Christopher Back (WA, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I thought I was coming in here to briefly speak on the animal protection bill, but of course I am delighted to speak on the Renewable Energy (Electricity) Amendment Bill 2015. Indeed, I make the point that all of us in public life, and certainly those of us in the Australian parliament are no exception, do aim to do good. But more than anything else, we certainly have an obligation to ensure that we do no harm. I fear there are elements within the context of what we are discussing this afternoon and that is that they are doing harm or they have the potential to be doing harm. I speak of adverse health effects of industrial wind turbines.

I do refer through you, Mr Acting Deputy President, to Senator Walters, who spoke before me on this matter—

Senator Waters interjecting—

I am terribly sorry; I do apologise, Senator Waters. I apologise for not mentioning your name correctly. I now do correct that. But I particularly refer to the dismissal by Senator Waters of any possible adverse health effects on people affected by industrial wind turbines. Indeed, the Senate Select Committee on Wind Turbines is currently underway on this very matter and, to me, it is disappointing that the Greens Party elected not to have a person participating in this inquiry.

I am also pleased to acknowledge to the Senate a commitment by the coalition coming into government now being honoured, with which I had some association—that is, a commitment to the expenditure of some $2.5 million to undertake independent medical research to establish whether there are adverse health effects from wind turbines. This is the first time, anywhere in the world, that that research will be undertaken. The NHMRC have responsibility for advertising for parties competent to undertake the medical research and they have done that. They have closed applications. I eagerly look forward to the appointment of an independent panel.

Again, if I could just draw attention to the comments of others who have asserted that NHMRC have already undertaken research and have reported that there are no adverse health effects. That indeed is not the case. There have been a couple of literature reviews, the most recent of which included only one acoustician and three epidemiologists but nobody with actual expertise in this field. So therefore one would be hard put to actually claim that no adverse health effects could be stated.

In fact, the CEO of NHMRC himself has indeed said that the outcome of that literature review was not to come up with that conclusion. I have been critical on a number of counts, particularly as to the number of papers that were rejected as part of the literature review. They are in fact not in the English language, including Japanese and Polish. Others were also excluded.

Indeed, whilst it is not my position to comment at all on outcomes of the Senate select committee and I do not intend to do so, I certainly can make my own observations about medical doctors who have agreed—acousticians on both sides of this argument—only in the last few days, in hearings in Melbourne and Adelaide, and have actually stated quite strongly that there are, at least, stress and annoyances. The chief medical officer of South Australia concurred with me the other day: if stress and annoyance lead to sleeplessness, which leads to depression, indeed that of itself is an aetiological cause of adverse health. People of course speak of whether it is audible sound or subaudible infrasound. In a sense, as the point was made the other day: noise is just unwanted sound. I hope that the independent medical research will in fact undertake research and come up with some results in that space.

I was very interested in the comments only last week of a well-regarded neuroscientist Professor Simon Carlile, from the University of Sydney. He said, 'There is a growing body of evidence, pointing to low-frequency infrasound directly affecting the human nervous system.' Carlile is internationally regarded in this space. He of course speaks in terms of physiology—the fact that the nervous system responds to low frequency. As to noise, the evidence, he says, is 'Yes, the nervous system can be activated at these frequencies.' But he said, 'Not in the traditional way of one interpreting hearing, but in fact the vestibular system within the ear involving itself in balance.'

We quite often hear the analogy used whereby if a group of people go out onto the ocean, two or three get seasick and the rest of them do not. It is not all that conducive to good relations for those who did not get seasick to turn around and say to the others, 'You're actually not suffering seasickness; there is nothing wrong with you.' It is what some people facetiously refer to as a 'nocebo' effect—in other words, you think you are going to get seasick, therefore you get seasick and therefore you were not seasick. In fact, Carlile does not speak of it as an analogy at all; Carlile actually says, 'Physiologically, they may be very, very similar.' That is, the vestibular system being affected, suffering seasickness. 'They get seasick,' he said, 'because of the stimulation of the vestibular system and there seem to be quite significant variations of susceptibility to vestibular-induced nausea.' So I think, again, it is not helpful for people to make those comments.

I speak also of the impact of this bill. When it comes to renewable energy, there are many sources. We know that small-scale solar power will be unaffected by this legislation, and I think there is unanimous support within Parliament House for that. We know that the emissions-intensive trade-exposed industries will be protected by this legislation. But my concern, as we move to the target of 33,000 gigawatt hours, is that other forms of renewables—and, I hasten to add, other forms of renewables that have no, and can have no, adverse health effects—are largely being ignored in this debate. One is large-scale solar power. I would have pleaded for some allocation, within the decrease to 33,000 gigawatt hours, for large-scale solar power. The other one, of course, is hydroelectricity. I hasten to add as a Western Australian that this is an area in which WA have no interest because we have no hydro in the south; we do, of course, in the Ord River near Kununurra in the north. People say, 'There is no capacity for an increase in the construction of dams et cetera.' But I am not talking about that; I am talking about using new software, new technologies, to upgrade existing hydroelectricity schemes, including the Snowy Mountains Hydro-electric Scheme in New South Wales and Hydro Tasmania—

Helen Polley (Tasmania, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Parliamentary Secretary for Aged Care) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

And a great system it is, too.

Christopher Back (WA, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

It is, as Senator Polley says, a great system. In my view, this legislation would have been enriched if there had been carve-outs allowed for the encouragement of hydroelectricity power, with existing technologies and existing assets, and large-scale solar power. There is also a wonderful project being undertaken by Carnegie at Garden Island, off the Western Australian coast. Carnegie, using wave motion energy, are providing a significant proportion of the power to HMAS Stirling at Garden Island, as well as providing them with water desalinated through the heat of the generation sets.

So I think this is an opportunity missed, and ministers and others are well aware of my views that we could have had and should have had an allocation for the development of those opportunities.

The commentary in this area has been interesting. The other day, I spoke on radio in Perth, and some fellow rang in and said that he was used to windmills on farms and they did not make him sick. Someone else said they were aware of very, very small turbines on people's roofs in the Canary Islands, and those people were not reporting illness; and, therefore, what I was talking about was a load of nonsense.

It may not be known, but it became patently obvious to the committee through our inquiry, that the modern industrial wind turbine has a pillar of some 100 metres in height, and the blades themselves are 100 metres long. So we are looking at the height equivalent of a 60-floor CBD high-rise building and, with the size of the blades, an area greater than an Australian Rules football oval—just the one turbine. They are enormous.

The Mayor of the Goyder Regional Council in South Australia, when he appeared before the committee the other day—and the region for which he has local government responsibility has a very heavy concentration of industrial wind turbines—made the observation, probably the plea, that when this technology was first developed years ago the opportunity was there for governments, Commonwealth and state, to sit down and discuss where these turbines might be placed so they were unlikely to have any impact at all on humans.

In the context of my own state, there are four major wind farm developments. There are two outside of Esperance, on the south-east coast, where it blows like a dog off a chain, but they are placed at nine and 10 miles away. It will come as no surprise to learn that the names of these wind farms are Nine Mile Beach and Ten Mile Lagoon—because they are nine and 10 miles from town. In Albany, those who saw the commemoration of the Centenary of Anzac would have seen the wind turbines in the distance. As the Mayor of Albany said the other day, nobody lives near them; they are about 20 kilometres from town. Walkaway wind farm is about 30 kilometres from either Dongara or Geraldton. The Collgar Wind Farm is about 35 kilometres from Merredin—probably a good distance if you are worried, as I am, about wind farms' possible adverse effects on people.

