Stephen Parry (Tasmania, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I inform the Senate that, at 8.30 am today, Senators Fifield and Siewert each submitted a letter in accordance with standing order 75, proposing a matter of public importance. The question of which proposal would be submitted to the Senate was determined by lot. As a result, I call on the matter proposed by Senator Siewert, namely:

Cutting the budget of the Australian Renewable Energy Agency by $100m slows down Australia’s transition to a low carbon economy and ignores the evidence provided by the Australian Energy Market Operator showing that achieving 100% renewable energy is technically straightforward and increases in electricity prices would be similar to business as usual projections.

Is the proposal supported?

More than the number of senators required by the standing orders having risen in their places—

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

First, the bad news: last week climate scientists reported that for the first time atmospheric carbon dioxide concentration figures exceeded 400 parts per million. It is estimated that the last time CO2 levels were so high was during the Pliocene geological era between three and five million years ago, prior to the evolution of humans. Climatologists estimate that the last time CO2 concentration levels were this high, global average temperatures were around three to four degrees Celsius higher than today, and sea levels ranged between five and 40 metres higher. Concentrations of CO2 are the same now. They are increasing rapidly and world leaders are still procrastinating about future climate treaties, when we are supposed to have negotiated a global treaty by no later than 2015.

At the same time, we have coal ports and a massive surge in coal exports and exploration of coal seam gas. That is why we are in a climate emergency right now—and we are in a climate emergency. In the real world—the physical world that we live in, the world of ice, of oceans, of atmosphere and of ecosystems—we are in crisis. We are in an emergency and it is a critical decade. If we do not reduce CO2 levels rapidly then we are leaving to our children and their children, to all future generations, a planet which is increasingly unliveable. Lord Stern said just this week that there will be continent-wide collapses in agriculture, with millions being forced to leave their homes and seek refuge in other places. That is the kind of world that we are facing unless we get on with acting on climate change. Unfortunately, when the 400 parts per million record ticked over it did not receive the same kinds of headlines that it should have got around the world and particularly here in Australia. I suggest that is because people simply do not want to know—their heads are not in the real world; their heads are in the world of the profits being generated by the coal companies, by the resource based economy, and they do not want to see an alternative future.

It is in this context of the obvious need to get on with building a 100 per cent renewable energy future that I want to talk about the absurdity of cutting funding to the Australian Renewable Energy Agency. After the last election the Greens insisted upon the creation of the Multi-Party Climate Change Committee to negotiate a range of measures to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. Within the MPCCC we argued that more money was required to support renewable energy research and development as well as commercialisation, and that the allocation of funds should be depoliticised. ARENA was established as an independent statutory authority because this government, and in particular the previous energy minister, Martin Ferguson, were unable to effectively administer many renewable energy programs. He was a coal and gas man through and through, and we saw a constant raiding of the funds available for renewable energy.

A classic example is the Solar Flagships program. What a fiasco that was. It started in 2009 with $1.5 billion, and Labor will go to the 2013 election with not a single panel or heliostat installed, despite more than 50 projects worth some $80 billion jostling for a bite of the action. It beggars belief that just a single project, a 150-megawatt solar PV facility at Broken Hill and Nyngan, will eventually be built with flagships funding. It is a shame, a disgrace, that that has been allowed to occur. The main failure of the scheme was that it insisted upon very large projects, and these projects could not negotiate power purchase agreements. It should be remembered that the industry warned the government about these problems at the outset. I am confident that ARENA, together with the Clean Energy Finance Corporation, with whom it will collaborate closely, has absorbed those lessons.

The Greens have set up two statutory authorities, starting from the earliest research and development through to the pilot stage, which is the ARENA funding, and then an overlap on the pilot stage and out to delivering and leveraging private sector finance through the Clean Energy Finance Corporation. These were meant to be independent statutory authorities beyond the ability of the fingers of governments to raid them, because these are the technologies we need for the future. It has now been reported that around $100 million, it could even be $200 million, will be cut from the ARENA budget tonight.

There is also the view that the government is out there saying that these carbon-pricing schemes were designed to be revenue neutral—that is, receipts from the sale of permits should equal expenditure on assistance measures and industry development. This makes absolutely no economic sense. Why should expenditure on climate related programs be revenue neutral? Should we not be making the building blocks of the future, the race to 100 per cent renewable energy, a priority in this nation? If we are going for a society which is low economy, new jobs and new innovation with a sustainable planet and life and wellbeing for the people on it, then the race is on and it makes no sense to cut these programs.

