Kim Carr (Victoria, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for Innovation, Industry, Science and Research) Share this | Hansard source

The Coal-Fired Power Funding Prohibition Bill 2017 represents one of the extremes of the energy debate in this country. It expresses a kind of superstitious horror of fossil fuels in its desire to shut down all coal-fired power generators as soon as possible. I could take the Greens far more seriously when it comes to energy policy if they didn't have such an appalling track record. It's almost eight years now since they rejected the climate change policies of the Labor Party, which would have seen in place climate change policies which would have advanced this country dramatically from where we are at the moment.

Rarely does one bother to think about just how realistic their propositions are. This bill and the Greens represent one extreme in the energy debate. The other extreme is represented by the government, which has absolutely capitulated on the issue of climate change. It has done so because this Prime Minister is now bound hand and foot by the climate change denialists within his ranks. On the weekend, the Prime Minister announced the government had abandoned the National Energy Guarantee, the so-called NEG, and along with it any commitment to meet the cuts to carbon emissions which were required under the Paris carbon agreement.

We have these two extremes in the energy debate. They have one thing in common: they have elevated a sense of religion over science and fact. Of the two, the greater fault is the government's, because it has failed to deliver a coherent energy policy at any time in the last five years that it's been in office. It has failed to appreciate that what is needed for householders, for Australian industry and for the future of this nation is a comprehensive energy policy which allows us to deal with the fundamental facts in regard to the future of climate change and the need to ensure that we have sufficient energy to secure the future of our industries in this country.

Malcolm Turnbull, upon his removal, made it all very, very clear. I want to quote him directly. He said:

In terms of energy policy and climate policy, I think the truth is that the Coalition finds it very hard to get agreement on anything to do with emissions.

He said:

I mean the National Energy Guarantee was or is, a vitally piece of economic reform. It remains the Government's policy, of course.

And he said:

… the emissions policy, emissions issues and climate policy issues have the same problem within the Coalition of bitterly entrenched views that are actually sort of more ideological views, than views based as I say, in engineering and economics.

There he is, on his way out the door, expressing the view sharply, directly and unequivocally that the Liberal Party is simply not able to deal with these fundamental issues which are so important to the future of this nation. The government that's now in office has simply abandoned households, abandoned industry, deserted Australian industry and deserted blue-collar workers, and it thinks it's better to somehow or other pretend that the Australian people aren't interested in the issues around the future of this nation in regard to climate change.

Every business group in this country was supporting development in regard to the National Energy Guarantee. What was this government's response?

It was to run out some $9 million worth of TV advertisements with regard to their campaign, Powering Forward: A better energy future for Australia. That's their idea of an energy policy: run TV ads rather than deal with the big questions that actually confront the future of this nation.

When the new Prime Minister was Treasurer he assured us this energy guarantee would be delivered, but as Prime Minister he turned his back on it because he knew what the price was for securing the support of the Liberal Party party room, and that was that he had to capitulate to the knuckle draggers who actually run the Liberal Party—the knuckle draggers who don't want to face up to the fundamentals when it comes to the issues of climate change; the knuckle draggers who have plagued this government, as Mr Turnbull has said, and who are unable to come to terms with basic questions with regard to emissions and unable to come to terms with the ideological divisions within their ranks, rather than deal with the engineering, the science and the economics of climate change.

We saw that the new Treasurer, Mr Frydenberg—who had championed the NEG throughout recent months—told ABC Insiders how disappointed he was and that he'd been of the view that the policy was about walking away from what was practical. He referred to Mr Turnbull's remarks. He didn't actually quote him directly, because Mr Turnbull had belled the cat. He made it very clear that the Liberal Party is just not able to deal with this fundamental question. He said it was something to do with the parliament. But we all know the reality is this: within the Liberal Party itself, there is a group of extreme reactionaries who were not prepared to vote to support the position that their party room had on three occasions agreed should be the position of the government. They were not able to support that position on the floor of the House of Representatives. So we've got a new Prime Minister as a consequence. Mr Turnbull lost his position as the Leader of the Liberal Party for the second time on this question of the future of the Liberal Party's policy on climate change.