One of the other comments that are often made with regard to wind turbines, and I think it is one that needs to be stated, is that they will be able to immediately reduce carbon dioxide emissions. If you actually sit down and do the mathematics, you come to the realisation that the manufacturing itself of each turbine requires more than 250 tonnes of coal to produce the steel; and, when you do the carbon dioxide analysis, the payback is not for about 15 to 20 years. In other words, if a turbine operates as expected, for maybe eight hours a day—that would be optimistic—it will have to generate electricity for up to 15 to 20 years before it pays back the carbon emissions that were used in its construction or, indeed, in its being put into place. And you would understand, Mr Deputy President, that any structure which is 100 metres in height and of the width I mentioned a moment ago needs massive amounts of concrete and steel to support it. Those are points that very much need to be made.

The economics are of great interest. Why are we focusing on industrial wind turbines? It is because, in the time we have to achieve the objective of 33,000 gigawatt hours, it is industrial wind turbines, in the main, that are going to contribute to that renewable energy source. Conservatively, it is going to require somewhere around about 1,000 new wind turbines, possibly even more, depending on their size. Therefore, it is reasonably for us to examine the economics of these circumstances. The arguments go backwards and forwards. We were told in Adelaide and in Melbourne that in fact greater use of wind turbines and renewable energy, particularly through turbines, were driving the price of electricity down for the residents. I recall asking someone, 'Which state of Australia has the greatest number of turbines?' The answer is South Australia. Which is the state that has the highest cost of electricity to residences? Of course, it is South Australia. If you go to Europe, which country has the highest number of industrial wind turbines? It is Denmark. Which country has the highest cost of domestic electricity? And yes, you guessed it. Of course, it is the same place: it is Denmark.

You can also ask the question: if in fact wind turbines are driving the price of power down, why do they need any sort of financial support from the federal government? From this point of view, if they are so successful, surely it is not required. Only then do we come to learn that, in fact, the claims made about the price of power going down as the amount of renewables increases come about as a result of the very generous Renewable Energy Certificates. As we all know, under the Constitution, land management, under which these sorts of planning decisions are made, is quite rightly the role of the states, not of the Commonwealth government. But people need to be aware that, on average, depending on how much electricity they generate, besides being paid for the electricity that the turbines generate there is also a system of Renewable Energy Certificates. It is the Clean Energy Regulator who oversees the allocation of certificates, and it is true to say that these certificates actually do not cost the taxpayer anything, because the certificates find their way through to the retail price of electricity. Therefore, that cost is met by consumers. But the last time I had a look there would not be too many taxpayers who themselves are not consumers. So I think it is a very moot point to say that these costs are not borne by taxpayers. Indeed, they are.

The Clean Energy Regulator and I had had some spirited discussions in Senate estimates, and she continues to tell me that whilst the act seems to require the Clean Energy Regulator to be satisfied as to the compliance of industrial wind turbines, and indeed other forms of clean energy, in fact it does not. At the moment, the only requirement under legislation that the Clean Energy Regulator has is to be satisfied on the economics. In other words, if the wind turbine operator said, 'We generated X amount of electricity last year,' so long as the Clean Energy Regulator is satisfied with that part of the audit process the certificates flow. I would plead very strongly that there is a greater role, and based on the Clean Energy Regulator's submission and appearance before the committee, I think she is also of that view. In other words, that greater role should be that the Clean Energy Regulator needs to be satisfied with compliance.

This afternoon's discussion does not allow me to go into any detail at all about compliance, except to say there is a long and sad history of lack of compliance: of turbines being wrongly placed and of approvals being given in arrears or backdated. This does not do very much for their credibility or for the levels of confidence within the wider community, particularly the community of effected people. Therefore, I think we need a lot more discussion on the overall economics. I plead that we need to widen the argument.

One of the other areas is biomass. I know that will be discussed in the committee process, and I look forward to contributing in that area, because I firmly believe that if we can use wood waste, particularly from the plantation industry, and if we can use the waste from the sugarcane industry in those areas on the east coast where the sugar is grown, then that will be of tremendous benefit.

In the last few seconds I want to pose this question to the sceptics: why is it that a family who have been in the same farmhouse for five generations would all of a sudden pretend to have some adverse health effect? Why would somebody who has made a lifestyle choice to shift to the Barossa Valley and found their life destroyed lay these claims? Consider a turbine host who has been receiving multiples of the $10,000 per annum that most get for having turbines on their properties. Why would they put their hands up and say, 'I'm sorry, I can't accept the funds any more'? Consider the farmer who cannot spray his crop anymore because of the turbines, and consider the retirees who leave their communities with no value in their land. There are questions to be asked.

Catryna Bilyk (Tasmania, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I am pleased to speak on the Renewable Energy (Electricity) Amendment Bill 2015 because it gives me an opportunity to talk about the enormous opportunities for Australia in renewable energy, and about how Labor believes in, and has supported, a strong renewable energy industry. It also gives me a chance to talk about how the Abbott government has carelessly sabotaged the industry, which has led us to the situation we are in today and to this bill now before the Senate.

Australia should be a world leader in renewable energy. With a huge land mass surrounded by water, we have access to an abundance of wind, wave, hydro, solar and geothermal energy. We also have world-leading expertise in renewable energy, and during Labor's time in government jobs in the renewable energy sector tripled. More than $18 billion was invested in the sector, and the number of homes with rooftop solar grew from 7,000 to over 1.2 million. There is no doubt that Labor has a strong commitment to renewable energy. Renewable energy, inevitably, must play a strong part of our future. It is an interesting fact that the amount of energy delivered by the sun to the earth in one hour is almost enough to meet the world's energy consumption needs for one year. The energy from sunlight is then transferred to other natural sources such as wind. I think this fact demonstrates the enormous potential there is to harness this energy, rather than rely on the finite energy source that fossil fuels provide.

If our planet is going to survive and be habitable, the world has no choice but to reduce carbon pollution. Climate science tells us that the current worldwide pledges to reduce carbon emissions may not be enough to prevent two degrees of warming, which is considered the threshold for catastrophic climate change. Renewable energy is undoubtedly the way of the future. Even if Australia does not aggressively pursue renewable energy, circumstances will eventually force the entire world to adapt to relying mostly, if not entirely, on renewable sources for our energy needs. Those countries that invest heavily in renewable energy will be the ones that are able to take advantage of the economic opportunities of selling their skills, experience and technology to others. This critically important industry employs more than 21,000 Australians, including almost 1,000 people in my home state of Tasmania.

I am particularly excited about the opportunities a strong investment in renewable energy has for Tasmania, because Tasmania has long been at the forefront of renewable energy in Australia. Our hydro-electricity scheme was established as early as 1914, and the company once known as the Hydro-Electric Commission—now Hydro Tasmania—is one of the oldest power companies in Australia, having celebrated its centenary only last year. The Tasmanian hydro-electric scheme is ingrained in our state's history. It goes back to 1895, with the opening of the Duck Reach Power Station only seven years after the first power station was built in the Southern Hemisphere. A post-Second World War boom in dam construction led to thousands of migrants, mostly European, coming to Tasmania. This has had a permanent positive impact on the social fabric of the state. There are generations of Tasmanians descended from migrant Hydro workers of English, German, Polish, and Italian origins. My home state has also been at the forefront of wind energy in Australia. The first Tasmanian wind farm, Huxley Hill, was built on King Island in Bass Strait in 1988, and was the second commercial wind farm in Australia. Tasmania has since developed the Woolnorth and Musselroe Wind Farms with a generating capacity of 140 and 168 megawatts respectively. These wind farms were developed by a joint venture between Hydro Tasmania and the Chinese company, Shenhua Clean Energy, an entity known as Woolnorth Wind Farm Holdings.

