James Paterson (Victoria, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

The Greens' matter of public importance today is:

The link between the Government's collapse in public support and their hostility towards clean energy, their delusional pro-coal agenda, and their steadfast refusal to embrace progress.

My favourite thing about the Greens' MPI today is not their typical economic illiteracy; it's not their expected over-the-top environmental ideology; it's not even their antihuman, antitechnology lunacy. It's the fact that the Greens, who normally confine themselves to providing policy advice to the government, through this chamber and elsewhere, have now decided that they want to get into the business of providing political advice to the government. Not content with their unsuccessful attempts to try and influence the government's policy agenda, they're now trying to teach us a thing or two about politics.

I'm a little bit surprised by this, because presumably what the Greens want us to do, and what they think is to the government's political benefit, is adopt their environmental policies and their economic policies, and, presumably—given that they think that our current policies have led to a collapse in public support—they think that that public support would soon return and we would soon receive a boost in the polls. There is just one little unfortunate fact about the Greens and the political advice that they offer us, and that is that, presumably, if we were offering the policies of the Greens, we would receive the same amount of political support the Greens do. In the most recent Newspoll, published on Monday, the coalition's primary vote was recorded at 36 per cent. To be sure, all coalition members would like that number to be higher. But also on Monday in the Newspoll, the Greens' primary vote was recorded at 10 per cent. So a political party with a 10 per cent support in the polls is offering political advice to a party with more than three times its political support in the polls. I don't think that the government will be rushing to take up the Greens' political advice.

They shouldn't be disappointed, though, because, in a funny way, the government is following the Greens' policy advice for once. We've listened to them very carefully and to all they have said on energy policy, particularly on the merits of renewable energy. We've taken them at their word, and we've gone to the only possible logical conclusion from their advice. Their advice has come in the form of comments such as this by Adam Bandt in September 2017 when he said:

… it is now cheaper to build renewables than it is to build … coal.

It also came in the form of comments back in November 2015 by the Greens' leader, Senator Di Natale, who said:

It's cheaper now to build wind power than it is to build coal-fired power and … it'll soon be cheaper to build solar as well.

They're not the only people offering this advice. Renewable energy advocates tell us so. Kane Thornton, the CEO of the Clean Energy Council, in May 2017, said:

Renewable energy is now the cheapest kind of new power generation that can be built today—less than both new coal and new gas-fired power plants.

The opposition leader, Mr Shorten, says:

Renewable energy is the cheapest form of new electricity generation.

So I don't understand why the Greens or, indeed, the Labor Party would be disappointed that, having heard their expert advice and opinions on these issues—we have listened carefully—we have taken them at their word and we are now acting on it. Because if they're right—if it is indeed now cheaper to build new renewable energy than it is to build new coal or new gas or other forms of energy production—then all the system of subsidy, support and assistance that the renewable energy sector has received in this country, particularly over the last decade, is now no longer necessary. If they're right and it is cheaper, then the market will decide, and the market will decide in favour of renewable energy. You don't need to force anyone to build new renewable energy—you don't even need to incentivise them to do so—if it is indeed true that renewable energy is, in fact, cheaper than alternative sources of energy.

So all the government has done is accept the advice provided by the Greens, the Labor Party and the renewable energy industry and announced a new policy which finally calls time and draws to an end the era of subsidies for energy—for renewable energy in particular, which has been most generously subsidised over the past decade. We know, for example, that the renewable energy target has been a spectacularly generous form of subsidy for the renewable energy industry. It has been dubbed—I think very appropriately—this week by the Prime Minister and the environment minister as industry policy masquerading as energy policy or environmental policy, because the truth is that this policy was devised and expanded particularly spectacularly under Kevin Rudd's time as Prime Minister as a means of supporting the growth of an industry for industry policy reasons, not really for environmental policy reasons. We know the renewable energy target is in fact a very expensive form of carbon abatement and not a very efficient way of reducing carbon emissions, if that is your major objective.

The renewable energy target will peak in 2020 and come to its natural end in 2030, and it won't be extended by this government. It won't be replaced by this government by any other form of mandate such as the clean energy target, as suggested by some. Instead, it will be replaced by a new policy which puts an appropriate emphasis on two of the other major priorities of energy policy and the things which this government believes should be the top priorities of energy policy: first and foremost, reliability; and, second, affordability.

At the same time, of course, we want to meet our commitments made at the Paris climate change conference to reduce our emissions by at least 26 per cent from 2005 levels, and we are very confident that we will reach that under this policy. We're confident because this policy ensures that there will be continued investment in newer, lower-emissions technology, and we're confident because we believe in technological progress. We believe in innovation. We believe in the wonderful entrepreneurs in the renewable energy sector and elsewhere who are devising new and better ways to produce energy with lower emissions, who don't need subsidies, assistance or intervention by government to ensure that that technology is delivered and rolled out. As we have heard from the Greens, renewable energy advocates and the Labor Party, it is now cheaper to do so.

But a real strength of this policy is that it takes a genuinely agnostic approach towards different sources of reductions in emissions. The truth is the planet doesn't care if those reductions in emissions come about by rolling out a wind farm, rolling out a solar farm, or replacing an old, inefficient, outdated coal-fired power station with a new, more efficient coal-fired power station that has lower emissions. All the planet notices is the reduction in emissions. Indeed, it's true that you can build a new high-efficiency, low-emissions coal-fired power station, including using brown coal in my home state of Victoria, that can reduce emissions from older, out-of-date power stations by up to 40 per cent. A 40 per cent reduction in emissions should be something that everybody who cares about this policy area would welcome. We shouldn't be dogmatic about how the emission reductions come about if our genuine objective is just to reduce emissions. That's why I'm really encouraged by the new policy adopted by the government this week.

I want to finish on one final point. The Greens have accused the government of in this case being unwilling to embrace progress. I've just pointed out how the Greens are unwilling to face progress if the progress happens to be in the form of new, more efficient coal-fired power generation. But, of course, that's not the only area where the Greens are opposed to progress. In fact, you could easily call the Greens an antiscience party, because the Greens are so often against scientific progress if it doesn't fit with their environmental ideology. Coal-fired power stations with new technology are one example of that. Another example of that is genetically modified crops, of which my new colleague from Western Australia, Senator Brockman, spoke about so eloquently this week. It is innovations in agriculture such as the invention of golden rice which have allowed massive productivity gains in agriculture and farming, allowing enormous increases in output that are helping to feed the world better than we have ever been able to feed it before. Of course, the Greens have fought and opposed it every step of the way.

They're opposed to nuclear power. They have irrational fear and hatred of nuclear power and they believe that that's a dangerous technology. It's another example of progress that they oppose. They're even opposed to the harvesting of gas resources, if they're done in new, modern ways, like so-called unconventional coal seam gas extraction, which is working very well in Queensland and which is being used all around the world, particularly in the United States. Indeed, the success of the United States in reducing its emissions, despite the fact that the administration has pulled out of the Paris climate agreement, has come about largely because the US has transitioned to a much heavier use of gas, which produces lower emissions than some alternatives. That has come about because of the shale gas revolution, which, of course, does rely on unconventional means of accessing it. So, it's not the coalition Turnbull government that's opposed to progress; it is the Greens.