Cory Bernardi (SA, Australian Conservatives) Share this | Hansard source

My question is to the Minister representing the Minister for the Environment and Energy, Senator Birmingham. I refer to Adam Creighton's article in The Australian newspaper last week entitled, 'The cost of going green: taxpayers hit with a $60bn power bill'. According to the article, for the 20 years from 2010 to 2030 taxpayers will be paying $60 billion in subsidies to the renewable energy sector, delivering the world's most expensive, unreliable power, particularly in our home state of South Australia. The more reliable and affordable base load power solutions, such as coal, gas and nuclear, are being built all over the world but are made unwelcome in Australia under Liberal and Labor governments. Why is your government ignoring overseas experience and throwing tens of billions of taxpayer dollars at intermittent, expensive and unreliable renewable energy?