Hydro Tasmania has now become a leader in the research and development of other forms of renewable energy, such as geothermal, tide and wave energy. Tasmanian sources an average of 87 per cent of its electricity from renewable sources every year, and Tasmania has the potential to become the first state in Australia that sources 100 per cent of its electricity from renewable resources. Renewable energy is vital to the economy of my home state, especially as we export electricity from renewable sources via Basslink. So not only does renewable energy policy have an impact on the economy of my home state; it also impacts on public services, since Hydro Tasmania returns dividends to the Tasmanian government. To illustrate the impact this has, the Abbott government's decision to abolish Labor's clean energy future legislation impacts on the Tasmanian government's budget by $70 million per year. I support renewable energy, not just for the sake of Australian jobs and the economy but because of the unique implications it has for the state I represent.

The future of renewables in Australia is a risk because we now have a government that does not believe in renewable energy. It is of little surprise that we get this kind of approach from a government whose treasurer describes wind farms as 'utterly offensive' and whose Prime Minister who says they are 'visually awful'. Mr Abbott also said last week that he wished the Howard government—in which he was a minister—had never implemented the Renewable Energy Target policy. Bizarrely, in an interview with Alan Jones Mr Abbott claimed that changes to the RET—the changes we are debating right now—were designed to reduce the number of wind farms in Australia. Mr Abbott also said that he would have liked to have reduced them a lot further. When Mr Jones raised the potential health impacts of wind farms on people living nearby, Mr Abbott responded, 'I do take your point'. Yet the link has been examined by the National Health and Medical Research Council, who have found that there is no consistent evidence that wind farms cause adverse health effects. Coming from a former health minister, Mr Abbott's denial of medical research is breathtaking. The Prime Minister also nailed his colours to the mast in 2013 by proclaiming that the Renewable Energy Target is driving up power prices. Yet his own hand-picked review panel found that not only is the RET putting downward pressure on electricity prices, it is also driving investment in renewable energy, creating jobs and cutting carbon pollution. It is utterly bizarre that the review could find that the RET is playing such a positive role in Australia's economy and environment—and yet go on to recommend that the RET be either significantly cut or abolished. At the same time, it is hardly surprising, given that a known climate change sceptic was appointed to the review panel. This is exactly the recommendation the government wanted—because they do not really believe in renewable energy anyway.

The Abbott government's record speaks for itself. They slashed the budget and reduced a $600 million commitment to the solar roofs and towns and schools programs to just $2 million. The Australian Renewable Energy Agency had its budget severely cut in the 2013 MYEFO, and it was then targeted for abolition in the 2014 budget. And this government has adamantly refused to either accept an emissions trading scheme or implement one of its own, despite most economic and environmental experts agreeing that it is the most efficient and effective way to cut carbon emissions—and despite the fact that an emissions trading scheme was bipartisan policy until Mr Abbott rolled Mr Turnbull for the leadership of the Liberal Party. The government's broken promise on the Renewable Energy Target is the latest in a series of policy backflips that reflect the climate change denial and lack of commitment to renewable energy by those opposite.

The Abbott government has overturned over a decade of bipartisanship on renewable energy by breaking its promise to retain Labor's Renewable Energy Target of 41,000 gigawatt hours by 2020. In fact, the government proposed to cut the RET by over 40 per cent. Since the government announced this backflip, investment in renewable energy has fallen by 88 per cent, while it has increased by 16 per cent in the rest of the world. Over that same period, China's investment in renewable energy has increased by 33 per cent. In 2013, Australia was ranked in the top four most attractive places to invest in renewable energy, along with Germany, China and the United States. Now we have fallen to tenth place on the list. Despite the fact that the government cannot universally cut the RET, they have effectively hobbled the industry anyway.

Those of us who have been in business understand that you cannot make long-term investments in an uncertain investment environment. That is what this government has done with their departure from a decade of bipartisanship on the RET. Either the government do not understand the importance of certainty to the renewable energy industry, or they do understand it but simply do not care. I am assuming they either do not understand or do not care, because the only possibility—one which is almost too shocking to contemplate—is that the government's backflip on the RET was a deliberate attempt to sabotage the industry. What makes the government's attitude especially perplexing is that renewable energy and the RET are quite popular with the Australian public. Australians overwhelmingly support renewable energy because they recognise the incredible economic and environmental benefits it delivers.

While Labor was keen to support the previous bipartisan commitment to a RET of 41,000 gigawatt hours by 2020, we have had to negotiate a reduced RET with the government in order to return certainty to the industry. This brings us to the bill we are debating today. It is clear that this is not the bill that the government would rather be introducing. They would rather be introducing legislation that would further substantially reduce the renewable energy target. If we consider the words of the Prime Minister last week, he would probably rather be introducing legislation to completely abolish the RET.

Labor has had to negotiate a compromise to make sure that we can give certainty to the renewable energy industry. The elements of the agreement include a large-scale renewable energy target of 33,000 gigawatt hours by 2020; no change to the small-scale solar scheme; a full exemption for emissions-intensive, trade-exposed industries; and removal of the two-yearly reviews of the RET. I am pleased that the following outcomes have been achieved through the negotiations: no change to the small-scale solar scheme, which includes rooftop solar and solar panels for small businesses such as nursing homes; full exemption for emissions-intensive, trade-exposed industries, which relieves some pressure on those industries that are enduring downturns and job cuts; and the removal of two-yearly reviews, which provides the long-term certainty the industry needs.

Throughout the negotiations, Labor has listened to advice from the industry on what its needs are. The revised renewable energy target of 33,000 gigawatt hours will see 25 percent of Australia's energy generated from renewable sources by 2020. The Clean Energy Council, which proposed the compromise target, predicts that it will drive over $40 billion in investment and create more than 15,000 jobs. This bill reflects the outcome of our negotiations with the government. By passing this bill, we can look forward to a strong and certain future for Australia's renewable energy industry. But it is a great shame that the Prime Minister, in the interview with Alan Jones I mentioned earlier, said he was disappointed with the deal the government struck with Labor and that he would prefer to cut the RET further. In other words, this Prime Minister, who promised to create a million jobs in five years and two million jobs in 10 years, was actually expressing a desire to do more damage to an industry which creates thousands of jobs and drives billions of dollars in investment.

I am pleased, though, that through this bill the renewable energy industry can continue to move forward with certainty, attracting billions of dollars in investment and creating thousands of jobs. Labor will use the revised target as a floor to build on. We will work with the sector to increase the renewable energy target out to 2020 to bolster investment, specifically in large-scale solar. Before the next election, we will be making announcements about our genuine goals for the industry beyond 2020. In the meantime, we will be consulting with industry and the experts about the detail of those announcements.

There is doubt that the renewable energy industry has a bright future under Labor. As I said earlier in my contribution, it makes sense for Australia, with our skills, knowledge and natural resources, to have a thriving renewable energy industry. Labor wants to see Australia return to its previous position as a global leader in renewable energy generation, research and development. We can only hope that, for the sake of the industry, jobs and the environment, the Abbott government will abandon its attacks on the industry and we can return to the bipartisanship on the renewable energy target that we previously enjoyed. However, I fear that, if the recent comments of the Treasurer and the Prime Minister are anything to go by, it will probably be a long, long time before the coalition is dragged kicking and screaming into the 21st century. I am in no doubt that, despite the intransigence of those opposite, a strong renewable energy target continues to enjoy the overwhelming support of the public. Renewable energy is the way of the future, and Labor believes it has a big part to play in Australia's future.