We have a situation where, in this climate emergency, we will not be able to contribute equitably to the global challenge of limiting global warming to two degrees unless we get on with it. Australia's carbon budget is going to be tight as we proceed, and we will ultimately require complete decarbonisation of the electricity sector. That is why it is important to get on with it now, as it is apparent that renewable energy is reliable, and not more expensive than the status quo, and we should seek to capture the benefits of long-term transition planning and driving down costs with well-focused R&D. That is what ARENA's job was to do, and I can inform the Senate that the Greens will not be supporting legislation that cuts funding to ARENA. It will have to come through as separate legislation. We set it up in such a way that that would be the case. We will not be supporting legislation and we challenge the coalition to not support it either and, if the coalition goes into government, to not go ahead with those cuts.

AEMO recently reported on how we can achieve 100 per cent renewable energy. That report is special because for years it has been argued that we could not go ahead with 100 per cent renewable energy. We listened endlessly to people in here saying we could not have 100 per cent renewable energy. AEMO undertook the study as a result of the work we had done in the climate change committee, and they have come up with this finding that 100 per cent renewable energy is possible and now it is just a question of cost. The AEMO report estimated that there was the potential for increases in wholesale electricity prices, but the problem is that AEMO did not look at a business-as-usual increase in electricity prices as a comparison. For the life of me I cannot understand why they refused to model business as usual as opposed to the cost of going to 100 per cent renewables. We can only assume that AEMO's bias is against renewables—but no matter.

Other assessments have also projected that we can get to 100 per cent renewable energy right now. That is exactly what we should be doing. The carbon price modelling commissioned by Treasury, particularly that which assumes that the world will adopt policies to achieve the agreed objective of limiting global warming to two degrees, and the current CSIRO eFuture modelling both project wholesale electricity prices that are similar to the AEMO study. Of course it is important to remember that wholesale prices are a relatively small component of retail prices.

The point I want to make very strongly today is that we can be getting on with it; we can deliver 100 per cent renewable energy. It is technically feasible to do so; it is just a matter of political will, of timing, of the amount of money we put into it. Now is not the time to be cutting and slowing down our move to 100 per cent renewables. I had the good fortune, with my colleague Senator Ludlam, to be in Spain last year when we went to the Gemma solar plant—a large solar thermal plant with molten salt in storage—and we stood in what Australia still thinks of as the future, but it is the present in Spain. Other places are doing it. We should have large-scale solar thermal in Australia. I want to see ARENA and the Clean Energy Finance Corporation delivering for Australia, and I want to see AEMO getting on with the job of driving and working with the community and with business to achieve 100 per cent renewable energy. (Time expired)

Lisa Singh (Tasmania, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I also rise to speak on this MPI, joining with Senator Milne—both of us coming from the state of Tasmania as senators—in recognising that Tasmania is the state with a very high amount of renewable energy, something that we both I am sure are proud of. And, in some way, one day Tasmania may be the first state to be 100 per cent renewable, one would hope. I speak on this MPI, first and foremost to highlight the fact that of course the government will not—and it has been said many times by the Treasurer—be providing a running commentary on speculation about possible budget measures. Suffice to say, obviously the budget will be handed down tonight at 7.30 by the Treasurer and then we will be made aware of its full detail.

Having said that, I would like to say the Labor government very much remains committed to ARENA and its important role of improving the competitiveness of renewable energy technologies in Australia. ARENA plays a vital role in doing that, and that is why the minister bought forward legislation to ensure we have an ARENA that can do that role. In doing so, the government has a very proud record of helping develop renewable energy in this country. In fact, when Labor returned to office in 2007, solar PV was a niche industry and our emissions were growing strongly each year. Last month, the government reached the milestone of supporting over one million rooftop solar panels with a total capacity of 2,500 megawatts. Around 2.5 million Australians live under rooftops with solar power. Again, in 2007, around 20,000 megawatt hours were produced each year by household solar. Now it is around 3.3 million megawatt hours—the equivalent of taking around a million cars off the road. Again, in 2007, there was around 1,140 megawatts of wind farm capacity across the country. Now, wind farms with capacity totalling 3,000 megawatts are registered under the Renewable Energy Target, and many more projects are being developed. Again, I refer to some of those in Tasmania, one recently coming on board being Musselroe Wind Farm.

Labor's response to the Climate Change Authority's Renewable Energy Target review makes it clear that we are committed very much to the 41,000 gigawatt hour large-scale target, and we welcome the fact that, with lower demand, renewable energy is now likely to exceed the 20 per cent target by 2020. The rise of household solar and wind generation is now part of a broader transformation of Australia's electricity market with both the carbon price and Renewable Energy Target playing a key role. After the first nine months of the carbon price in operation, emissions in the National Electricity Market are down by 7.7 per cent, or 10 million tonnes. Generation from seven of the most highly polluting power stations is down by 16 per cent and renewable energy output is up by almost 30 per cent. That shows very much how carbon pricing is having an effect on our emissions output.

