Sam Dastyari (NSW, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

There's ideology at stake here, because, if we're serious about reducing electricity prices, the one thing that is more important than anything else is providing a level of certainty to industry so that they're able to provide supply. What you have is such a level of uncertainty in what is going on that it is making it difficult for business and industry to make decisions.

One of the fortunate things that we're able to do as senators—and other senators have had these opportunities too—is, through the committee process, to go out and see different parts of Australia and talk to different communities. The Senate Environment and Communications References Committee, which I am a member of, held an inquiry into these matters last year regarding, specifically, the power station at Morwell, which had just announced it was shutting down. It gave us an opportunity to go out there and talk to the workers, specifically, and to the industry and others behind it. Putting aside what I think was some pretty reprehensible behaviour by the French company and how they made those decisions, when we had the opportunity to talk to the other companies that came before us, what they all spoke about was the need to have a level of certainty when they were making investment decisions. Regardless of where you sit ideologically in relation to the debate on renewable technology, what they were saying was they needed to have certain lines drawn in the sand so they could make investment and business decisions based on them.

The government, however, is held back by its own ideological debate and ideological fights on these issues. The Turnbull government is beholden to what can only be described as a far-Right element of their own party. Their latest plan restricts growth in renewables to as little as 28 per cent of Australia's energy by 2030, including rooftop solar. The current renewable energy target will deliver 23.5 per cent by 2020. The government's plan for renewable energy will mean renewable energy will grow by less than 0.5 per cent per year over the next decade, or 250 megawatts a year to 2030, given demand is projected to be flat. When you have the opportunity to have a growing renewable energy sector, surely that is where investment should be directed.

The renewable energy industry is booming across the world, creating hundreds of billions of dollars of investment, great research and development and, across the world, 9.8 million jobs, but what we've seen is this government, under Prime Minister Turnbull, turning its back on the renewable energy sector and embracing an old-school vision of a coal-fired future for Australia. With all the rhetoric about innovation, jobs and jobs of the future, if jobs in the renewable energy sector aren't jobs of the future then you really have to ask yourself: what are? Already the Abbott-Turnbull government has destroyed one in three energy jobs in Australia based in the renewable sector, and the plan that was recently announced—the NEG, or whatever you want to call it—will destroy thousands more.

The conservatives dream of a time in Australia when manufacturing in Australia was at its strongest, yet their policies are actually what's bringing manufacturing to its knees by putting so much uncertainty into the market that electricity prices are going to rise. Under the Prime Minister, power prices will keep going up and up, and thousands of jobs in renewable energy and with gas-intensive manufacturers are now at risk. Australia's industrial gas customers have seen no price relief from the Prime Minister's 'gentleman's agreement' with LNG gas exporters, and no export control means the government's gentleman's agreement—this cup of tea; this relationship they believe they've built—isn't actually backed up by anything. There's no legal mechanism at the heart of this, and so gas exporters are free to export gas that could otherwise be used to increase supply and lower prices here in Australia.

For years, Aussie manufacturers have had ready access to cheap and renewable energy suppliers which provided Australian firms with the competitive advantage they needed to compete globally. This is an advantage that has now disappeared. In October the outgoing CEO of BlueScope Steel, Paul O'Malley, told the company's AGM that from 2016 to 2018 BlueScope's energy electricity cost would rise by 93 per cent. The enormity of a rise like that on industry is staggering. In August, it was reported that steel company Milltech's electricity bill had blown out by 160 per cent, which actually related to $1.2 million. Chief Executive of the Australian Chamber of Commerce and Industry, James Pearson, has said that the surge in energy costs has forced business to defer investment decisions, with some even thinking of moving abroad.

Australian gas users are once again at the mercy of gas exporters and will continue to pay the price for the Turnbull government's failure to stand up to the big gas exporters. If you look at the government's own regulatory impact statement, it advised that this kind of agreement—this gentleman's agreement or whatever you want to call it—with gas exporters, will 'result in some users exiting the market, resulting in a loss of jobs and economic output'. That is the government's own statement. As it stands, the Turnbull government's latest energy policy thought bubble will strangle the renewable energy industry for perhaps a lousy 50c in three years time. Minister Frydenberg and the Prime Minister can't even guarantee a figure as low as 50 per cent; that's just what has been predicted by others. So, really, at the heart of it is an issue that the government has about certainty and providing certainty.

But it's not just on the issue of electricity that we have seen this ideological debate play itself out; we have seen it play itself out elsewhere. I note that Senator Macdonald was given a little bit of leeway in this debate, and I will take that leeway too. There is an ideological challenge that drives this government on every issue. Take the issue of marriage equality. Australians have now given their opinion through the postal survey; yet there are those in this argument who, just as they are doing with energy and just as they are doing with energy prices, are using ideology to try to drive an agenda. What Senator Paterson has proposed to put in this place is as dangerous as this energy policy that we're here to discuss today. It's not about ensuring equality; it's about ensuring discrimination and taking Australia back 60 years. What you now have are the young fogies of the Liberal Party being led astray by the old fogies. Australians have had their say to make our country a fairer and more equal place, not to take us back to a time where people could be denied service at a shop. The majority of parliamentarians need to respect the outcome of the postal survey when it comes down this week. What I would hate to see is those who oppose marriage equality try to take some kind of a possible 'yes' victory in the postal survey as a basis for more discrimination or as a basis to make a case against equality. That is not the question of this survey and that is not what the amendments should be. Frankly, Senator Paterson should know better than to be led astray by the old fogies in his own party.

Ideology on the conservative side of politics has led to increasing uncertainty when it comes to those who need to make investment decisions as it relates to energy prices. Until this government is able to get itself straight and in order on what it wants to achieve on energy, it is not going to be able to place the downward pressure on prices that is needed to protect and keep Australian manufacturing and jobs.