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

I rise this evening to totally oppose this legislation, the Renewable Energy (Electricity) Amendment Bill 2015, that has appeared before the Senate. It is an absolute disgrace that at a time of climate emergency, when around the world countries are scrambling to increase the amount of renewable energy in their systems and to decrease the amount of fossil fuel, here in Australia we are the first developed country to formally reduce our renewable energy target, on top of being the first developed country to abolish a carbon price. We are global pariahs when it comes to climate action leading into Paris.

I want to put to bed immediately this notion that there had to be some sort of compromise to deliver certainty. That fails absolutely to understand that the government has no intention of delivering certainty. Anyone who thinks that 33,000 gigawatt hours now provides certainty for investment is kidding themselves absolutely. I want to explain how this happened. Let's go to the Tea Party Republicans in the US. They do not believe in compromise. They go after everything that they can get, pocket whatever they can and then go after the rest. They have no intention of stopping where they are. That is clearly the modus operandi of the Abbott government when it comes to renewable energy, because the Abbott government is the wholly-owned subsidiary of the coal industry in Australia. Anyone who doubts that only has to see what this government has done. The fact of the matter is that renewable energy in Australia is undermining the business case for coal. That is it, pure and simple.

On top of the reduced demand that has been occurring and the rollout of rooftop solar, we had the coal generators in Australia in trouble—9,000 megawatts too much of energy in the system—and we had a choice. We could shut down coal fired power now without in any way jeopardising energy security in Australia and actually bringing down prices to consumers, because renewable energy is bringing down the wholesale price of power; or we could try and kill renewable energy and increase the price of energy to consumers, and that is exactly what this legislation is doing. I am afraid it shows a level of naivety beyond all measure to hear the Labor Party stand up here saying that they had to compromise to deliver certainty.

There is no certainty, and if anyone needs any proof of that, just have a look at what the Prime Minister had to say last week. He said: 'The Renewable Energy Target as currently agreed, mandating that 33,000 gigawatt hours of electricity be produced from renewable sources including wind, was merely the lowest number the government could achieve within the current parliament.' They have no intention of stopping here. They want this abolished altogether. If they could have gone down further, they would have, and they would have gone as low as to the point of abolishing the RET altogether. That is their agenda. Anyone who thinks that they are stopping at 33,000 gigawatt hours has not listened to how they are intending to prop up fossil fuels.

Let me go to something else the Prime Minister said: 'What we did recently in the Senate was reduce, reduce: capital R-E-D-U-C-E the number of these things that we are going to get in the future'—that is, wind turbines; that is what he was referring to. He said, 'I frankly would have liked to have reduced the number a lot more, but we got the best deal we could.' What does that tell you? It tells you it is the best deal they can get at the moment to get it down to 33,000 gigawatt hours, but it is not over. They have put that in their back pockets and they are going to abolish the Renewable Energy Target at the first possible opportunity that they think they will get the numbers to do it. So I cannot believe anyone is running around suggesting there is any certainty or that there will be certainty delivered to the renewable energy industry if and when this absolutely flawed legislation—contrary to what the world needs, let alone what this country needs—actually passes.

I want to go to the reasons why the small target was not changed. It had nothing to do with compromises made in here; it had everything to do with the campaign that the Solar Council ran in marginal seats around the country, where they stood up and made it very clear, with contributions from people who are selling solar panels, students who are studying in the new renewable energy field, people working in retail in the renewable energy sector, people standing up and saying, 'This will cost us jobs, and what is more you hold this seat by one or two per cent, and if all the people with solar PV on their roof change their vote, we can take this seat from you.' It was the marginal seats campaign that protected small-scale solar, not any so-called compromise that has happened between Liberal and Labor. It was Bill Shorten, the Leader of the Labor Party, who stood with me on the platform in Barton and said that Labor was not for turning on this issue. Well, Labor has turned.

At what point did this occur? The people who gave cover to everybody to start this downward process that got them as low as Tony Abbott, the Prime Minister, could get them to go—and he will continue his attack on renewable energy—were of course the Clean Energy Council. They were the ones who gave cover to this happening, and then out came the AWU, saying that they wanted exemptions for aluminium smelters, but that was not enough for the Clean Energy Council. They said, 'Why don't we give exemptions to all the trade exposed industries? Why would you do that? Why would you go down that path, especially seeing that aluminium smelters have been subsidised by the community forever? With bulk power contracts, they have never paid the wholesale price for power ever anywhere in the country. Because of the currency exchange rate, they have had the biggest windfall gain that they could have expected in recent times. They have had a massive windfall gain with that change to the exchange rates.

We have a situation where the AWU came out wanting aluminium and the Clean Energy Council said: 'Let's go further. Let's give all the energy-intensive trade-exposed a 100 per cent exemption.' What does that mean? I have not heard the Prime Minister out there talking about power bills. Why? Because every trade exposed industry you let off paying for their renewable energy certificates means that the community has to pay. The community has to pay more now because the energy-intensive trade-exposed industries have gotten off the hook. I will be very interested in the definition of what constitutes energy-intensive trade-exposed as to whether the petroleum and gas industries get their way and have an expanded definition of the level of exemption they can get not only for their LNG facilities but also for the gas fields and what power goes on in those sectors. It will be very interesting to see where that ends up.

We have a situation now where the Clean Energy Council is facilitating a race to the bottom. The Prime Minister is saying, 'We want as low as we can go, as we can possibly secure in this parliament,' and the Labor Party have facilitated that to get down to 33,000 gigawatt hours and a total exemption for all the energy-intensive trade-exposed, increasing the price to the community and squeezing out large-scale solar.

The fact of the matter is that renewable energy has won the energy race this century. Solar has won. What is happening in this country though is that we are missing out on large-scale solar thermal, the sort of thing that gives hope and excitement for new jobs and new investment, for careers for young people. They are all offshore now. They are going offshore, where they are building a fantastic facilities in the United States, in Spain, in China. All over the world large-scale solar is being built, but not in this country, because of the attitude of the government and the AWU going along with the exemption for the trade exposed.

Now let me get to the decision by the government to include forest furnaces. This is a ludicrous proposition: the logging of native forests in order to burn them to generate energy which is then called 'renewable'. We know that the best thing you can do for the climate is to save the carbon-dense native forests, which are carbon stores. If you were interested in looking after biodiversity in the face of the extinction crisis we are now suffering and interested in securing carbon in the landscape, you would not log native forests. As a result of the world deciding it does not want to log native forests, the bottom has dropped out of the market for native forest woodchips. That is why Forestry Tasmania has made such a mess of it and is in so much debt. Forestry Victoria and all around the country want to be propped up by a subsidy because they have no market for native forest woodchips. So along comes the government, no doubt with the support of the CMFEU, to give renewable energy certificates to native forest loggers.

Let me tell you about Forestry Tasmania. It is so far in debt that they should be trading insolvent if it were not for the Tasmanian government giving them a letter of comfort. Whilst the Labor Party federally says that it opposes the logging of native forests for forest furnaces, Bryan Green, who is the leader of the Labor Party in the Tasmanian parliament, has been urging Bill Shorten to support this particular legislation. The Labor Party in Tasmania want forest furnaces; they have always wanted them and they want them now. It is bad enough that the Tasmanian government took $30 million out of Networks Tasmania, a GBE, and transferred it to Forestry Tasmania, but now in the budget they have extended their line of credit by another $10 million to $41 million. The logging of native forests is an ideological debt disaster. Now the federal government wants to prop them up by logging native forests. Anyone who suggests that this is about waste fails to remember the past; if you fail to remember the past then you are condemned to repeat it. What we are seeing here is 90 per cent of any coupe that is logged going to woodchips—90 per cent. We are talking about burning 90 per cent of what comes off a coupe in a forest furnace, if this legislation goes through. Any suggestion of 'Oh, it's only twigs and leaves and bark' is nonsense. It is 90 per cent of a coupe that will go into a forest furnace; and it is wrong.

