Bridget McKenzie (Victoria, National Party) Share this | Hansard source

It gives me great pleasure to stand up as a senator from the great manufacturing state of Victoria and talk about the need for reliable, affordable access to energy in this country right now. Unfortunately, as I sat in the chamber and listened to Senator Dastyari, I didn't hear a lot about the ALP's energy policy. I didn't hear a lot about the promotion of a 50 per cent renewable energy target. I didn't hear about the impact of Premier Weatherill's energy policy on his home state of South Australia. I didn't hear a lot about the impact of Daniel Andrews' policy on my home state of Victoria. And I didn't hear a lot about Bill Shorten's energy policy. But one thing I can be sure of from the noises we have heard from the Labor Party about this particular area of policy endeavour is that they have nothing. What they are pursuing is vanity. It is vanity to chase an international target to be seen as do-gooders on the international stage while there are over 950,000 men and women in this country who work hard every day at manufacturing in regional towns, in Melbourne proper and in the northern suburbs and western suburbs of Sydney. There are 950,000 Australians in manufacturing jobs, and they rely on reliable and affordable access to power.

It's great to see Senator Kim Carr in the chamber, a great champion of the manufacturing industry. But I do note Senator Carr is not on the speaking list, because he knows that advanced manufacturing, something he has championed as long as he has been shadow minister and as minister prior, requires access to affordable and reliable energy sources. He knows that there is no use standing up and talking about the Labor Party's energy policy, because they ain't got nothing. He also knows the costs of blackouts, particularly to manufacturers.

The Turnbull government have been delivering in spades in this very complicated and complex area of access to reliable and affordable energy supply. We've accepted 49 out of 50 of the Finkel recommendations, which will actually see us being able to work with the regulators and state and territory counterparts to ensure that our National Energy Market is functioning for all and ensuring that there is competition throughout the market, which will ensure lower prices at the end of the day. We've legislated to abolish the limited merits review process for networking businesses. We've got the ACCC looking at competition policy, because we know that there is a lack of competition within the energy market. Their interim report showed it. We are looking forward to some recommendations when they bring down their final report into what things we can do to get greater competition. We've been able to stop the gaming that was going on around poles and wires. We've suggested that certain state governments who own that infrastructure not take the cream off the top and actually give their own citizens fair access to power prices. We're also working through the COAG Energy Council. We've got the Australian domestic gas security mechanism.

With this particular conundrum, you don't just pull a lever and it all happens. You don't build solar farms all over inland Australia and suddenly have this renewable energy source. That is not how it works. That is how South Australia got into the situation it did. AEMO brought down their report that says my home state, the manufacturing state, will have a 43 per cent chance of a blackout this summer if we keep doing things the same and pursuing policies that, at the end of the day, don't deliver what we need, which is access to reliable and affordable power. We on this side of the chamber know what the impact is of increased energy prices. It's simple; the impact is on jobs. It is on the jobs of working men and women across this country—mums and dads and small business enterprises.

I just want to mention the defence industry, and I note the Minister for Defence is in the chamber. Twenty-five thousand Australians are employed in the defence manufacturing sector. It's a high-tech, future-looking industry which we are building right now. But, when I was speaking at the New South Wales conference of small to medium enterprises engaged in the defence manufacturing sector, the No. 1 concern mentioned by Chris Jenkins was the cost of energy to these businesses. It was having a direct impact on their competitiveness overseas and also on their ability to continue to grow and to employ local Australians in jobs.

I'm a National Party senator, and I cannot come to this energy debate without talking about our $62 billion agricultural industry and our food-processing industry. These are key drivers of our national economy, and in the regions they're our heart and soul. There are 320,000 jobs in the food-processing sector. We know that the increasing energy costs are going to cause agriculture to contract by up to $4.5 billion, and the food-processing sector conducted a study that said it would lose nearly 15,000 jobs simply as a result of increased energy prices. Contrary to those opposite saying the manufacturing sector is contracting, this is a sector which can grow, which wants to grow and which has the nous and the drive to grow, but it cannot when its primary input cost is exponentially increasing year on year.

I just want to touch briefly on one industry very dear to my heart as a Victorian National Party senator, and that's our $13 billion dairy industry, employing 43,000 Australians right across the country. I spoke at a dairy industry meeting a couple of weeks ago, and again high energy costs came to the fore. They are impacting our jobs and our ability to export and to ensure that these businesses are sustainable. When you're producing milk, you've got the farm where you produce the milk, where there's a high energy cost, and you've got the processing of that milk, another high-energy process. For dairy processors, their energy costs around $170 million a year. We are going to see that increase by 50 to 70 per cent this year, another $100 million for our milk processors to simply take what the cows produce in a very natural way and to make sure it's available on the shelves of our supermarkets and our restaurants. Another $100 million equates to an additional 1c a litre per year, or 15 grand for every dairy farmer in this country. That's how much they're going to lose as a result of doing nothing in this space. That is unacceptable.

In terms of on-farm costs, for our individual dairy farmers on the 5,800 dairy farms across this country, we've got a 20 per cent issue around their energy costs. We've got their sheds, the milk vats and the cooling systems they have in place on farm to keep the product fresh. We've got the irrigation pumps, particularly in north central Victoria, where our dairy industry relies on the irrigation sector. The on-farm costs of energy looking forward over this next year are an additional $4,800 per farm for this year. So that's nearly 20 grand for every single farmer when you put the increased costs of processing onto the increased cost of production from simply doing nothing and allowing energy prices to continue as they have and as they've been modelled to do.

It is unacceptable. It's a handbrake on our growth and development, and where that will be most felt will be in the regions. The highly energy-intensive industries are located in regional Australia, and it is those people who will be feeling the impact of those job losses. We can very glibly just shoot off a thousand here and 17,000 people losing their jobs there. Those are actual mums and dads. It is kitchen table stuff—people losing their jobs. It is unacceptable, because we stand here and, as Senator Dastyari said, pursue ideology over a practical response that sees the whole mix up for discussion and on the table. I would implore those senators here who care about Australian families, about a vibrant manufacturing industry and about the 950,000 Australians employed in that industry and the 43,000 Australians employed in the dairy industry to consider a pragmatic, practical approach which, yes, looks at renewables but also ensures there's reliability within the national energy system and electricity market that drives costs down and increases competition so that we can have a vibrant manufacturing sector going forward into the 21st century. It's what we're doing as a government. Please support us.