To maximise our potential for large-scale renewables and Australian innovation the Clean Energy Finance Corporation, ARENA and Clean Technology Innovation Program are very important measures to complement both the carbon price and the Renewable Energy Target. ARENA is already administering $1 billion allocated to assisting operations like this CS Energy's Kogan Creek solar boost project. This will be the world's largest solar project to be integrated with a coal fired power station and will provide 44,000 megawatt hours of zero emission electricity a year. ARENA is also supporting AGL Energy MPV manufacturer First Solar to build a project in western New South Wales that will generate enough electricity to power 30,000 homes.

I did note that Senator Milne referred to the AEMO report. I understand it is only a draft report at this stage. We will need to wait until the end of this month for the government to consider the AEMO final report, but the draft model does paint a couple of scenarios and estimates costs for 2030 and 2050. It may not have looked at costs of shifting to 100 per cent renewable energy, but whatever the detail of that report we should wait until it is handed down in full. I understand it is only in a draft phase.

I would again like to point out the importance of ARENA. It has been playing a key role in ensuring that we do meet our renewable energy targets, that we go beyond those targets. I am very supportive of Australia becoming a renewable energy country and being a leader in that sense for our neighbours, who are looking at us and looking at the work we are doing in leading the Asian region when it comes to reducing our emissions. We know that some of those developing nations have some way to go. But we also know that some of the more economically advanced parts of our Asian region, such as China and India, are working very hard to ensure that they reduce their emissions just as we are doing. That, of course, is where ARENA brings together a range of renewable energy initiatives that need to be taken into account.

I would like to point out the fact that we do have an alternative here, an alternative that hopefully will not become a reality post-September 14 this year. That is of course the coalition's plan for reducing emissions. I understand the coalition is committed to reaching the same emissions reduction target. However, the means and ways by which they have decided to go about doing this is certainly going to be hitting taxpayers in this country in a very hard way. The coalition's plan, as we know, will be funded entirely on-budget as opposed to the carbon price, which we have in place which is paid by the biggest polluters. The coalition claim its policy would cost $10.5 billion over 10 years, but we know that the real cost of the coalition's policy is at least $48 billion by 2020.

In fact, Treasury analysis released last year shows that the economic costs of the coalition's plan would be higher for two reasons:

First, direct domestic action would forego opportunities for cheaper, internationally sourced abatement. Second, direct action programs are generally less effective at driving take up of all potential abatement opportunities.

On top of that, the independent Grattan Institute has estimated that there is a $100 billion black hole in the opposition's costings due to the impact of their direct action plan. Without a carbon price or ETS in the federal budget, $100 billion is a third of the entire federal government budget. That is coming from the Grattan Institute. We know exactly where that $100 billion black hole will be funded from—it will be borne by taxpayers. Let us make no mistake: we have an opposition who says they are committed to reducing emissions, but the ways and means that they are going to use to go about doing this is going to be hurting every single taxpayer in this country.

We already have in place a scheme, which will soon be a trading scheme, that is already working well and already reducing emissions. I have just provided to you the figures on that. But because the coalition's plan is entirely on budget, taxpayers' funds will be used to pay polluters to lower their pollution. Not only is that going to hurt taxpayers; it is also going to absurdly have taxpayers giving money to polluters to reduce their pollution. It is the polluters that are doing something wrong to our environment, not the taxpayers. And yet the coalition will make taxpayers pay for the wrongdoings of polluters, who therefore will have no impetus at all to change their behaviour. They do have that impetus under the carbon pricing scheme that the Labor government has put in place. The differences are clear there. That is something for taxpayers to consider when they are thinking about government policy to reduce emissions after September. I know which one I would prefer; I know which one my family would prefer. In fact, I cannot imagine any taxpayer in the country wanting the coalition's direct action plan. (Time expired)

Simon Birmingham (SA, Liberal Party, Shadow Parliamentary Secretary for the Murray Darling Basin) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I thank the Greens for the opportunity to speak to this matter of public importance and note the fact that in doing so the Greens have highlighted another Labor broken promise. I am pleased that the Greens have done so. There are a number of ways in which they and their priorities have been the victims of these broken promises.

That, perhaps, is why the level of coordination and communication that used to exist between the marriage partners of the Greens and the Labor Party seems to have broken down a little bit. They obviously cannot manage to get their lines straight anymore. Senator Singh was just waxing lyrical about reductions in emissions that may have occurred and yet prior to her Senator Milne was waxing equally lyrical about how the latest global data indicates record level of emissions and emissions growth. Senator Milne is right: the challenge of climate change remains one of how you get a global solution; how you get global action; how you get emissions down from those who are far bigger emitters than Australia. Far too much of the debate in this place and far too much of the sidelining seems to be about this belief that Australia going it alone can make all the difference when the reality is that we need the action of the major emitters to make a real difference in this regard. From her rhetoric, Senator Singh seems to believe this. And this is true of Labor's and even the Greens' rhetoric.