We have run big consumer campaigns and we will run another big consumer campaign. People might remember burnt koala certificates. Perhaps the Clean Energy Council might like to think for a moment about the reputational damage to renewable energy that they are dishing out by failing to force the government on this issue. Again, I come back to the Labor Party. Even though Bryan Green, the leader of the Tasmanian party, wants it, there were two things that the government included in this: one was the two-year reviews; the other was to log native forests to generate energy. Labor came out and said they would make one a condition of doing this deal, but not the other. If you were serious about not logging native forests, why would you not have made both deal breakers? There is no answer to that, because the reality is that Labor at the state level is very happy to see native forest logging go on and be propped up by trying to include it in getting renewable energy certificates for logging and burning native forests and driving species to extinction. That, indeed, is what this will do if they get away with it.

Before the last election I went to see the Labor government to say: 'We need to get rid of these two-year reviews from the Renewable Energy Target.' The reason it was not possible then is that, had we tried to do that, Rob Oakeshott, an independent member at the time, indicated that he would move for the inclusion of native forest logging in that and he would have had the support for the government to do it. That is why it did not get done before the last election. This has been on the agenda for some time. The Greens have held it out for a long time, and we should be holding it out now, because every certificate that you generate from logging and burning native forests is a certificate that you are using to take from future generations the biodiversity of our forests and the carbon-rich density of our forests. It an absolute act of vandalism if that is allowed to occur. That is why we should be dumping the schedule which they have shoved in this bill that would give renewable energy certificates to forest furnaces which generate energy from the burning of native forests. It is absolute destruction of the world's biodiversity, and it will be yet another indication globally of just how backward Australia is.

I want to return to the bill in a big-picture sense before closing my second reading remarks. Australia has a dig-it-up, cut-it-down, ship-it-away economy. The Greens have argued for a very long time that we need to respond to the global warming emergency; we need serious targets. We have said 100 per cent renewable energy by 2030 is achievable in this country. What that would do for jobs and investment is mega. That would give the kind of direction and certainty that you need, especially if it is accompanied by a reduction target for greenhouse gas emissions, consistent with the science. That is why we have called for net carbon zero by 2040 and 80 per cent reduction by 2030. It is why we have said as far back as 2009: 'Let's go for a 40 per cent reduction by 2020.' If we were in that ballpark now, we would be laughing— Australia would be sitting on a jobs-rich boom. We would be giving so much hope to young people who want to go into universities to study these technologies and who want to make sure that we can convert our cities to a low-carbon future. They want to be supporting more public transport, the rollout of electric vehicles, the rollout of solar at residential and at utility scale with solar-thermal plants. They want to see windfarms; they want to see wave power being generated; they want to see all the new technologies. One young woman stood up in one of these forums and said she was a fifth-year solar engineering student. She had put her whole faith in addressing global warming by using her intelligence and her skills to roll this out. Now she will have no option but to go overseas. That is what we are seeing around the country.

By attacking the renewable energy target like this, destroying certainty, taking away any hope that this country will ever get on track to reducing greenhouse gases to the level they need to be to be consistent with the science, you are taking away hope from the next generation. You are denying rural and regional Australia the massive rollout of jobs that will come with renewable energy. It has already come with renewable energy.

As for this absolute nonsense about wind farm sickness, what a load of garbage. How come wind farm sickness only strikes people in countries where people speak English? How ridiculous is it? It is absolutely ridiculous. The Americans have rolled it out, it is happening in Australia and they have it in the UK. It is just ridiculous.

At the same time, you have the Senate Community Affairs References Committee reporting on the impacts on air quality and human health from small particulate matter, especially from coal fired power stations. What does the government do about that—a genuine health issue with a proven medical effect? The government just say, 'Noted. None of our business.' Where are the increased performance standards for coal fired power stations? Nowhere. There is just this ongoing, ridiculous, concocted attack against renewable energy. It is going on against solar. It is only a matter of time before they come up with a process of charging people to leave the grid. What gives me great hope is the disruptive nature of battery technology as people say, 'We are over the fact that the government in this country have actually worked to destroy renewables.'

I come back to the final and most important point, the one I started with—and that is that this will not deliver certainty. This is just a milestone on the way to destroying the renewable energy target. It is naive in the extreme for anyone to put a dollar into renewable energy on this basis when you have a Prime Minister saying, 'This is as low as we could get in this term of government, but we would have liked to have reduced it further.' Yes, they would and, yes, they will if they get the slightest chance. We have heard the Labor Party say, 'We are considering a higher target.' Where is any kind of rigor around that? We have seen no numbers and no commitment, just talk and a cooperative arrangement that will see renewable energy set back. There was no reason to go below 41,000 gigawatt hours and there is no reason to do it now.

Matthew Canavan (Queensland, Liberal National Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

You can tell that the Greens do not have a lot of experience running businesses because their prescription for job creation and greater economic activity is to find the most expensive way of doing something. It is not in dispute that renewable energy is more expensive. Indeed, Senator Milne admitted that in her contribution. She admitted that when she said that, by exempting the aluminium industry, we are going to increase the power bills of consumers around the country. So renewable energy is a more expensive form of energy. According to the Greens and Senator Milne, by doing the same thing in a more expensive way we will somehow have a stronger economy. It is not a prescription that would be commonly formulated. It is certainly not one that they would put in that context. But sometimes in this place we make things so complex when they should be much simpler.

Whilst the Renewable Energy (Electricity) Amendment Bill 2015 is a complex piece of legislation, it has a very simple prescription at its heart. The renewable energy target mandates that the producers of cheap electricity in our country must buy each year a set amount of expensive electricity. The simple truth underlying this legislation is that renewable energy is expensive. If it were not expensive then the renewable energy sector would not need this legislation. We do not have a shortage of cheap electricity in Australia. We have ample resources of coal and gas. Traditionally, that has meant we have some of the cheapest power prices in the world. Cheap power means dear wages because cheap power helps improve productivity and provides businesses with the ability to invest in more capital and more highly skilled workers.

But renewable energy is somewhere between double and five times the cost of our fossil based resources. We sometimes hear that solar is now competitive with fossil fuel based electricity, to which I respond, 'Good. We can remove all of these subsidies we currently have to support renewable energy industries if that is the case.' But of course the Greens do not want that.

As the Productivity Commission stated about the renewable energy target in 2011:

The Commission has assumed that the LRMC—

long-run marginal cost—

of wind power is A$110/MWh. This is based on data from Frontier Economics (unpublished data) that suggested that the LRMC of wind power projects in Australia was mostly in the range A$100–A$120/MWh.

The average wholesale price of electricity was assumed to be A$50/MWh (section D.1). This implies that for wind power projects to meet their LRMC, the REC—

renewable energy certificate—

price would need to be around A$60.

That is hard for people to visualise, but let's try to visualise something a bit more tangible. If you have a 3.5-megawatt capacity wind turbine, you can potentially produce around 30,000 megawatt hours a year. You times it by 24 and by 364 and that gives you the potential megawatt hours that that turbine can produce a year. In this case, it is around 30,000. In fact, most wind turbines in Australia produce power only 30 per cent of the time, so you would only produce just over 9,000 megawatt hours a year. If the RET price has to be $60 a megawatt-hour to produce electricity, that means that that wind turbine would get $551,000 from other energy consumers.