We have a new Prime Minister who says he's going to be more genuine and he's more sincere than the old Prime Minister. To quote Groucho Marx, 'In politics, sincerity is everything. Once you can fake that you've got it made.' That's clearly the case with this Prime Minister, because it won't be long before people wake up to the proposition that he's actually incapable of dealing with the issue of carbon emissions and that, as a consequence, he's not able to deal with the issue of the price of electricity, let alone the security of supply of electricity.

Mr Frydenberg is in the business of quoting famous people. On Insiders he said it was Bismarck who said, 'Politics is the art of the possible.' He's no fool, Mr Frydenberg, but he failed to articulate how we can ensure that households and businesses are able to have both reliability and affordability, and ensure that we have an effective response to climate change.

This is an admission of defeat by this government. A claim that this government is simply about reducing prices ahead of reducing carbon prices is an acknowledgement that the knuckle draggers within the Liberal Party have won. As a consequence of that, you can see why it is that so many moderates within the Liberal Party itself are walking away. They are simply not able to defend a Liberal Party position that doesn't sustain the view that they are in fact a liberal party, a progressive party—as Mr Turnbull said in his exit interview. It is why the business community is not likely to support this government, why the business community is not supporting this government and why it is that so many business groups are flocking to Labor—because they do know that it is possible to secure reliability, affordability and security in terms of dealing with the fundamental issues of climate change. They know that the party that can actually do that is the one that provides them with the security to invest in the future.

What we do know, of course, is that the Liberal Party is saying, 'We're in the business of looking forward,' with the prospect of saving as much of the furniture as they can. They're no longer actually in the business of trying to win an election; they're in the business of trying to secure as many of the seats that they currently hold when they face the electorate at some point. But, in the process, they've actually debased the whole proposition of what it is to be a conservative government. What they've sought to do is to argue a position while not being able to hold up any consistent policy when it comes to energy and not actually being able to articulate a case of how it is that we can look with any confidence towards the future.

And what's been the response from the moderates within the Liberal Party? Well, so far, what we've seen over the last fortnight since the change in the Prime Minister's position—and we've had no formal explanation, by the way, as to why it was that Mr Turnbull had to be removed—is the leaking of polling which showed that Mr Turnbull was on the verge of success. That was the first thing. Then, of course, we saw the leaking of the material out of the cabinet room that there was a massive infrastructure program which was about to be released and which would have secured a whole range of seats that otherwise were going to be lost. We had the leak in regard to the schools, with the deal that was to be done particularly with the Catholic schools. That would have been available, and therefore secured the future of the government.

Then, of course, we had the proposition about the energy payments that would be made to various disadvantaged groups. That was released twice, I might add. We saw the proposition that the deputy leadership of the Liberal Party was in fact offered to Mr Dutton. Then we had the arguments around the former deputy leader, Ms Bishop, who stood aside—about the way in which she was treated, the attitudes towards her, the various statements about the way she'd been mistreated and the flagrant assaults upon her character within those processes.

We have a Liberal Party that is fundamentally dysfunctional. There is chaos wherever you look, and yet we are told that somehow or other these issues will be brushed aside. Through a series of TV advertisements—$9 million worth—we're told that we'll be able to fix up all our problems and we should be confident that there'll be an answer to all our difficulties. When the new Minister for Energy was announced, Angus Taylor, straightaway we had Liberal Party figures expressing their views to the media that they were dismayed, if I can quote directly:

… dismayed at the direction of the Morrison administration’s energy policy and concerned at the appointment of Mr Taylor, who has campaigned against wind farms and renewable energy subsidies.

And:

A senior NSW government source said the federal Coalition’s avoidance of emissions reduction was "just putting off the inevitable".

So we've got a government that's essentially in the process of collapse as we now face the facts that they are seeking to avoid in the run-up to this next election.