We got this little lecture at the end about the biggest polluters—those evil and terrible biggest polluters. The carbon tax is paid by the biggest polluters, Senator Singh was telling the Senate. The carbon tax is paid by voters, because voters are consumers, just like tax is paid generally by voters. In the end, the carbon tax is passed through the economy, passed through the goods and services, into all manner of prices—and in particular, of course, the price of electricity, which has spiked directly because of the carbon tax by around 10 per cent nationwide. That is the impact that is hurting small businesses and consumers around the country and contributing very much to the tight margins that many businesses are facing.

Senator Singh went on from wrongly stating who is paying the price of Labor's carbon tax to talking about the fact that these are the polluters who are doing wrong. Let us make sure that these evil and terrible polluters are named and shamed! Should we try to reduce carbon emissions? Absolutely. But let us understand that the companies we are talking about here are in many instances companies that employ thousands and thousands of Australians. They generate jobs for many Australians. Entire towns and communities have been built upon these companies. They are making products, in many cases, that are essential to our public and private infrastructure needs. These are not evil wrongdoers; these are companies undertaking valuable economic activities. We should be seeking, of course, to reduce their emissions; but we should not be demonising them as the government—and Senator Singh in particular—seem hell-bent on doing. We should not be running around describing these companies with such pejorative language as 'evil big polluters' when the truth is that these are companies that overwhelmingly are simply doing their bit to try to employ Australians and grow our economy, and paying a whole world of Labor's new and increased taxes along the way.

It may come as a surprise, because the Greens had enough faith to sit down and do a handshake agreement or indeed sign a piece of paper with the Prime Minister, Julia Gillard, that the Greens have been dudded in relation to the deal they stitched up on the carbon tax. They have been dudded $100 million in today's budget. But it should not really come as a surprise, because it is one of so may broken promises—and, of course, the Greens have been dudded by the government before. It should not be a surprise, because tonight we will see a world of broken promises in the budget. We will see the biggest of all: the broken promise that relates to the delivery of a surplus this year, a promise that had been made on some 500 or 600 occasions by Ms Gillard and Mr Swan, let alone countless times by all the other members of the government. Just 12 months ago this was the surplus that was going to deliver; this was the start of a whole wave of surpluses. Now what we know is that, under this government, we are simply in the middle of a decade of debt.

There are other broken promises in this budget alone that also relate to the Greens' carbon tax deal: the promise of further tax cuts in 2015, the promise of an increase in the tax-free threshold that was due to occur—that was part of the Greens' deal with the Labor Party for the carbon tax, and that is another promise that will be broken in tonight's budget. So, even the carbon tax compensation to consumers and households is not sacred under this government. That compensation that consumers and households were promised they would get in return for having to pay the increased costs of living that come with a carbon tax is now starting to be stripped away. That is not the only part of assistance to households that is going to be stripped away in this budget. The so-called mining-tax-funded changes to FTB A are equally being stripped away tonight.

But there are other areas of the Greens' carbon tax package that we have started to see the government unwind. We have had a hit to families and to households with the 2015 tax cuts being abolished, and we have this $100 million cut to the Australian Renewable Energy Agency. Equally, once upon a time in the life of this carbon tax was the $2 billion Contract for Closure Program, which was going to provide funds and incentives to support the early closure of, in particular, brown coal fired power stations. Ultimately, the government scrapped that program and returned the funds to consolidated revenue. It has not helped their budget bottom line, I must note, as an aside; nonetheless, the government abandoned another commitment of what it would do out of the carbon tax.

And it is hardly surprising, because it is a long and sorry list of broken promises and bungles and mistakes that this government has racked up across the environment and climate change portfolios. It is little wonder the Greens decided to tear up their agreement with the government. It is just a shame that the Greens continue to prop up the government in every way possible—in the types of things that we have discussed many times in this chamber before, like the Home Insulation Program and the Green Loans Program, programs that were bungled by this government, programs that cost billions, inconvenienced thousands and caused severe hardship to many.

We have seen other programs come and go under this government. Indeed, just at the last election we saw commitments to things like the Citizens Assembly, or the Cash for Clunkers—Labor Party policies—

Senator Lundy interjecting—

That's right, Senator Lundy: Labor Party policies you took and ran under the last election and then promptly forgot about and tore up and abandoned straight afterwards in favour of imposing a carbon tax instead.

So we have seen dramatic change from this government of always doing, it seems, the opposite of that which it promised to do previously. I stand in this chamber not at all surprised by the fact that the government has broken another promise—that it has stepped away from another part of their carbon tax package. Of course, it is not making any changes to the tax itself. I note, though, that tonight when the budget is handed down the tax looks destined still to have unbelievable rates attached to it once it reaches its floating period. Once the carbon tax is floated I expect, based on all reports, that the government's budget will still be estimating far greater revenue receipts than it is likely to receive, despite the fact that it will be writing down billions of dollars in revenue in the budget tonight for those forward years.

