Lisa Singh (Tasmania, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

I also rise to speak on this MPI, joining with Senator Milne—both of us coming from the state of Tasmania as senators—in recognising that Tasmania is the state with a very high amount of renewable energy, something that we both I am sure are proud of. And, in some way, one day Tasmania may be the first state to be 100 per cent renewable, one would hope. I speak on this MPI, first and foremost to highlight the fact that of course the government will not—and it has been said many times by the Treasurer—be providing a running commentary on speculation about possible budget measures. Suffice to say, obviously the budget will be handed down tonight at 7.30 by the Treasurer and then we will be made aware of its full detail.

Having said that, I would like to say the Labor government very much remains committed to ARENA and its important role of improving the competitiveness of renewable energy technologies in Australia. ARENA plays a vital role in doing that, and that is why the minister bought forward legislation to ensure we have an ARENA that can do that role. In doing so, the government has a very proud record of helping develop renewable energy in this country. In fact, when Labor returned to office in 2007, solar PV was a niche industry and our emissions were growing strongly each year. Last month, the government reached the milestone of supporting over one million rooftop solar panels with a total capacity of 2,500 megawatts. Around 2.5 million Australians live under rooftops with solar power. Again, in 2007, around 20,000 megawatt hours were produced each year by household solar. Now it is around 3.3 million megawatt hours—the equivalent of taking around a million cars off the road. Again, in 2007, there was around 1,140 megawatts of wind farm capacity across the country. Now, wind farms with capacity totalling 3,000 megawatts are registered under the Renewable Energy Target, and many more projects are being developed. Again, I refer to some of those in Tasmania, one recently coming on board being Musselroe Wind Farm.

Labor's response to the Climate Change Authority's Renewable Energy Target review makes it clear that we are committed very much to the 41,000 gigawatt hour large-scale target, and we welcome the fact that, with lower demand, renewable energy is now likely to exceed the 20 per cent target by 2020. The rise of household solar and wind generation is now part of a broader transformation of Australia's electricity market with both the carbon price and Renewable Energy Target playing a key role. After the first nine months of the carbon price in operation, emissions in the National Electricity Market are down by 7.7 per cent, or 10 million tonnes. Generation from seven of the most highly polluting power stations is down by 16 per cent and renewable energy output is up by almost 30 per cent. That shows very much how carbon pricing is having an effect on our emissions output.

To maximise our potential for large-scale renewables and Australian innovation the Clean Energy Finance Corporation, ARENA and Clean Technology Innovation Program are very important measures to complement both the carbon price and the Renewable Energy Target. ARENA is already administering $1 billion allocated to assisting operations like this CS Energy's Kogan Creek solar boost project. This will be the world's largest solar project to be integrated with a coal fired power station and will provide 44,000 megawatt hours of zero emission electricity a year. ARENA is also supporting AGL Energy MPV manufacturer First Solar to build a project in western New South Wales that will generate enough electricity to power 30,000 homes.

I did note that Senator Milne referred to the AEMO report. I understand it is only a draft report at this stage. We will need to wait until the end of this month for the government to consider the AEMO final report, but the draft model does paint a couple of scenarios and estimates costs for 2030 and 2050. It may not have looked at costs of shifting to 100 per cent renewable energy, but whatever the detail of that report we should wait until it is handed down in full. I understand it is only in a draft phase.

I would again like to point out the importance of ARENA. It has been playing a key role in ensuring that we do meet our renewable energy targets, that we go beyond those targets. I am very supportive of Australia becoming a renewable energy country and being a leader in that sense for our neighbours, who are looking at us and looking at the work we are doing in leading the Asian region when it comes to reducing our emissions. We know that some of those developing nations have some way to go. But we also know that some of the more economically advanced parts of our Asian region, such as China and India, are working very hard to ensure that they reduce their emissions just as we are doing. That, of course, is where ARENA brings together a range of renewable energy initiatives that need to be taken into account.

I would like to point out the fact that we do have an alternative here, an alternative that hopefully will not become a reality post-September 14 this year. That is of course the coalition's plan for reducing emissions. I understand the coalition is committed to reaching the same emissions reduction target. However, the means and ways by which they have decided to go about doing this is certainly going to be hitting taxpayers in this country in a very hard way. The coalition's plan, as we know, will be funded entirely on-budget as opposed to the carbon price, which we have in place which is paid by the biggest polluters. The coalition claim its policy would cost $10.5 billion over 10 years, but we know that the real cost of the coalition's policy is at least $48 billion by 2020.

In fact, Treasury analysis released last year shows that the economic costs of the coalition's plan would be higher for two reasons:

First, direct domestic action would forego opportunities for cheaper, internationally sourced abatement. Second, direct action programs are generally less effective at driving take up of all potential abatement opportunities.

On top of that, the independent Grattan Institute has estimated that there is a $100 billion black hole in the opposition's costings due to the impact of their direct action plan. Without a carbon price or ETS in the federal budget, $100 billion is a third of the entire federal government budget. That is coming from the Grattan Institute. We know exactly where that $100 billion black hole will be funded from—it will be borne by taxpayers. Let us make no mistake: we have an opposition who says they are committed to reducing emissions, but the ways and means that they are going to use to go about doing this is going to be hurting every single taxpayer in this country.

We already have in place a scheme, which will soon be a trading scheme, that is already working well and already reducing emissions. I have just provided to you the figures on that. But because the coalition's plan is entirely on budget, taxpayers' funds will be used to pay polluters to lower their pollution. Not only is that going to hurt taxpayers; it is also going to absurdly have taxpayers giving money to polluters to reduce their pollution. It is the polluters that are doing something wrong to our environment, not the taxpayers. And yet the coalition will make taxpayers pay for the wrongdoings of polluters, who therefore will have no impetus at all to change their behaviour. They do have that impetus under the carbon pricing scheme that the Labor government has put in place. The differences are clear there. That is something for taxpayers to consider when they are thinking about government policy to reduce emissions after September. I know which one I would prefer; I know which one my family would prefer. In fact, I cannot imagine any taxpayer in the country wanting the coalition's direct action plan. (Time expired)