Slade Brockman (WA, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

I too rise to support this motion moved by Senator Colbeck. I was tempted to stand up and just say that I associate myself with the remarks of Senator Fawcett, because his contribution really summarised where I was going to go as well. I won't delay the chamber any longer than necessary, but I do want to make a couple of remarks backing up, in particular, the line of argument Senator Fawcett put forward.

I'll use a case in point from my own home state of Western Australia, where recently a wind farm project—I'm not sure if you'd describe it as a significant wind farm project—was green-lit even though the cost of that project went from $300 million to $500 million in less than two years. With all due respect to the CSIRO, how are the kinds of inflationary impacts we are currently seeing and the kinds of cost-of-borrowing impacts that we have seen over the period of this Labor government in terms of interest rate increases being factored into their calculations? Capital costs, particularly on these speculative renewable projects, are very significant. When the capital cost of a project goes from $300 million to $500 million in less than two years whilst being green-lit for development, the impact of that on the per-unit generation cost must be extraordinary. How are these things being accounted for? How are the poles and wires being accounted for? How is the storage capacity that is needed in firming up renewables or the additional capacity in things like rapid-on rapid-off gas turbines being factored into this calculation? These are econometric questions. They're questions of how the models are put together.

It is not good enough to say, 'Here is a source of truth, and we are just going to blindly listen to it.' Our role in this place, as Senator Fawcett so eloquently outlined, is to test the assumptions. There's that old expression: junk in, junk out. We have the right in this place to test the assumptions to make sure that the modelling and the estimates of cost that are being put forward are fully inclusive of all the variables that should be considered, including the very important things like how much the poles and wires, the transmission infrastructure, are going to cost and where they are going to go.

That brings me to my second point, and that is the blocking of committee inquiries purely on the grounds of ideology. No-one can argue that this reference from Senator Colbeck is not something that this place should be able to inquire into and should have, in fact, a responsibility to inquire into. But there is now a pattern forming. The ideological imperatives of those on the other side, in alliance with the Greens, are leading them to block inquiries that are perfectly legitimate. We've seen it 10 times in the poles and wires inquiry. Senator Colbeck and Senator Cadell have tried, on at least 10 occasions in this place, to try and get support for that inquiry across the chamber. It's a perfectly reasonable inquiry. It's not just reasonable. I would say that it's something that this chamber, if it's doing its job properly through the committee system, is actually honour bound to investigate. Anyone who thinks for one minute that communities being impacted by these significant rollouts of things like wind farms and the associated transmission lines do not deserve to have their voices heard, fundamentally, doesn't believe in democracy. That is what this place and its committee system is for.

We saw last night—in my opinion, shamefully—the banning of live exports of sheep from Western Australia. Again, Labor and the Greens combined on ideological grounds to block the perfectly reasonable request from those communities across my home state of Western Australia to have an inquiry into a policy that is going to decimate their livelihoods and decimate an entire industry. We saw it with Senator Colbeck and Senator Cadell's poles and wires inquiry and now—well, I could be proven wrong. Perhaps Labor and the Greens will have a 'road to Damascus' moment. They'll sleep on it tonight. I believe we are not able to have further divisions this evening, but maybe tomorrow, they'll wake up and say, 'Yes, actually, it's the job of the Senate to inquire into the difficult issues where there are multiple points of view competing as to what the correct outcome should be.' But I fear this will be yet another inquiry that Labor and the Greens will block for purely ideological reasons. I think that is a great shame. I, for one, and, I know, my colleagues will keep calling out the Labor-Greens alliance, which is too frightened to have the committee system look into some of its ideological pet projects. I seek leave to continue my remarks later.

Leave granted; debate adjourned.