The Greens can come into this place and complain if they like about the fact that the government has dudded them, but this is a government that has dudded so many others, broken so many other promises and has such a track record of breaking its promises that, frankly, I have little sympathy for the Greens in this regard, and it should certainly come as no surprise to them.

Scott Ludlam (WA, Australian Greens) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

It is always interesting to follow Senator Birmingham on a speech about climate change. We are certainly not looking for your sympathy, Senator Birmingham. Although I know that you believe that climate change is a massive issue that we need to face up to, regrettably, Senator Birmingham, you boss does not. He thinks it is crap. That is quite a big part of the problem. The cross-party consensus is that pricing carbon and making polluting industries pay, thereby becoming more efficient and financing the next generation of energy infrastructure in this country, was the most efficient way to drive emissions reduction. It is not the only way to do it, but it is a pretty good place to get going. That consensus broke down. It broke down around the time that the defective CPRS was being debated by this parliament.

As for the government, the problem with the Labor Party is that you never know what you are going to get. It seems to depend on which faction has its hands on the steering wheel at any given time as to whether you get something like the Clean Energy Act, which is working and driving carbon emissions down in the electricity sector in Australia. That is the data. It is not coming from Greenpeace. It is coming from the people who collect energy and greenhouse gas statistics in Australia. Greenhouse gas emissions are going down, electricity use is falling and it is becoming more efficient. Also, renewable energy infrastructure is displacing coal. That is a fact. The scheme we set up is working. It was written with the Greens—with Senator Brown, Senator Milne and the member for Melbourne, Adam Bandt—with the Minister for Climate Change, Industry and Innovation, Greg Combet, and with the House Independents in the cross-party climate change committee that was proposed by Senator Milne after the last election. The outcome we got was not perfect, but it was better than nothing. It is certainly better than the defective CPRS, which was unmourned, from a few years before, in that it actually works. We knew that the CPRS would not. So I am very happy to give credit to the government for entering into that agreement and delivering a package that worked.

This is also, of course, the party that is trying to double fossil fuel exports, not just out of the east coast coal ports but also out of the gas industry in Western Australia. It appears that you can never really tell what you are going to get with the Labor Party. It seems to depend more on internal factional disputes as to what sort of public policy result is going to fall out, so we get the sort of outcomes we are seeing tonight, where it is believed something in the order of $100 million will be cut out of ARENA. These are good programs. They are programs that get renewable energy developers a leg up so that they can participate in the Clean Energy Finance Corporation process. So, you take the small scale investments, the loans, the grants, and the research and development funding that ARENA provides and that gets you into the main game of building large-scale renewable plants, where the CEFC has been established, with $10 billion worth of funding, to get large-scale projects over the line. And it is working. If it is given time, if it is allowed to continue to work and does not have a wrecking ball put through it by a proposed alternative government, led by an individual who does not even believe climate change is real, we in Australia will continue the transition to a clean energy future.

As Senator Milne said, on the basis of our visit to Spain last year we realised it was not the future that we were talking about; it was the present: it has been built. And a plant six times larger than the one we visited in December is under construction in Nevada at the moment, at much less cost per megawatt hour. These are plants we should be building in Australia. What we say to the Clean Energy Finance Corporation and what we say to the government is: look west, look to the goldfields of Western Australia, look to the inland Pilbara and look to the mid-west, to the east of Geraldton, where there is a whole community calling out for this, and a town—a regional city—that has developed its future plan for development based on zero-emissions electricity. Again, this is an initiative not led by the Greens—but supported, certainly, wholeheartedly by the Greens.

This is breaking out all over the place, in areas like Geraldton and Kalgoorlie in Western Australia. One of the things I did when I went to work as a staffer in a state Greens office in Western Australia in 2001 was write a letter in support of the Solar Cities bid by the city of Kalgoorlie-Boulder, whose mayor at the time was Ron Yuryevich. There are towns and regional centres right across Australia that are crying out for this kind of investment and this kind of technology, not just for the sorts of reasons we might expect but also, in terms of the mining industry, as a hedge against rising gas prices. We developed because Western Australia is not in the national electricity market and the Western Australian Independent Market Operator could not be compelled to do a 100 per cent renewable energy study for WA. We undertook to do it ourselves, because the state government is aggressively disinterested in understanding what kind of investment will be required to build out this sort of infrastructure in WA. So, we had consultants come in and assist us in developing scenarios for 100 per cent renewable energy for WA, and we call this Energy 2029.

I think it is tremendously important that AEMO—as Senator Milne has outlined, a pretty conservative entity that would not necessarily be prone to flights of fancy in its models around 100 per cent renewable energy—came to the conclusion that it is possible for Australia to run on renewable energy in its entirety. That is a big ask. The south-west of Western Australia is an island grid, not connected across the Nullarbor to the NEM. In collaboration with the body Sustainable Energy Now—engineers and people who have worked in the electricity—we are taken through the fast-moving world of renewable energy: the runaway uptake of rooftop PV, the astonishing solar fields of Andalucia and Nevada, and innovations in wind energy, wave energy, geothermal energy and bioenergy. The largest renewable energy generator in Western Australia at the present time is the Perth metropolitan area, because of the amount of rooftop PV that has gone in in Western Australia. These things are happening.

