John Williams (NSW, National Party) Share this | Hansard source

Yes, we are in the Murray-Darling catchment basin in Inverell as well, by the way. You want our water and yours—our rain and yours. That is a pretty selfish attitude, I think. Anyway, the situation is this: our power bill is about $380 a quarter. I think that is very, very reasonable. I do not think it has gone up much in the last six months. My wife, Nancy, always pays the power bill. I think that is very reasonable, but the point I make is that two of us living in our house at Inverell, when we have underground pumps and so on, are looking at $360 to $380 a quarter, while our friends with the same number of people—two people; one couple—in a house in South Australia are looking at $800. That shows the expense of electricity in South Australia. It is driving industry out, so we have to find a solution. But what is the solution?

I think hydro-electricity is a wonderful thing—and thanks go to Minister Barnaby Joyce, who is very keen to get on with building the dams—but what will happen when we pick out a site to build a new dam? I will tell you what will happen: it will be just like the Adani mine. Along will come the Environmental Defenders Office, and into the courts they will go, saying, 'No, you can't build a dam here, because there might be some certain frog under threat or whatever.' That will then be stopped for years. We cannot build a dam, and, of course, what we desperately need to do is store more water in this country as both the population and the need for food production grow. That will all be stopped by the left-wing environmentalists who are supposed to help the environment, but half the time they damage the environment—I say that especially because of the way they manage the national parks and allow them to just grass up and burn and kill the animals in them.

We are getting into a really serious situation where it is so critical to have efficient and cost-effective energy in Australia, and yet what a mess we are making of it. Now we have the Finkel report and we are having a discussion. Those opposite are ribbing us, because we are discussing what the best policies will be as we go forward to give us a reliable supply of energy—reliable, Senator Xenophon, which is what your state desperately needs. Now New South Wales and Queensland and everywhere else we seem to look also need it—even Tasmania, with their hydro renewable schemes and their dry weather hits. We need to have the most efficient and reliable, and hopefully the cheapest, sources possible. That is why we need to have a look at the whole review and see what can be done best.

It is funny that Senator Polley was saying we need more renewables. South Australia has led the country on renewables. That is a fact when it comes to wind and solar, but perhaps not so much on hydro—there are not a lot of dams down there. But that has been the state that has got in to the biggest mess with the supply and cost of energy. Tasmania has the greatest amount of renewables and Senator Polly says, 'We went to the last election—the Labor Party—with a clear energy policy.' Well, what was that clear policy? It was the carbon tax/emissions trading scheme. Those opposite had a carbon tax and it was costing the country about $9 billion a year. We on this side promised to remove it when we won government under the then opposition leader Tony Abbott. We had the biggest reduction in prices for many years and those opposite want to bring it back. After the carbon tax, those opposite will move to an emissions trading scheme if they are elected in govern in this place—supported by the Greens, of course.

Mr Acting Deputy President O'Sullivan, I do not know if you know what an emissions trading scheme is, but basically it is a very simple scheme where wealthy people sell fresh air to wealthy people and poor people pay for it. That is the basic emissions trading scheme. The big companies will trade the dollars and who will pay? The poor widowed pensioner will pay when she gets her power bill. She will be living on a pension and they will increase the price of electricity—a crazy situation.

I am very pleased to see Prime Minister Turnbull, and especially Minister Canavan, intervene with the gas exports—the reason being: who owns the gas in the ground? It is owned by the people of the state, the Crown, and that is why royalties are collected on it. It is very good for companies to come out here, invest, take that resource owned by the people and export it overseas. That is good for our balance of payments and it is good for helping to pay our bills. However, the situation is this: when the people own that resource, enough should be kept back here in Australia to supply our needs first and foremost. I look forward to more changes in that field in the very near future.

The price of gas is going up and up, and there is a crazy situation in Victoria where even traditional gas pumping and production is being banned by the Labor government there. They say, 'We do not want to have any gas production.' Then they complain because they do not have enough gas to keep industry going, to keep the households going and to keep the gas ovens going or the gas heaters or the gas hot water systems. So where does it come from? A little bit of realistic policy in Victoria would be a big help, instead of just trying to appease the ultimate left wing, green, save-the-planet people who seem to be concerned about destroying jobs and industries. The fact is, if you want to look after the environment, you have got have money. When you have got money, you can spend it on the environment. If you are going to put us in a situation where we are moving our jobs and industries overseas then that just makes the country poorer, and we will not have the money to spend on the environment; other countries will make use of it.

As I said, to get a reliable supply of electricity we need steam—hot water—to drive the turbines. Whether that is heated by coal or gas does not really matter, but it is an efficient supply of electricity, and we can just turn it up almost instantly. If you have been through a coal-fired power station, you will see how quickly they can actually raise the temperature of the water and the steam pressure—in a matter of seconds. It is quite amazing how they powder the coal and feed it into the furnace. We need that, especially on hot days, when people rely on their air conditioners to keep them cool, especially in aged care facilities. In the hot summers, people who are 80, 90 or 95-years old in 40 or 45 degree heat—whether it be a north wind from Alice Springs blowing down to South Australia or a north-westerly coming into New South Wales from the centre of Australia—need to be cooled and cared for. We need reliable energy and a reliable electricity supply. That will come with coal, gas and, to a certain extent, hydro so long as there is enough water in a dam. Of course, we just do not run water out of the dams to spin the turbines; we also need that water to be used for irrigation, human consumption or whatever.

So what is the final plan? We on this side of the chamber are looking at a plan that has been put forward, an idea by Dr Finkel. We will assess that and make the best decision. But I hope that we come up with the reliability and the savings because the more we put the cost of electricity up, the more we are going to drive business overseas, shut down businesses here and send them to the wall. Important businesses such as engineering, abattoirs and food-processing industries help us produce those vital exports that Australia relies on to pay for all the imported products we now import since manufacturing has been wound back and since we simply cannot afford to compete against cheap labour countries overseas. We used to be able to help with cheap energy. Unfortunately, the way we are going, that cheap energy is going. The Labor Party's carbon tax will not fix anything as far as keeping the price down for energy. That will just put the costs up, cost the industry, cost jobs and cost the nation.