What we do know is simply this: based on the government's own modelling, we were told that the National Energy Guarantee was a way in which we could bring together the broadest possible coalition of support that could provide security for future investment; that, it was argued by the government, could meet our international obligations; that could provide investment security, if we could get broad support across the parliament; and that could also reduce prices. In fact, it was said, according to the modelling by the Energy Security Board, that the NEG would deliver $500 savings per household, but that if it were not introduced—if it were not implemented—then there would be a cost to households of $300; it would actually lead to price rises of $300.

The Labor Party took the view that the government's position on the NEG was nowhere near ambitious enough, that we weren't able to meet our international obligations given that the targets were so low, and that's why we needed an orderly transition away from reliance on fossil fuels, but we had to do so by ensuring that the energy mix was able to be sustained in a realistic way but at the same time reduce our overall carbon emissions. We said that could be done, and we made the point on numerous occasions that Labor had always said—and I quote directly from Mr Shorten's remark—that there was a future for coal and that coal-fired power stations were going to be part of the energy mix for the foreseeable future. Labor said that we had a goal of 50 per cent reductions by 2030, and Mr Shorten indicated that they should not be engaged in 'expensive investment in new coal-powered stations beyond their technical operating life'.

We relied upon the Chief Scientist's emphatic proposition that emissions could steadily be reduced, and that would of course involve using various sources of alternative energy. Dr Finkel had produced a report for the COAG Energy Council and had demonstrated that it was possible to sustain future investment in such a way as to secure the future, particularly in regard to natural gas but also in regard to hydrogen. Now, the Greens don't particularly want to talk about natural gas, because that's a fossil fuel, and they certainly don't want to talk about hydrogen. Dr Finkel recently produced yet another report about the benefits of hydrogen as an export industry for this country. He argues that, unlike gas or petrol, where hydrogen is burned there are no carbon dioxide emissions, only water vapour, and renewable hydrogen can be produced either by electrolysis of water or by splitting molecules into hydrogen and oxygen. It can also be produced from brown coal, which is a proposition that we don't hear anything at all about from the Greens.

I think the extraction of hydrogen from fossil fuels does produce carbon dioxide emissions and therefore does require us to deal with the issues regarding carbon capture and storage. That's why I say, in regard to the consultation with industry stakeholders, particularly in manufacturing, that it is extremely important that, if we are to talk about the future of steelmaking, aluminium and aluminium refining, and the manufacture of cement and fertiliser, we need to understand that these consume vast amounts of energy. They employ hundreds of thousands of blue-collar Australians. They require a continuous power supply, which must be catered for into the future. That's of course a position that the Labor Party takes particular note of, but it is not a position that we hear sufficient weight given to. To destroy those industries would be nothing short of economic vandalism, not to mention the social consequences of destroying the communities that depend on them. I think that any advanced industrial country like Australia is entitled to see advocates come forward to defend those communities, and that's not what we're hearing from those at the end of this chamber or, frankly, from those on the other side of this chamber.

This bill does not acknowledge the importance of those communities to the future of this country. The former Prime Minister's reluctance to do anything more than give gas producers a slap on the wrist or for them to understand the significance of longer-term policy certainty to secure the future of our gas supplies or pricing arrangements for our manufacturing speaks volumes on the failure of this government. But the fundamental failure is highlighted by the former Prime Minister's acknowledgement, where he said that the issue in terms of the Liberal Party itself was:

In terms of energy policy and climate policy, I think the truth is that the Coalition finds it very hard to get agreement on anything to do with emissions. … I mean, the National Energy Guarantee was or is, a vitally piece of economic reform. It remains the Government's policy, of course.

Well, as of today, I understand that's no longer the case. It's no longer a vital piece of economic reform. We've gone back to a position where the knuckle draggers are now dominating yet another Prime Minister, and another Prime Minister is making exactly the same mistakes as his predecessor made. Mr Turnbull made a terrible error—that the mortgage for taking up the keys to the Lodge was that he would be dominated by the people who have no commitment to the future of this nation. As a consequence, we now have a situation where the emissions issue and the climate policy issue have the same problem within the coalition—bitterly entrenched views that are actually more ideological than based on, and I quote Mr Turnbull again, 'engineering and economics'. That's a fundamental failure of this government with regard to understanding the future of this nation. (Time expired)