considerations. The reality is that members of the coalition have been on the record pointing out that it's a delaying tactic, because it means nothing occurs for 15 to 20 years. It is essentially about keeping fossil fuels in our system.

In any event, I want to talk about climate change, and what the annual statement really highlights is the urgency—the status of where we're at—when it comes to global warming and emissions, and the progress that has been made by the government since the last election and the change of government. There have been, which I welcome, the significant policy steps and investment to assist with the nation's transition to net zero. But we also have to be real and talk about the facts. It's disappointing to see that Australia's total emissions still increased over the last 12 months. As the Climate Change Authority's report outlines, we are not yet on track to achieve net zero by 2050, and we know that is probably not sufficient to keep us to the safe temperature goal.

The year 2023 was a year of record temperatures, and the ocean saw crazy spikes in temperature. More importantly, we're not on track to stay true to the Paris Agreement. The Paris Agreement aims to limit global warming to 1.5 degrees, or to keep under two degrees at the very least. We are probably on track to pass 1.5 degrees this year or within the next couple of years. We are already tipping over it occasionally. Whilst we sometimes have fantasy discussions in this place, it's really important for the Australian public to be reminded of the very dire reality and the real facts that matter.

Our next nationally determined contribution under the Paris Agreement will be for 2025. That NDC must be ambitious. We must accelerate our ambition. Australia has a responsibility to be a leader in this place and to set the example. State governments are already doing it. We are not yet seeing that indication from the federal government. In an absence of attention or even remotely realistic policy from the opposition, it's clear that push is going to need to come from the Australian public, from Australian businesses, from the sector and, clearly, from the crossbench. We must aim to have our next NDC under the Paris Agreement be at least 75 per cent emissions reduction by 2035.

The key messages coming out of this annual climate change report are, in a nutshell, that Australia's just transition to a prosperous net zero economy is slowly emerging, but much more is needed. The Climate Change Authority's annual report tells us what 1.1 degrees Celsius of warming looked like in 2023: wildfires in Hawaii, Spain, Greece and Canada; floods in China, India, Pakistan and Nigeria; heat waves in the United Kingdom, Europe and India. July 2023 was the hottest month in over a century of global temperature records, and thousands of climate records have been exceeded worldwide.

We need total emissions to start coming down significantly and fast. Last year's emissions did not go down and, in particular, transport and agriculture increased, leading to a total emissions increasing by four metric tonnes of carbon dioxide equivalent. To put this into perspective, the Climate Change Authority says that we must decarbonise at an average rate of 17 metric tonnes of carbon dioxide equivalent, some 40 per cent faster than what our current annual rate of decarbonisation has been since 2009. To achieve this, it is essential that the government establish sectoral targets to drive emissions reduction in every sector.

On a positive note, it is pleasing to see the government has accepted some 39 out of the 42 recommendations by the Climate Change Authority. It's excellent to see a focus now on adaptation planning and a move to legislate for climate risk assessment. The government will soon be required to do this. We absolutely need to do this.

Recommendation 4 of the report in fact mirrors the provisions I had in the climate change bills that I put to the last parliament to legislate that national climate risk assessment be undertaken and national adaptation plans be updated a minimum of every five years, with monitoring of those plans. There is strong support for these provisions, so I urge the government and the opposition to legislate this without delay. If there is one responsibility of government, it is to keep communities safe, and that requires assessing the risk and adapting to that risk.

We talk a lot about the costs of climate change. The Insurance Council of Australia noted in 2022 that, since 2005, Commonwealth expenditure on disaster relief has been $24 billion. Since the 2019-2020 Black Summer bushfires, insurers have paid out more than $16.8 billion dollars in natural disaster claims for 13 declared catastrophes and five significant events. By 2050, Australian households will be paying some $35.24 billion dollars every year—in 2022 dollars—for the direct costs of extreme weather. Just pause and think about that when you're hesitating about whether we should deal with climate change and reduce emissions.

So I welcome the recommendations in the report, in particular those around methane, which mirror my submission to the NGER Act review in relation to monitoring and measuring methane. In its first 20 years, methane is eight times more potent at trapping heat than even CO2. So, if there is any sense that we need to urgently avoid key tipping points that are fast approaching, we must deal with methane. To that end, the Climate Change Authority has made recommendations, and I will be engaged with the government to ensure we adopt those recommendations and have good monitoring and measurement of our methane and stop venting and flaring. We must stop methane being allowed just to leak out into the atmosphere. It is accelerating us towards key tipping points.

We know we need to move away from gas. Gas is not a transition fuel; it is accelerating our short-term emissions and global heating.

Household electrification is a critical step in our transition. We talk a lot about cost of living—many in this place talk about it. Two of the key variables in household expenses are energy and insurance, and these, ironically, are both impacted by climate change. If we transition away from fuels that are inflationary and move to electrification of households, we can make a difference. It's a win-win: reduce emissions and reduce cost-of-living impacts.

Transport sector emissions are continuing to rise. We need to have much clearer targets around that. I welcome the announcement by the government around fuel efficiency standards, but more is needed. Electric vehicle sales may have increased from two per cent to nine per cent for new vehicles, but that needs to accelerate. We need to have much greater investment in public transport to ensure we move away from single vehicles to much more efficient modes of transport.

There are a lot of steps that have been announced by the government to head in the right direction, but we know that we can still do a lot more. It's reassuring to see new initiatives such as the expanded Capacity Investment Scheme and the Hydrogen Headstart Program. However, while the government supports building on the recommendations of the Samuel review it is dragging its heels when it comes to the EPBC Act, which is a key element in how we are going to ensure we get to net zero. We need to ensure protection of the environment. The most natural way we can sequester carbon is through forests, yet we still have incredible rates of deforestation and both sides of government resisting an end to native forest logging. We absolutely have to do this. There is no point spending millions and billions on technologies like carbon capture and storage when our most natural storage is through maintaining native forests. Amendments to the EPBC Act are urgently needed, and I will be working with the government and proposing amendments to introduce a climate risk assessment of applications, especially for projects that are likely to become stranded assets where there is climate financial risk at play.

It's really important that we acknowledge the risk of climate change from a national security perspective, and I'll continue to push the government to release the Office of National Intelligence's risk assessment of the impacts of climate change.

I welcome the report but I urge the government to get braver and more ambitious when it comes to dealing with climate change.

Terry Young (Longman, Liberal National Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

There being no further speakers, the debate is adjourned and the resumption of the debate will be made an order of the day for the next sitting.

Federation Chamber adjourned at 19:09