The policies we have put in place are not perfect. They need to stay stable, they need to not be pulled apart by people who have managed to convince themselves that there is nothing here to worry about. But they are working, and we are now driving the transition we have been seeking. The Energy 2029 study, like the AEMO report, found that the move to 100 per cent renewable energy is possible. And, if you take fuel costs out to 2029 into account, it is not that much more expensive than business as usual because once you have put the capital plant in you have eliminated your fuel costs. It is a completely different way of thinking about electricity generation. A crucial thing that our report found—which I think goes against some of the hysteria that is levelled at people promoting the next generation of installation of this sort of technology—is that a renewable future in fact provides at least three times as many jobs as the current number employed in coal, oil and gas in WA. There are two or three gas power stations in WA that have no staff at all. It is not necessarily a huge employer, and that is something we need to keep in mind. Again, these are based on very conservative government figures from BREE that show more than 22,000 net new jobs would be created just in WA through that transition out to the year 2029.

So this is something that the Australian Greens will be taking to the next election, and we will certainly be looking very closely at the budget when the Treasurer stands up tonight and delivers his speech. The question is whether we can take the government seriously—because we know we cannot take the opposition seriously—on renewable energy not just as an investment strategy for places like Western Australia, the Sunbelt, the inland Pilbara and the mid-west but also because climate change is real, because time is running out and because we are forcing our climate back to a place where it has not been for at least three million years. Whether Mr Abbott believes it or not is immaterial, because you cannot fool the atmosphere. The strategic leak that appear to have been made to the gallery—to soften the blow, as it were—is that there will be cuts to funding in this vital area of research and development into renewable energy, which would have ensured that we do not end up simply buying this stuff from overseas countries in 10 or 20 years time, when it is too late.

We can do this here. For all the acknowledgement right across the chamber of the crisis in the Australian manufacturing sector—and what has been done to it, partly by the high value of the dollar—we have some of these things right in front of us. We have some of the best research institutions in the world and some of the best researchers, who then go overseas to do this work. We have absolutely no excuse.

Senator Birmingham stands up and says things like, 'This is all about much larger emitters than us.' This is not just a crisis; it is also an opportunity. But it is not an opportunity that will be met by cutting the vital research and development funding that Australian renewable energy developers need to do the job that we urgently need them to do.

Doug Cameron (NSW, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I am a bit sick and tired of the lectures and pontificating from the Greens in relation to renewable energy, as if they were the only ones who cared about the climate. The position that they are putting up now is that they want the complete decarbonisation of the Australian economy. I am not sure over what period this complete decarbonisation will take place, but I know, from a Labor perspective, that we would like to see the economy decarbonised over a period of time. But it has to be done on the basis of taking into account the national interest and the interests of communities that are reliant on coal and coal fired power stations.

I brought my kids up in Muswellbrook. I was a worker in a coal fired station, so I know how much a lot of these workers rely on coal and coal fired power stations for their future. I agree with the theoretical position of decarbonising the economy, but I am also pragmatic about how that should come about, what length of period it would take and the implications for communities and industry in this country. So, for the Greens to come here and simply say, 'We're going to decarbonise the economy; we're going to take that to the next election,' is fine, but that is why they end up with a vote of about 10 per cent—because people do not believe that they are actually dealing with wider problems.

The Greens have the great luxury of never being able to govern. The luxury they have is that they can take these positions, focus in on the 10 per cent vote that they have now, and try to ensure that that 10 per cent shows up. And talking about decarbonisation of the economy—talking as if they are the only ones that care about the future for our grandkids—is a bit rich, I reckon.

Senator Brandis interjecting—

Sorry?

Sue Boyce (Queensland, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Senator Cameron, ignore the interjections.

Doug Cameron (NSW, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

It was a great interjection but it did not make any sense!

In terms of the decarbonisation issue, the other argument that has been put forward by the Greens is about research and development. I was in Spain a couple of years ago. I went there to have a look at carbon capture and storage technology. I went to the UK and spoke to some of the experts there. Let me tell you, everywhere around the world the green groups are starting to understand that carbon capture and storage is important—except here, in Australia, where carbon capture and storage is not accepted as a technology that needs to come into place to ensure the future of many countries and many industries.

You see, you cannot continue to produce cement without carbon. These issues are being dealt with by trying to get the technology in place for carbon capture and storage. I know it is difficult. I know it is expensive. I know it will mean a high price on carbon before it becomes competitive. But the International Energy Association argues that 15 per cent of all power produced in the world will have to be produced by power plants with carbon capture and storage either bolted on to the plant, or a new carbon and capture storage plant built with new power stations. So nowhere around the world are people saying we have to walk away from coal-fired power. What they are saying is there are huge problems with coal-fired power but we need to deal with those through technology and through research and development.