When you next drive past wind turbines on your travels, just remember that each one of those turbines is getting something like half a million dollars courtesy of other energy users and customers in this country just to operate. The average life of a turbine is around 20 years. That means that they are getting around $10 million over their lifetime. That is $10 million courtesy of other power users. That is just one turbine. We are told that we are going to have to install more than 1,000 of these things to meet this target that we are going to legislate here.

Some argue, though, that the renewable energy target will deliver cheaper energy over time. That last bit is important—that it will be not now but 'over time'. Whether or not that will actually happen is a gamble. It is a risk. There is no guarantee in our legislation that it will become cheaper. Those who argue that this legislation is good for the economy are effectively taking one big punt that some forms of renewable energy will come down like manna from heaven in the future and be cheaper. That is a huge risk to take with our economy.

We have seen this play out before and it ended in tragedy then, too. For a long time people in Australia argued that we should have high tariffs on cars, clothing and whitegoods to help protect local industries and that, over time, those industries would become more competitive and we could remove the tariffs. Well, that never happened—and I fear the same result will occur with our renewable energy industry, if we maintain as high a renewable energy target as we have had. Worse, at least high tariffs did protect jobs in labour-intensive industries like manufacturing. But renewable energy is not a particularly labour-intensive form of energy provision. Much of the construction of the turbines occurs overseas, and, once the turbines are installed, there are very few people to work out around the turbines. Indeed, some of the management of the turbines that exist in Australia occurs overseas in the home country of their design.

So, if this legislation is not to create jobs, what is it for? One of the objects of the Renewable Energy (Electricity) Act is 'to reduce emissions of greenhouse gases in the electricity sector'. However, renewable energy is a particularly costly way of doing that. According to the Productivity Commission, the implicit abatement cost of the large-scale renewable energy target is between $37 and $111 per tonne. This is a much higher price than the less than $15 per tonne that was recently achieved through the coalition's Direct Action policy. The Productivity Commission's estimate also assumes that renewable energy has no emissions itself, which is not correct, given that wind turbines, for example, are made of steel and need enormous amounts of concrete to hold them in place. Some estimates say that each megawatt of wind power produced takes around 460 tonnes of steel. Each megawatt of wind power also takes around 870 cubic metres of concrete. Now, let us compare that to something else—natural gas. Natural gas takes 27 cubic metres of concrete for each megawatt of power and 3.3 tonnes of steel for each megawatt. I wonder which one is more environmentally sustainable and friendly? The renewable energy target gets less bang for more buck. That is why I think it is a good thing that this bill reduces the target and exempts more industries from having to purchase renewable energy certificates.

This new law will ensure Australia's emissions-intensive, trade-exposed industries will be fully exempt from the increased costs imposed by the renewable energy target. These costs are imposed on industries like the aluminium industry in Central Queensland. There are two major aluminium refineries near Gladstone that employ almost 2,000 people. When Senator Milne talks about jobs and the aluminium industry, she might want to reflect on the 2,000 people in Central Queensland whose full-time jobs rely on cheap power. If we remove cheap power, they will no longer have jobs. Central Queensland is already doing it tough after a slowdown in the coal mining sector. It does not need the double whammy of pressure on its aluminium industry too. I welcome that this legislation will remove this sword of Damocles that has been hanging over the head of the Gladstone economy.

I have been fortunate enough to attend five hearings of the Senate Select Committee on Wind Turbines. Of course, I will not pre-empt the findings of that committee here today. But I have been to some of these people's homes; I have heard their genuine concerns about the impact of wind turbines. These people are normal, everyday Australians. I do not know if Senator Milne has gone and spoken to some of these people before she dismisses their concerns as ludicrous, but I think she probably should have an obligation to do that. You can go and talk to these people—people like Rikki Nicholson from Cape Bridgewater. He has had to move out of his home. He and his wife have moved out of their home because of the impact of turbines. There is Mr David Mortimer from Lake Bonney in South Australia. His wife has suffered so much that he sold his farm so he could live further away from the wind turbines. And Mr Ron Jelbart, from east of the Macarthur wind farm, has badly disrupted sleep, and his son also suffers similar complaints, including tinnitus, when he visits their farm.

The stories go on and on. Last week we had a couple, Clive and Trina Gare, who are hosts of wind turbines. They have been paid around $1 million by the wind turbine industry. But they say they would never have them again, given the problems they have caused them, particularly in terms of their sleeping. I do not know if wind turbines have caused these complaints. I am not a medical professional. But it does seem coincidental that there are so many people willing to go so far and at great financial cost to move from their homes and disrupt their lives because of the impact they feel has been caused by wind turbines. I certainly believe that there are legitimate questions, particularly around the impact of infrasound and low frequency noise that is generated by wind turbines.

What has concerned me more than the concerns of the community, though, is the dismissive and contemptuous attitude of some in the wind industry. Multiple wind turbine operators have said to the committee that because they comply with all regulations they have no further obligations to the residents that claim to be affected. That is not true. Under the long-established tort of negligence, persons engaged in supplying goods and services have a duty of care to take reasonable actions to prevent foreseeable damage occurring. Some in the wind industry are not being reasonable. A representative from one wind company tabled a cartoon belittling the complaints of affected residents to the Senate committee. A cartoon! Another wind industry staffer has tweeted that those complaining are 'nutters'. This is not the behaviour of an industry that is taking their responsibilities to the wider community seriously.

Given that the wind industry does not seem to be serious about taking their obligations into account, we should be. We should not be giving each wind turbine $500,000 a year through this legislation without then making sure that they are not doing harm to people and causing adverse health impacts. While the wind industry does not seem to believe that it has an obligation to do no harm, I think we do. Until we know more about the impact of wind turbines, particularly the impact of infrasound and low frequency noise, we should have a moratorium on the accreditation of new wind turbines under this legislation. Under division 3 of this legislation, the regulator has the power to accredit new wind turbine operators. That should not occur until we understand the full impact of these things. It should be on our watch that we make sure that we do not do harm to people. We must do more research into this before we go down the path of funding through enormous amounts of government subsidies, or legislation that imposes subsidies, that potentially cause harm.

Joe Ludwig (Queensland, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I was very interested in the contribution by Senator Canavan. If he does believe what he has been saying about wind turbines, then I suspect we will see an amendment from him to that effect in this debate.

Doug Cameron (NSW, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for Human Services) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

From the doormat?

Joe Ludwig (Queensland, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I will not go into that. I do call them that myself every so often, but I do not think they will do anything significant in this area. But can I remain on point. The Renewable Energy (Electricity) Amendment Bill 2015 is a further testament of the Labor Party's commitment to the renewable energy sector and to provide certainty for the industry going into the future. I want to note that this has been a drawn-out process. The Howard government back in 2000 started the process. It was well received then, so it is surprising to me now to hear the contributions the National Party and the Liberals opposite are making.

Sitting suspended from 18:30 to 19 : 30

I am led to believe the National Party, if not the Liberal Party, are crabbing away from their policy position on this. The bill will ultimately reduce the large-scale renewable energy target—LRET—from 41,000 gigawatt-hours by 2020 to 33,300 gigawatt-hours, with this level to be maintained until 2030. It will allow for a full exemption to be provided for electricity used in prescribed emissions-intensive, trade exposed activities so that they do not need to purchase and surrender large-scale generation certificates. It will remove the requirement for two yearly reviews of the operation of the RET scheme and replace it with annual statements by the Clean Energy Regulator on the progress of the RET towards meeting new targets and the impact it is having on household electricity bills. As I have outlined, and the bill will include native forest waste as an eligible renewable energy source.

