Jacqui Lambie (Tasmania, Jacqui Lambie Network) Share this | Hansard source

Did anybody watch the story at the end of the 7.30 Report last night? It was an absolute beauty. Watching this report, I learned that over the last 20 years our biggest infrastructure projects have blown out, and it has cost Australian taxpayers $34 billion. A professor from Oxford University in England, who was on the show, said, 'The main problem is that we don’t think these projects through.' No, we don't think them through. Why? Because politicians in government, especially during election campaigns, want to announce something—anything, really; whatever gets votes—and usually they want to announce something that they call 'nation building'. So, without scoping these projects out properly and doing a thorough business case, they call a press conference, line up their supporters and lock us all in.

We have a classic example of that in Tasmania. It's called Marinus—also known as the battery of the nation. The idea is that Tasmania is the battery. Tasmanians first started to hear about Marinus back in 2020, but it has been worked on since 2016. The idea is that we build a big power cable between Tassie and Victoria so that when the mainland is producing too much renewable power we buy it back at a cheap rate. Then, when their sun isn't shining and their wind isn't blowing, we sell them our renewable hydropower at a higher rate. Win, win, right? You'd would think so, for Tassie. Great.

When Tasmanians first heard about this in 2020, we were told that the project would create 1,400 jobs and that it would take about four years to build. Just a reminder, that was now three years ago. It isn't built. As a matter of fact, it hasn't even got near the starter blocks. Besides the jobs, Tasmanians were told that the Marinus Link would lower power bills and give our Tassie businesses the renewable power they needed to grow. At the time, Prime Minister Scott Morrison, said '… the technical and economic feasibility is very, very sound.' The only business case Tasmanians saw was the one produced by Hydro Tasmania, which, along with the state Liberal government, was a proponent of Marinus. That's a bit like saying: 'It's my idea and it's a great idea, and here's the business case I wrote saying that it was a great idea, because it is.'

In 2020, Tasmanians were told Marinus would cost $3.8 billion. The Tasmanians and the Victorians signed up to contribute 20 per cent of the equity. The remaining 80 per cent was going to be a concessional loan—a loan—from the Commonwealth government's Rewiring the Nation plan. You know what, Tasmanians? Loans have to be paid back. I remember being briefed by Hydro Tasmania back in late 2020, and I thought it sounded like a great idea, too. I was absolutely behind it. I thought: 'This is fab. More jobs for communities in the north-west, more clean energy for our manufacturers and more money coming back into the Tasmanian budget.' Hydro—the goose that laid Tasmania's golden egg!

But it seems that Marinus is just another example of politicians getting overexcited without doing their homework. A respected energy analyst told my office yesterday that if Marinus was up and running now then maybe, just maybe, it would be making some money—maybe for a short period of time, anyway. He also made it clear that it was never going to lower power bills for businesses and everyday Tasmanians.

Communities were told that for Marinus to work, a wind farm proposed for Robbins Island in the north-west would have to go ahead. That was rubbish. Most of the locals had already told me they didn't want it. They were worried about farmland being ripped up for the cables and about a bridge that would ruin a squid fishery.

The lead cheer squads for Marinus has always been Hydro Tasmania and the proponents of the wind farms. Both stood to make a lot of cash out of a power cable connected to the mainland. But slowly and surely the cracks have started to appear, and by goodness are those cracks getting larger by the day. Tasmanians started asking questions about the impact on their communities, and they questioned what they'd been told and if it really would mean that their power bills would go down. Absolutely not, they will not. Meanwhile, the technology on batteries was going like the clappers and batteries were getting cheaper and stronger. The Tasmanian Liberals pointed to a Californian report to spruik Marinus—I don't know how you can compare California with Tasmania, but let's run with it—except that the report said that solar, wind farms and battery storage were more economical than hydro.

Victoria is very busy, and already miles ahead of Tasmania, ramping up their builds on new solar and wind farms. As for Tasmania, it hasn't even made it to the starting blocks. It's still putting its sandshoes on. Late last year, I started hearing whispers that Victoria didn't think they would actually need Marinus.

