Christine Milne (Tasmania, Australian Greens) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I move:

That the Senate take note of the document.

I rise tonight particularly to note that, although the Office of the Renewable Energy Regulator is a statutory authority and supposedly has some degree of independence, I am really disappointed with its annual report of 2005-06. It is reporting on significant issues and developments with regard to the whole process of the mandatory renewable energy target, and it really ducks the truth about what occurred. It says:

The report of the Tambling committee, appointed to conduct the review of the MRET (as required under section 162 of the Renewable Energy (Electricity) Act 2000) reported in January 2004. The review confirmed support for the continuation of the scheme, and also recommended a number of changes to the administrative and policy settings supporting the target.

It then goes on to say that the new act implements the changes and so on. What it does not say is that it failed to adopt the main recommendation of the Tambling report. So anyone reading this annual report who does not know what Tambling said finds in here a reference to the Tambling committee that implies that the recommendations of Tambling were somehow accommodated when Tambling said that MRET targets should continue to increase beyond 2010 at a rate equal to the rate before 2010 and to stabilise at 20,000 gigawatt hours in 2020—in other words, to increase the target and extend the period of time. There is no reference to that here.

In looking at this whole issue of renewable energy and significant issues and developments, the annual report fails to point out that, as a result of the refusal of the government to extend the target, we are going to have a situation where, by 2020, renewable energy will make up a mere 8.5 per cent of energy generated from renewables because there has been no extension of the target. I am really disappointed that this statutory authority has failed to report accurately on what the Tambling report actually said in its review of MRET. It just implies that everything is going along normally and does not indicate to anyone reading this that the failure to extend the target means that we are going backwards on renewable energy, and I find that really disconcerting.

Also, it talks about the installation rate of solar water heaters but fails to say that the government is phasing out support for solar water heating because it is phasing out the rebate. No mention of that in this report either—just a statement saying:

The installation rate of solar water heaters ... continues to rise, increasing the volume of RECs related to this particular energy source.

So I find it unacceptable that you can get a report from a statutory authority, the whole purpose of which is to oversee the Mandatory Renewable Energy Target Scheme, and it does not actually talk about what it means when the government fails to implement the main finding of the independent review.

I am glad Minister Campbell is in here, because I would like him to respond to that and to explain whether his office, or he personally, had anything to do with the fact that this report does not accurately reflect what the Tambling report said in its assessment of the MRET and in fact does not accurately reflect those recommendations. We know that, because of the government’s failure to extend MRET, Vestas has gone overseas; Roaring 40s has gone—they have gone to China because of the failure to increase the MRET; and Origin Energy and their sliver cells are going—they require $100 million in order to commercialise; they have their pilot plant in Adelaide and they are going.

We have China with a 15 per cent renewable energy target, India with a 20 per cent target, the UK with a 10 per cent target—and Australia with its measly two per cent, which has already been achieved in this country. And we cannot even set anything as ambitious as those other countries have done. Australia must increase its mandatory renewable energy target, and the minister should explain to this House why the report of the regulator does not in fact point out that we are going backwards rather than forwards as a result of the government’s failure to implement this main recommendation of the Tambling report. We have a situation where the renewable energy sector is unanimously calling for an increase in the target—(Time expired)

Ian Campbell (WA, Liberal Party, Minister for the Environment and Heritage) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise to speak on the same report. I think it is a very useful opportunity to address some of the myths that the Greens’ Senator Milne has just sought to put onto the record. It would of course, as you would know, Mr Acting Deputy President Forshaw, be absolutely outside the remit of an independent statutory authority to make in its report a comment about a matter of government policy—a policy decision taken by the government. That would be absolutely outrageous for a statutory authority.

This is a statutory authority established by the Commonwealth when we established one of the very first mandatory renewable energy targets and, therefore, renewable energy schemes, on the planet. It was way ahead of its time, and it sought to create a domestic renewables industry in Australia. It is a program that has given substantial support to the wind energy sector. It has seen a massive increase in the number of wind turbines in Australia, from roughly 20 prior to the election of the Howard government to now where we are on track to get close to 700; they are either under construction or planned or approved to be built.

The Roaring 40s company that Senator Milne talks about is a very successful Australian company which is, yes, exporting to and working in China. In fact, this time next week I will be up there with the Managing Director of Roaring 40s and, at his invitation, will be opening up a wind farm in China that was created through a joint venture with a Chinese company.

The problem of greenhouse gas emissions, the problem of climate change, is the mother of all global problems. People talk about ‘Think global, act local’. There are a whole range of environmental issues which you can talk about as being global—obviously, ocean type issues and water quality type issues can be quasi-global. But when it comes to greenhouse gases and climate change, a tonne of carbon saved in Australia or a tonne of carbon saved in China has an absolutely identical benefit for the environment. And, quite frankly, this government is very keen to see more companies like Roaring 40s build up their intellectual property, build up their capacity and export those to every other country in the world. That is what we want to see. That was one of the fundamental underpinnings of the renewable energy policies of this government, MRET being one of them.

But Senator Milne, because it suits her, ignores all of the other renewables programs this government has put in place—$600 million worth of investment in the renewables sector and the nearly 70 R&D projects on solar energy that we tabled in the parliament this week. Take the photovoltaic rebate scheme—it was given an acronym which no-one ever knows, but I call it the solar homes program. We are on track to roll out 12,000 solar cells on the rooftops of schools and homes across Australia—again, Australian leadership in solar energy.

Take this myth about Origin Energy and sliver cells—which is Australian technology. We have just given Origin a $6 million grant, under the renewable development energy initiative I think it is called, and we had this myth spun around by the left wing and the Greens that Origin were not going to develop it. I went to the head of Origin Energy that very evening. I met him and I said, ‘Grant, we’re being told this by the Left and by the Greens and the people who like to talk Australia down all the time on climate change.’ We are one of the few countries in the world which will meet its committed Kyoto target, or we are on track to meet it at the moment—we will struggle to meet it, but we are one of the few who will even get close and I am determined to make sure we get there. We are one of about five countries in the world who might get there. And yet this mob over here, Senator Milne’s mob, want to talk us down. You have got thousands of businesses across Australia, leadership in the Australian government, leadership in state governments, and this mob over here want to talk us down all the time, to talk Australia down, when we are doing so much and achieving so much. And Grant King from Origin Energy said, ‘No, we are very happy with the Commonwealth’s support.’ I asked: ‘Do you need any more money? We’ve given you $6 million—are we short? Is there something else you need?’ He said, ‘No, we are absolutely delighted by the support of the Australian government—absolutely delighted, and we are very excited about sliver cell technology development.’ But once again you have the Greens hiding the truth, spreading myths about our climate change policies and not giving credit where it is due to the thousands of Australians who have saved, between them, 85 megatonnes of carbon because of our policies. We know we have to do more and we will, but not with the Greens’ help. (Time expired)

Question agreed to.