When it comes to the renewable energy issue more broadly, Labor has strong record in supporting renewable energy. Labor's renewable energy target has been a success not only for the environment but also for jobs and the economy. Under Labor, we saw jobs in the renewable energy sector triple and a huge investment of $18 billion in hydropower plants, wind farms, solar farms and the development of renewable technologies. This industry employs 21,000 people and had been growing well up until the election of—you guessed it—the Abbott government.

Renewable energy and especially solar energy was a particular focus of the previous Bligh Labor government as well. Together with federal Labor policies, the great state of Queensland now leads the nation with almost 33 per cent of Australia's total solar PV capacity. Queensland is also home to the highest number of renewable energy jobs, with more than 6,500 of the 21,000 jobs I mentioned. Again, it is leading the nation. Unfortunately, we saw the previous Newman government attack the successful take-up of solar energy in Queensland with the cutting of the solar feed-in tariff scheme. Fortunately, now we do not have to worry too much about Mr Newman inflicting any more damage to the renewable sector. He went the same way as many before him who made bad decisions.

During Labor's time in office, we saw a drop in Australia's electricity sector emissions of seven per cent and rooftop solar grew from only 7,000 to around 1.2 million. It is an extraordinary and significant increase, which is reducing our reliance on fossil fuels while saving people money at the same time. Globally, investment in renewable energy grew by 16 per cent last year. In one of the largest economies in the world and in one of our biggest trading partners, China, we saw that investment in renewable energy went up by 33 per cent.

In 2013, at the end of the previous Labor government, we saw Australia ranked as No. 4 in the world for being the most attractive place to invest renewable energy in the world. We are now at the 10th spot. We have dropped. Why? It is because this government talks the talks but does not follow through with any of the actions. The statistics reveal that this government is not serious about renewable energy. You had Senator Canavan's extraordinary contribution this evening. One would think that he was arguing against renewable energy at all, but I will leave it to people to make their own judgement. The RET was an important part of Labor's clean energy package and that is why Labor has been fighting against the Abbott government's attacks on renewable energy for the past 18 months.

On the amendments to this legislation, the original version of this scheme was introduced by the Howard government back in 2001 and expanded by Labor in 2009 and 2010. The renewable energy target has enjoyed bipartisanship for more than a decade. That is, until the climate sceptic Mr Abbott was elected and decided to systematically dismantle climate and renewable energy policy in Australia. We know that in September 2009 Mr Abbott told a Liberal Party dinner in Victoria that he thought the science of human caused climate change was 'crap'. Just a few days ago, on 2GB with Alan Jones, Mr Abbott made these extraordinary remarks. I quote the program:

"Well Alan look, I do take your point about the potential health impact of these things," Mr Abbott said.

"When I've been up close to these wind farms, there's no doubt, not only are they visually awful, they make a lot of noise.

"What we did recently in the Senate was reduce, Alan, reduce, capital R-E-D-U-C-E, the number of these things that we are going to get in the future," he said.

"Now I would frankly have liked to have reduced the number a lot more."

The point is that we know the motive of the Prime Minister and his government, because we know they are fundamentally opposed to climate change. They do not believe that they should be doing anything in this area at all, whilst the rest of the world is moving towards the greater use of renewable energy and a greater investment in renewable energy technologies. Why? Because it makes smart business sense. That would mean that this government would also have to make smart business decisions, but I do not think it is capable of doing just that.

Mr Abbott decided to break his promise to the Australian people on the renewable energy target, just like we have seen him break so many other promises since he has been elected. The $600 million commitment for solar roofs in towns and schools was cut down to just $2 million in last year's budget. ARENA, the Australian Renewable Energy Agency, had its funding severely cut after the government failed to abolish it.

The review of the RET, led by a known climate sceptic, which caused uncertainty in the industry, was a shocker by this government. However, even the PM's own review, and even the climate sceptic himself, found that the current renewable energy target of 41,000 gigawatts will put downward pressure on household prices in the medium to long term. The current RET of 41,000 gigawatts is driving investment in Australia's renewable energy industry. The RET is reducing Australia's carbon pollution, and the renewable energy target is creating jobs in Australia.

The review was a political exercise, which ultimately recommended the abolition of the RET, or severely cutting the target. Despite this, the findings spoke for themselves. He found that he could not change the facts. He changed the ending, but that is not surprising when you look at the record of this government and what they sought the reviewer to find. As to the benefits to the economy and our environment, the facts spoke for themselves. They were clear and unequivocal—they create jobs, investment and opportunity. What we have seen here on display by the Abbott government, once again, is the extremism of the Abbott government's agenda. It is not even a purely neo-con, or a traditional centre-right, agenda. Their party seems to have a very confused agenda to an outsider when it comes to environmental policy.

We see them oppose a market-based mechanism for dealing with carbon pollution—a price on carbon that was to be determined by the free market. Instead, their policy—to the extent that you could call it a policy rather than a collection of actions—is quite Stalinist in style. It is central government controlled, hugely expensive and taxpayer funded—the so called Direct Action policy. Even the Greens do not support such a wasteful government funded program. Let me be kind though. It did take them a couple of times to finally support an emissions trading scheme, but at least they got there in the end. Now, we have a policy mechanism in the target that is obviously working—it is creating jobs; it is encouraging development of new technologies; and it is not a burden to the householders of Australia. Those opposite would argue, and continue to argue, the mistruths that renewable energy costs householders. It flies in the face of the facts found even by their own reviewer, all reasons why the government should support the renewable energy target. But, instead, their twisted agenda sees them being dragged kicking and screaming to this outcome. I would have thought that they might have ignored the National Party in this debate, but it seems they have let the National Party off the leash when it comes to renewable energy, particularly wind farms. I suspect that they have been able to garner a leave pass.

Ultimately, I will remind you once again, the outcome will see almost 25 per cent of Australia's energy generation come from renewable sources by 2020. It is a great outcome for the fight against climate change. The survival of this and the work that will be put into this is worthy of note. It is part of a wider set of policies that need to be implemented to see Australia leading the world on the development and generation of renewable energy. What I worry about is that this government is not committed to funding the science and the work that will need to take us into the future of clean energy. From this side of politics, it shows Labor's willingness to negotiate an outcome that is in the interests of the country—not just opposing the government for the sake of opposition.

The Abbott government walked away from more than a decade of bipartisanship on this issue, which was disappointing. If we are going to make a difference in this field, we need bipartisanship. I would encourage the Liberals to ignore the Nats on this one. We have fought the government's attempts to completely get rid of the renewable energy target, and we have outcomes in this bill that will see RET retained for the future. It will see the extension of exemptions for emission-intensive trade-exposed activities such as the aluminium smelting industry. The Clean Energy Council has predicted the new target of 33 gigawatts will drive close to $40.4 billion in investment and create more than 15,000 jobs. This will provide certainty for the industry so that it can start investing again in jobs and development.

Through Labor's negotiation, we achieved: no change to the small-scale solar scheme, which includes rooftop solar, solar panels for small businesses such as nursing homes and all the other small businesses that have invested in this technology; full exemption for emissions-intensive trade industries, which relieves some pressure on those industries that are enduring a downturn and difficult times; and the removal of two-yearly reviews, which provides the long-term certainty the industry so desperately needs to survive and to thrive.

As I mentioned at the beginning of my contribution, Labor will oppose the government's proposal in this bill for the burning of native forests as part of the RET. Burning native forests for energy is neither clean nor renewable. The government's definition of waste in this legislation in relation to native trees is not just woodchips but can include large parts of tree as well as entire trees. I would have thought that the Abbott government would have learned from the Howard government and from the Tasmanian experience. If you allow that to occur, you do not have the whole of the tree being used properly; you end up with the whole of the tree being used for wood waste. The experience there needs to be very carefully considered.