The original projected cost of Marinus in 2020 was $3.8 billion. Nearly three years later, the conservative estimates are that it will cost $5.5 billion. I gather, by the time we get to the starter blocks it will be about $7 billion and by the time we get it built we'll be looking at $10 billion. Then there is the problem of getting our hands on the undersea cables, because we haven't ordered them. We didn't order them years ago. This is bloody hilarious. They're expensive and the whole world wants them, so, guess what? We're down the pecking order, right down here. My goodness.

The Liberal state government and federal Labor government pressed on—as they would—with Minister Chris Bowen announcing on 19 October 2022 that the Albanese government would 'fast-track' Marinus, telling the media:

After more than six years of the federal Coalition dragging their feet on Marinus Link, the Albanese Government is thrilled to take this critical step with Tasmania after just six months.

Today's announcement shows what can happen when you have the states and the Commonwealth working together on energy policy focused on people not politics.

This deal promised extra money to Tasmania to upgrade one of our power stations and to put in some new powerlines. Meanwhile, in Victoria, Premier Dan Andrews was headed into an election and no doubt got some other federal election goodies for Victoria in exchange for signing on. Join the dots out there, people! These announcements are all about winning elections. Just eight days before this announcement, the federal energy minister, Chris Bowen, confirmed that Snowy 2.0 was way behind schedule and possibly as much as $2 billion over budget. Oh dear! The latest predictions are that it will double from its original cost of $5.9 billion to around $10 billion.

In 2017, Malcolm Turnbull announced Snowy 2.0 as—you guessed it!—a 'nation-building project'. Utopia, anyone? Maybe we need Snowy 2.0, but I am not sure we now need Marinus. We've been too slow. What I am sure about is that it won't lower the power bills of everyday Tasmanians. When the Tasmanian government announced Marinus in 2020, Tasmanian environmentalists, farmers and fishermen weren't happy. The environmentalists were worried about the 20 critically endangered birds that visit the wetland every year, and Tasmanian Aboriginal people were worried about the cultural heritage on the island. The farmers were worried about powerlines ripping through their prime agricultural land, and the fishermen were worried about the impact of the bridge on Robbins Passage. The state government ignored them, branding them all the 'anti-everything brigade'. Why did they ignore them? I reckon they thought there were no votes to be worried about there. They might have been wrong about that!

In 2022, Dr Bruce Mountain, from the Victorian Energy Policy Centre, upgraded the report on Marinus saying it would be cheaper to build big battery storage projects on the mainland now. Dr Mountain said his analysis showed that the Marinus Link would struggle to compete with the growing number of big battery projects that are already being built in Victoria. In the years since his report, Dr Mountain says the costs of batteries have gone down while the cost of pumped hydro has gone up and 'the economics of Marinus don't stack up; it never did.'

In early 2022, before the federal election and before the current government was elected, the fishermen and environmentalists were joined by big business criticising the project. Instead of building a cable to the mainland, these big businesses told the Tasmanian state government they should be building wind and solar farms for industry, not for the mainland. These companies, including Rio, told the state government that the then premier, Peter Gutwein, could create more jobs by channelling the state's renewable power growth plans into zero emissions manufacturing—and, by God, I reckon they're right.

In May 2023, there went the hammer blow! Two of the state's Liberal MPs resigned, citing a lack of transparency around the AFL stadium and the Marinus Link. On the stadium, does the government seriously think the AFL stadium will cost only $750 million. Are you dreaming, you guys? Once again, we haven't even got to the starter box. It will cost at least a billion dollars, and I'm saying that today. God knows what it will be in six months time.

But back to Marinus: one of the MPs that resigned, John Tucker, said he had 'serious concerns around the transparency around the Marinus deal'.

The crux of the matter is that Tasmanians are being asked to foot one-third of the bill to help mainland status with their energy problems.

So, last Friday, the Liberal government changed their tune. They knew I was on their tail, and they signalled their willingness to walk away from the Marinus Link because of the rising costs making it too costly to bear—anything to get out of the deal—citing a 'material and significant cost increase'. Premier Jeremy Rockliff said that, despite the merits of the Marinus and his commitment to what was a 'nation-building project':

The right price does not mean any price, and from day one we have said that the cost-benefits of this project must stack up in favour of Tasmanians.

The two Liberal MPs who quit the party said they welcomed this U-turn. But I'll tell you what, Mr Rockliff: you really need to have a good look at this, and I don't think Tasmanians are on your side.