I am not sure what the Greens will say if the AEMO starts looking at the issue of carbon capture and storage. That would be a horror for them. But it is a practical thing that some of the major corporations around the world are looking at because without carbon capture and storage our steel and other industries that are reliant on carbon for processes will be in real trouble. I do not accept the pontification and the lecture that we get from the coalition.

The other issue is that the AEMO report says that 100 per cent renewable energy is possible—but at a cost. The estimated cost—and they said these are hypothetical costs because there is a range of costs that you would have to add on to it—in 2030 would be between $219 billion and $285 billion, and in 2050 from $252 billion to $332 billion.

The report also says one of the big issues is the distribution network. Spain—as every senator here would understand—is a much different nation to Australia in terms of where its cities are, how big the cities are, the small size of the country and where they can actually do this work. The big problem for us is we would have to run from some of the areas where we could actually get some of the thermal power capacity. We would have to have huge distribution networks and that has not been costed in to those figures that I indicated. I am not saying this to say why we should not do it. I am saying that these are the challenges that we have to face. I totally agree that climate change is real. But for us it is not like going from Malaga in the south of Spain up to Seville and up to Madrid where there are major centres, big cities with thermal power available. You just cannot do that in Australia so easily. The cost of transmission is much easier in Spain because they can get some of the networks close to the big cities. The other issue, as outlined by the AEMO, is the cost of securing land to do all of this. What is the cost of biofuels? How much land do we need to get the biofuels?

I am a big supporter of doing something about climate change. I think it would have been much better if back in 2009 the ETS had been picked up by the Greens. They did not have their eye on a double dissolution. They did not have their eye on trying to get more seats in the Senate if a double dissolution came up. Because the ETS would have been in place, the arguments that we are still facing now about pricing carbon would have been long gone and we would have been on the road to making any changes we could have made because the public would have accepted that we were in this place. The Greens, because of a mixture of purity and political expedience, just ignored what was in the interests of the nation. I am not going to be lectured by the Greens on this. I do not think it is reasonable that the public should ignore some of the costs involved in moving to complete decarbonisation, what the job impacts are on complete decarbonisation and how we can bring the public with us. I think the big problem for the Greens is a coalition whose leadership could not agree that carbon is causing a problem in the atmosphere. So it is a job for Labor and the Greens to educate the public about why we need to do this, because it will be a strongly contested political debate. To simply say that we are going to move from where we are now to decarbonisation gives those in the opposition who are opposed to action on climate change—those who do not believe in climate change—an easy attack point against communities and people who rely on coal and on carbon for their jobs.

We must educate. We must organise around this issue. We must get out there and make sure the public understands all of the realities and problems that the CSIRO and the Bureau of Meteorology are informing us of—and not just say there is going to be a magic wand of decarbonisation and everything will be okay. This will be a hard political battle and it will go on after the election. It is a battle about how we can make sure that we do not see global warming that destroys the capacity for people to live in some areas around this country. I think some sense from the Greens and less pontification and less purity would be good for this parliament.

Anne Ruston (SA, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Senator Cameron, I have to pull you up on one point that you made earlier in your speech. You said that the Greens have the luxury of never having to govern. I beg to differ; I believe over the last 2½ years the Greens have had a huge role in governing this country. In fact, I do not think we would have a carbon tax had it not been for the Greens' interference in the policies of the Labor Party. Do not forget, it was your very leader who stood up and said: 'There will be no carbon tax under a government I lead,' and, as soon as she was in a minority government and required the Greens' support, all of a sudden we had a carbon tax. I raise that as a point of clarification on your comments.

Senator Ludlam, I agree with you: research and development is an extraordinarily important part of this country's future. It has played a hugely important role in this country over many, many decades. The fact that we are a very smart country has allowed us to keep a competitive advantage. So I hope that you support research and development in other areas, including agriculture and primary industries, to the same level that you support research and development continuing in the area of climate change.

What we are discussing here today is, basically, another broken promise by this government, made necessary by the total mismanagement of the budget. I am sure we would not see $100 million being taken out of the Australian Renewable Energy Agency had we had the budget surpluses that we have been promised over the last five years by the 'world's greatest Treasurer'. But it is somewhat ironic, and tremendously interesting, that it is actually the Greens who have brought this matter of public importance before us today. As I said before, it was the Greens who sided with the government on many of the decisions that have caused this budget to tumble into the terrible state that it is in today.

There would not be too many people in Australia who, over the long term, would suggest that renewable energy is not a desirable outcome for Australia and for the world. But what we cannot support is putting businesses out of business in this morally pure policy of moving immediately to it. I support Senator Cameron's comments in the sense that, if we want to try to achieve a green and clean economy, we have to do it with our economy still intact and not destroy it on the way.

