Dana Wortley (SA, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

I rise to offer some brief remarks on the Australian Centre for Renewable Energy Bill 2009. It is becoming increasingly clear that a combination of technologies is required to ensure Australia’s energy security, and that is what the bill before us today aims to achieve. The partnering of renewable energy with clean coal and gas technologies is a key to reducing our greenhouse gas emissions. This strategy has clear added benefits for the national electricity market, industry development and community access.

On the issue of human induced climate change, those opposite agree it exists when convenient but deny its ramifications when politically expedient. They would have us believe that the scientific consensus is wrong. Indeed, Senator Minchin has linked climate change to some sort of sinister plot. On Four Corners recently he said that climate change:

For the extreme left … provides the opportunity to do what they’ve always wanted to do, to sort of de-industrialise the western world. You know the collapse of communism was a disaster for the left … and really they embraced environmentalism as their new religion.

This attitude is an attempt to hoodwink the electorate—to incite fear by pressing the old fear button. But I put it to you that the electorate knows better. The fostering and promotion of renewable energy strategies will not de-industrialise the Western world. The Rudd government intends to enable the harnessing of solar, wind and geothermal energy, of which we clearly have in abundance, for the benefit of the environment, the economy and the community. It is that simple.

In my own state of South Australia, we know that renewable energy is the way forward. We have proactively fostered working initiatives such as hot fractured rock geothermal exploration, solar energy in schools and other public buildings, including Parliament House, wind technology, tree planting, the plastic bag ban, feed-in tariff mechanisms and a highly successful refund-of-deposit plan for plastic bottles and aluminium cans.

The South Australian government’s geothermal regulatory and approvals framework, pursuant to the Petroleum and Geothermal Energy Act, proclaimed in 2000, has been extraordinary in its outcomes to date. South Australia has attracted more than 58 per cent of geothermal investment in Australia for the period 2002 to 2013. Because these projects cover diverse geological provinces, testing is occurring over a range of potential sources of energy. Major petroleum exploration and production companies are involved, and the share market shows strong support. The implications are clear. This technology will enable us to reduce emissions, better adapt to the changing climate and deal with the changes that the future will undoubtedly bring in terms of carbon constrained economic settings.

On a more local level, our fiercely hot and dry environment has seen a revival of the backyard rainwater tanks so much a feature of South Australian homes in the past. Many feed into laundries and bathrooms, conserving precious drinking water; some serve the water needs of whole households. Meanwhile, greywater keeps gardens green.

All these initiatives and projects, from major corporate and government investment in geothermal exploration in the Cooper Basin and elsewhere to the commitment of individual householders to water conservation and reuse, help to husband our resources and maintain our increasingly fragile environment. The rationale for these initiatives, big and small, is as clear as it is urgent. Renewable energies are far from the margins of power generation technologies, as Professor Ian Lowe AO, Emeritus Professor of Science, Technology and Society at Griffith University in Brisbane and adjunct professor at Adelaide’s own Flinders University and the Sunshine Coast has noted. According to Professor Lowe, three-quarters of Iceland’s, half of Norway’s and a quarter of the installed energy capacity of California are powered by renewable energy. Worldwide, related industries employ almost two million people, while grid-connected solar energy is growing by 60 per cent every year. Just imagine the impact on employment potentialities in our cities and more particularly in our regions, not to mention more competitive prices for cleaner power in those cities and regional areas.

As we speak, America and Spain are developing solar thermal power plants to generate electricity. Japan and Germany, which also invests in significant wind energy technology, have made great strides with solar technology, too. In Israel, solar hot water is mandatory. In Denmark, which is smaller than Tasmania, 5,000 wind turbines have been erected. Australia, the hottest and the driest continent on earth, with its astonishing scope of solar, wind, water and geothermal resources, has been left behind. In Australia, only eight per cent of electricity is presently sourced from renewable energy—less than the 10 per cent so sourced in 1997—due to the manifest indifference of the Howard government and the interests it represented. But while those opposite flail around, take the course of greatest expediency and bicker among themselves about the existence of human-induced climate change, we in South Australia are right behind the federal Labor government in its determination to get on with the job right across the country. The benefits are evident, and it is the generations to come who will reap those benefits if we act now.

The establishment of the Australian Centre for Renewable Energy, known as ACRE, is a crucial element in achieving our aim. As my colleague Senator Stephens said in this place late last year:

It is clear that there needs to be a more coordinated focus on renewable energy technology support. That is why the Government is establishing ACRE.

She went on to say that its:

… objectives will be to promote the development, commercialisation and deployment of renewable energy and enabling technologies and to improve their competitiveness.

With these objectives in mind, I now turn specifically to theAustralian Centre for Renewable Energy Bill 2009. The bill defines renewable energy technologies as ‘technologies where the energy is generated from natural resources and which can be constantly replenished.’ Renewable energy technologies include ‘enabling technologies’. Which are ‘those technologies that enable renewable energy technologies to function more effectively within an electricity grid.’ The bill establishes the board of ACRE and the position of its chief executive officer. The board will comprise a range of experts in research, intellectual property, venture capital, science and engineering, commercialisation and other areas whose tasks will be to advise the government about how to support key energy and enabling technologies right down the innovation continuum.

The board’s functions will also include devising and implementing strategies to promote and fund renewable energy technologies; the funding of selected projects and measures; the improvement of current program delivery and the management of new programs; venture capital funding; the targeting of priority areas for government support; and other functions as the minister directs in writing. Not only will the board assess projects and measures referred to it by the government for consideration it will also foster existing links with state and territory government agencies and the private sector and establish fresh links with these with the intention of devising new ways to stimulate investment in the area. A statutory advisory board, ACRE will provide independent advice and adhere to the standards of probity, ethics and governance which are so much a hallmark of the Rudd Labor government.

As I have said, the bill establishes the position of ACRE’s chief executive officer. This position will recruit the leadership team for the organisation. The chief executive officer will be a senior executive officer of the Department of Resources and Energy. The bill also covers matters including ACRE’s constitution, the appointment of board members, remuneration, declarations of conflict of interest, the term and termination of appointments and so forth as well as voting, the conduct of meetings and related matters. The attributes, structures and functions of the board will be capable of amendment or abolition only by the parliament, and ACRE will report annually to the minister.

In closing, I stress that is the Rudd Labor government that has demonstrated the vision our country needs right now to take advantage of our unparalleled renewable natural resources; the Rudd government that has established the $4.5 billion Clean Energy Initiative; the Rudd government that has enacted the renewable energy target legislation; and the Rudd government that will establish ACRE and through that body lead a more effective application of policy and foster the development of innovative renewable energy, with its enabling technologies, for the benefit of the environment, the economy and the community. For the future wellbeing of all Australians, I commend the bill and wish the Australian Centre for Renewable Energy every success.