John Williams (NSW, National Party) Share this | Hansard source

I can see the fight now between the Labor Party and the hard Left of the Greens, especially the one coming up in Tasmania. Who is going to go the furthest to the left to see what they can do to win a vote or two? It is about time some facts, some realistic points of view, were put forward in this chamber on this whole energy and carbon emissions reduction scheme. Let's go back and look at 2010. Remember the promise by the then Prime Minister, Julia Gillard: 'There will be no carbon tax under the government I lead'? Of course, in that election the coalition won 73 seats and Labor won 72 seats. But along came Independents Rob Oakeshott and Tony Windsor. What did they demand—especially Tony Windsor? He demanded the cross-party, multiparty climate change committee, or whatever you want to call it, and out of it, driven by Tony Windsor, came the carbon tax we were never going to have. What did it do? It did absolutely nothing except put costs up for the Australian people to the tune of $9 billion in a year—and growing. It was going to go up every year.

Here we have a situation where we put the price of electricity up—and that's going to save the planet? That is absolute rot. Dr Finkel told us at Senate estimates what would happen if Australia reduced all of its emissions—the whole lot. What effect would it have on the planet? Basically nothing at all. Months ago, I brought to the attention of Senate, and so did my colleague Senator Macdonald, details of the new coal-fired power generation being constructed around the world—I know them off by heart. A unit is one generator and plants like Bayswater and Liddell in the Hunter Valley in New South Wales are four-unit generating plants. They have four generators, four cooling towers and so on. Eight months ago, China was constructing an extra 299 units of coal-fired generation to add to their 2,107 units already in production. Those 299 units will produce 670 million tonnes of CO2 a year—that's just the extra 299 that are under construction. Australia produces 550 million tonnes of CO2, so the extra coal-fired generators being built in China will produce more CO2 than the whole of Australia, through everything. There were 621 units under construction at the time: 299 in China, about 132 in India, 34 in Vietnam, 32 in Indonesia, some in South Africa, 10 in Japan and even some in Germany. In Australia we have a total of 73 units of coal-fired generation—just 73. Around the world, 621 units are being constructed, and somehow we're going to change the planet! It is ludicrous. All we do is shut ours down and put the cost up.

I will give you an example, Madam Acting Deputy President Kitching. When Hazelwood's coal-fired generator closed in Victoria, the electricity prices in Victoria went up 176 per cent, and they went up 102 per cent in New South Wales and 86 per cent in South Australia. We talk about renewable energy, and I have no problem with renewable energy. Renewable energy is a very good thing. However, it's got to stand on its own feet. Let me give you the examples. Senator Singh was talking about all these wind towers that we can build in Tasmania. Say that you construct one wind tower, just one—a three-megawatt-per-hour generator—and that that wind tower spins for eight hours a day, 365 days a year. Surprise, surprise—the owners of that wind tower get a $700,000 subsidy in renewable energy certificates before they sell one watt of electricity. They get $700,000 just because it's standing there and spinning for eight hours a day—not selling electricity.

What did they do in South Australia? They constructed these wind towers everywhere. I grew up down in Jamestown and I know that they're all around the hills there. Because of those huge subsidies, they can sell electricity cheaply into the grid. And what happened? The coal-fired power station at Port Augusta went broke and, along with that, the coalmine at Leigh Creek was shut down. I was at Leigh Creek in early June, and that town is on the slide, big time.