Paul Scarr (Queensland, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

I rise to speak on this MPI. In the first instance, I think Australians are getting very, very tired of the polarisation of the debate in this respect. Certainly, Queenslanders are getting very, very tired of the polarisation of this debate. I note that Senator Siewert's motion talks about 'the elimination of climate pollution'—as if it were easy for a government, or anyone, to eliminate all climate pollution. And what do we mean by 'eliminate'? What are we actually eliminating? Because one person's climate pollution is another person's job provider and wealth creator, adding value to our resources. And that's what we would be eliminating if we followed the extreme policy advocated by the Greens.

Let me draw this out by talking about our smelters and out refineries. I believe that this country needs to do more to add value to the resources which are mined here. We need to add value to those resources, create jobs and generate wealth in this country rather than exporting those jobs and that wealth overseas and importing the value-added products. We've got a number of successful refineries and smelters in this country. So what do they say? What are the people who actually run businesses that rely on intensive electricity provision saying about renewables and electricity prices in this country?

Let me give you three examples. This is what Matt Howell, Chief Executive of Tomago Aluminium, was reported as saying in a newspaper article on 7 February 2020. Matt Howell actually has solar on his roof to provide heat generation for his water. Fine. That's good. So it's not that he does not believe in the benefits of renewable energy, but he is realistic. He said:

There's no question you can have a smelter run by batteries and renewables: wind and solar—

so he says you can do it—

But you'd be bankrupt, you can't make money from it.

That's the reality. It's not an extreme ideological position, it's the reality. Mr Howell explained that he had been approached by wind and solar developers on the hunt for an industrial customer who could underpin the projects. But the typical offer, approaching $45 a megawatt-hour, only applies when the plant is generating—when the sun is shining and the wind is blowing. In the meantime, you need to rely on gas. And that means that the rate goes up to $70 a megawatt-hour for firmed renewables—typically wind or solar backed up by gas power. At that price, Tomago does not have a future in this country. That's the reality. That's not a politician speaking; that's someone who is running a business providing thousands of jobs directly and indirectly to people in this country. Those are his words: renewables plus gas are not good enough to maintain the future of that smelter. That's renewables plus gas; the Greens wouldn't even have gas.

Example No. 2, Alcoa, with the Portland smelter in Victoria, provides thousands of direct and indirect jobs in this country. Alcoa reported a $1.12 billion net global loss in 2019, and its President, Roy Harvey, said that part of the reason is that Australia has one of the 'highest energy price markets on the planet'. About his Portland smelter he said:

… it's a plant that operates very stably, it is a good technology, it just happens to be one of the most highest energy price markets on the planet.

Our electricity prices are too high, and this ideologically driven argument just means electricity prices would go higher and higher and the jobs of Australians would be put at risk.

What about Boyne Smelters in Gladstone in my home state of Queensland? Just recently, in August 2019, Rio Tinto's chief executive officer, Jean-Sebastien Jacques, said the company was on very thin ice in terms of the buyability of its Australian smelters. He said:

I am not going to lie to anybody here, at this point in time it is a very, very challenging situation, and we are in discussions with the federal government and the state government and our utility providers ... in order to see ways to ensure the long term viability of those assets.

Three smelters—Boyne, Portland and Tomago—are all struggling, under our existing electricity prices, to keep those businesses operating in this country. The chief executive of Tomago said that even with solar and wind plus gas—and we know the Greens don't like LNG, don't like gas—he can't make Tomago work. Once those smelters are shut down, once that capital-intensive business leaves this country, it is not going to come back.

I was part of a regional select committee that travelled to Victoria and spoke to the union representing the workers from Loy Yang. We heard from them in Hazelwood with respect to their prospects. Even with the best of intentions from the Victorian state government and other agencies to try to assist them to transition, the empirical evidence was that a third of them got full-time jobs, a third got casual jobs and a third have never worked again. Those are the outcomes when energy-intensive large capital projects are shut down. Those are the results. Doing that on a mass scale across our country, including in my state of Queensland, would be an absolutely nightmarish scenario—especially when common sense tells you that it would have absolutely no impact because Australia accounts for only 1.3 per cent of the emissions. It would have no impact on the climate. All you are doing is shifting those jobs and that capital intensity offshore to countries like China, India and the United States.

Let me give you two examples. BlueScope recently invested $1 billion in a steel mill in Ohio—not in Australia, in Ohio! Those jobs are now offshore in the United States. Those jobs should be here. They once were. They're now offshore. Incitec Pivot has built a $1.1 billion ammonia plant in Louisiana. Again, those jobs should be here. But the electricity prices, even today, are too high in this country, and we need to bring them down.

I say to the members of the Labor Party: if you're going to criticise our policy, maybe you need to have your own policy. If you're going to criticise our policy, you need to come up with your own policy first. Watching Richard Marles on Insiders yesterday was as excruciating as watching a patient in a dentist's chair. The Labor Party still can't get their heads around where they are up to in terms of the coal industry, neither in terms of thermal coal power nor in terms of opening new coal mines. It was absolutely painful to watch. On this side, our policy was articulated by no better person than the Prime Minister when he said before the National Press Club:

Our action though, is a balanced and responsible emissions reduction plan to reduce emissions by 26 per cent through to 2030.

These are the three cornerstone pledges that were made and this is what the Prime Minister said. We will do this consistent with the commitment we gave to the Australian people: (1) without a carbon tax that will slow our economy; (2) without driving up electricity prices; (3) without leaving behind Australians so often ignored, so often left out, particularly in regional areas, including in my state of Queensland. Whilst I'm ever in this Senate, whilst I'm standing in this chamber, I will always fight for Queensland jobs and I'll fight to make sure those jobs are not sacrificed on the altar of extreme Green ideology.