The Greens need to take some responsibility for the MPI they have raised today and for the $100 million being taken out of this budget line. They are the ones who have sat in this place and supported a number of programs put forward by the Labor Party that have been a complete and utter disaster for the Australian public and the Australian budget. Obviously, the carbon tax is an absolutely classic example of the impact that an ill-designed tax can have on an economy. The fact is that domestic emissions have increased since it was brought in, and everybody now admits that carbon emissions are going to increase under this carbon tax between now and 2020. So we have to accept that this is not working, for all the reasons that have been stated before.

We have to look at the Home Insulation Program; it was scrapped. What a disaster that turned out to be. In fact, four people lost their lives through the bungling of the Home Insulation Program; 224 houses were burnt, while 70,000 required repair. This cost Australia $2.2 billion. Imagine what we could have done with $2.2 billion if we had been able to apply it to programs that were going to be of genuine benefit to Australia. Some of it might even have gone towards the development of a sustainable and ongoing renewable energy program for this country.

There are many examples. The citizens assembly was scrapped before it even started. There was cash for clunkers, the Green Car Innovation Fund—the list of things that have been put in place by this government, supposedly to assist in the process of dealing with whatever implications climate change may have for this country and for the world, that have failed goes on and on. The list of things that the government has put in place have delivered absolutely no outcome and, in the process, have damaged our budget to such a significant extent that all Australians are today absolutely terrified of thinking about what is likely to happen tonight when we go to the budget.

I also draw to the attention of the house the number of—I would say 'funny' if they were not so serious—crazy things that have expended taxpayers money in relation to the government's promotion of the carbon tax. Back in the middle of last year, the Labor government spent $69.5 million advertising the carbon tax. When they had already committed to implementing the carbon tax, why on earth did they then have to spend nearly $70 million of taxpayers' money telling the electorate why they needed to have something they were going to get anyway? During Senate estimates last year, it was also revealed that the government spent $100,000 building fake kitchens for the television ads, when we know that, if you wanted to build an actual kitchen, you could probably put a really nice one in your house for about $15,000. Then there was the carbon cop—sorry, I should refer to it as Labor's Clean Energy Regulator. Because it had a bit of a bad image out there, the government spent $4.4 billion sprucing up its new offices.

These are the kinds of things that I think the Australian public are heartily sick of—when their cost of living is being attacked every single day and they realise that, in the name of the so-called carbon tax, which has been a complete debacle and has destroyed their way of life, we are spending money on stupid things, like $4.4 million to spruce up some offices.

Another classic example is that the government gave $93,000 to the ACTU so that it could teach its officials how to sell the carbon tax. Given that all of a sudden it was such a fundamental platform for the Labor government, one would have hoped that the officials understood what was so good about it. Then there was $600 million of Australia's foreign aid program spent on developing climate change leaders in the Pacific. Then, of course, there was the image makeover for the carbon cop, where we spent nearly half a million dollars on a public relations strategy so that they looked a bit better in the eyes of Australia. Julia Gillard had to admit that she had $660 worth of carbon tax payments in her Lodge bill, but I do not suppose she had to worry about that because of course the taxpayers of Australia pick up that tab.

Going back to the fact that it is the Greens who raised this matter of public importance, I note that $3 million worth of grants were paid to green groups so that they would support the 'say yes' campaign during the introduction of the carbon tax. To add insult to injury, the Auditor-General has revealed that key documents relating to $20 million in Energy Efficiency Information Grants have been destroyed. I wonder why they were destroyed! I will not pass any judgement on that, but I leave the house to ponder why anyone would need to destroy documentation relating to the allocation of grants. One can only hope that we get to the bottom of that.

But the main reason we have this MPI before us today, no matter who proposed it, is simply that our budget is in such a terrible, terrible state. Think about all the money we could have saved from these bungled programs, these useless things that we so did not need to have—all the silly money that has been spent by the government on trying to sell something just to make themselves look better. For example, they spent $2.2 billion on rectifying the pink batts situation. If they had spent that money on real programs that the Australian public wanted and needed, they would probably have had some money for the Gonski education reforms, they would not have had to put on a levy to pay for the NDIS and they might have been able to implement a dental scheme.

The thing that annoys me more than anything else is that we have spent all this money on those programs while people in rural and regional Australia are screaming out for infrastructure projects. They are screaming out for their roads to be upgraded. They are screaming out for access to services that people in the city take for granted. People in the country do not get the same level of connectivity for their communications. Businesses in the country do not get access to full amounts of power to be able to run their businesses. So it makes me very cross to see how much money has been wasted when there are so many worthy projects out there in the country.

Finally, I think the most important thing that we should be doing right now with the money is not worrying about all these little programs but relieving the cost of living for all Australians.

Sue Boyce (Queensland, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Order! The time for the discussion has expired.