The Abbott government, as in all its dealings with environmental policy, does show its true colours here—just as we saw with its dismantling of Labor's clean energy package, its abolition of the ETS, its attempts at abolishing ARENA, its attempts at abolishing the Clean Energy Finance Corporation, and its attempt at abolishing the renewable energy target. We now see, in this compromise from the government, that it cannot help but to include the provision which allows for the burning of our native forests. Of course, sneaking in this provision, which vandalises our environment and does not protect it, shows who really sit opposite in this debate—climate changes deniers, environmental vandals and those with only the interest of big business in their mind, and not a balanced view of how you could create new jobs and new technology, and support environmental outcomes.

Because of the principles which we hold in the Labor Party, the environment and the jobs of the future, in renewable energy generation and development, will be a part of Australia's future—despite this government, I suspect. This government will find that it will not be able to sustain its unsustainable position in the light of significant advancements, because—as people have also spoken about—renewable energy is here to stay.

Anne Urquhart (Tasmania, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I am very relieved to finally rise today to speak on the Renewable Energy (Electricity) Amendment Bill 2015. It has been a long time coming. Sadly, the government's failure to keep their word means we have landed in a far inferior position than the one that we were in two years ago. The government have held the industry to ransom. While I do not doubt that some on the other side would be happy to watch while the renewables industries die a slow death, Labor cannot accept this. For this reason, we have taken the advice of the industry and agreed to the government's revised target.

The story of the RET under Tony Abbott is an unfortunate one, and one that brings into stark relief the sad reality that we simply cannot trust the government to keep their promises. Before the 2013 election, there was no question about the future of the RET. It enjoyed bipartisan support, and both sides of politics recognised the vital role it could play in transitioning Australia to a low-carbon economy. In fact, before the election the Prime Minister could not have been clearer when he said 'There will be no change to the RET'. There were no disclaimers, no caveats and no mentions of any sort of a 'real 20 per cent'. But, very soon after gaining the keys to the ministerial wing, those opposite had a dramatic about-face. Earnest statements about the importance of renewable energy quickly gave way to mutterings about high electricity prices and possible oversupply. This is despite the fact that these claims simply are not borne out by the evidence or the expert modelling undertaken for the government's own RET review.

Of course, this was undoubtedly the plan from the beginning. It is a plan we have seen play out again and again in all number of policy areas. Clearly the government's pre-election plan was to say whatever it liked before election day, and do whatever it wanted after it had it won the ballot—never mind the fact that the latter bears no resemblance whatsoever to the former. And that is exactly what happened in the case of the renewable energy target. Within months, the government's rock solid-support for this successful—and previously bipartisan—policy evaporated, and the war on renewable energy began in earnest.

Other speakers here and in the other place have clearly laid out the benefits of the RET to the environment, to the economy, for power prices and for regional economies. They have noted the vital importance of the RET in reducing CO2 emissions and in allowing Australia to transition to a low-carbon economy. They have recognised the enormous benefits in terms of job creation in a sector that employed 20,000 Australians in 2014. They have rightly pointed out that not only does the RET not have any impact on the federal budget but it will actually reduce power bills for consumers within five years.

I will not go into any more detail in these areas. Instead, I would like to spend a bit of time discussing one of the most recent and, quite frankly, the most astounding comments we have seen on the RET. It came from the Prime Minister himself. Last week, the Prime Minister dropped the mask and revealed once and for all the Jurassic depths of his opposition to renewable energy—in this case, the wind industry. When grilled by the notorious antiwind campaigner Alan Jones, the Prime Minister did not hold back, boasting about government cuts to the RET and his goal to:

… reduce the growth rate of this particular sector as much as the current Senate would allow us to do.

Not only that, but the leader of this country even went as far as to say that he wished the RET had never been introduced.

This is absolutely astounding stuff. A sitting Prime Minister boasting about setting policy in order to shut down investment. The very same Prime Minister who, despite telling the world that Australia was open for business under his leadership, has presided over a dramatic 90 per cent fall in investment in renewable energy, and the same Prime Minister who admitted he never supported the very policy he took to the people of Australia before the election. So what justification did the Prime Minister give for his verbal trashing of the wind industry? Nothing beyond his own, very subjective belief that wind farms are 'visually awful' and 'noisy'.

Over recent months, I have gathered a reasonable amount of knowledge in this area, as Labor's representative on the Senate Select Committee on Wind Turbines

While it is undoubtedly true that beauty is in the eye of the beholder, I think you would be hard-pressed to find too many people who would choose to spend time next to the belching, toxic smoke of a coal power station rather than a wind turbine.

Personally, I actually find them quite graceful, even majestic. And I say that as someone who has stood directly underneath quite a few wind farms. And, despite what the Prime Minister says, in my experience you could easily hold a conversation at normal volume, right at the base of a wind turbine. Unsurprisingly, it turns out that the Prime Minister has only ever been close to one turbine in his life—one turbine, which he used to damn a whole industry and, in so doing, put thousands of jobs and billions of dollars in future investment at risk. It is unbelievable. But the Prime Minister was not content to voice his own coal-addled opinion on aesthetics and sound. He went further. And in so doing he put himself at odds with the medical and scientific community when he asserted that wind farms have 'potential health impacts'. Despite what the Prime Minister and some others in this place would like you to believe, there is simply no credible evidence to support this. There have been 25 reviews across the globe into this issue and not one has found evidence that wind farms are detrimental to human health.

The National Health and Medical Research Council of Australia, our peak health research body, released a peer-reviewed paper in 2010, which found no robust scientific evidence to link wind turbines with adverse health effects.

Given ongoing concerns from some sections of the community, in 2012 the NHMRC convened a Wind Farms and Human Health Reference Group, released a draft information paper and commissioned Adelaide university to undertake a review of scientific literature on the health effects of wind farms, which came to similar conclusions as those in the 2010 paper. The most recent NHMRC statement entitled 'Evidence on wind farms and human health', states:

There is no direct evidence that exposure to wind farm noise affects physical or mental health.

Similarly, the Australian Medical Association position paper on the issue, states:

The available Australian and international evidence does not support the view that the infrasound or low frequency sound generated by wind farms, as they are currently regulated in Australia, causes adverse health effects on populations residing in their vicinity. The infrasound and low frequency sound generated by modern wind farms in Australia is well below the level where known health effects occur, and there is no accepted physiological mechanism where sub-audible infrasound could cause health effects.

Last year, Canada's national health body, Health Canada, undertook the largest ever epidemiological study of wind farms. The study incorporated over 1,200 households, living varying distances from wind turbines, some as close as 500 metres away. This $2.1 million study included a peer-reviewed methodology, medical expertise, self-reporting and objective health measures including hair cortisol, blood pressure and heart rates, and 4,000 hours of acoustic data. It, too, found no link between wind farms and human health.

In fact, there is not a peak medical organisation, national health regulator and/or national acoustics body in the world that holds the position that wind farms can damage your health, despite wind farms being in operation for four decades globally. And this is borne out by real-world experience.

During a recent hearing of the Senate Select Committee on Wind Turbines, in Melbourne, the world's largest turbine manufacturer Vestas testified that, of their service and operations workforce of 5,500 people across the globe, not one complaint had been made about the health impacts of wind farms. Despite spending eight hours a day, day in and day out, month after month, working in or around wind turbines, not one person complained of health problems. And yet our Prime Minister seems to think that he knows better. It is truly astounding that the leader of this country would go out in public and spout such unsubstantiated nonsense. It is even more astounding that the Prime Minister was so willing to dispense with the facts in order to further his vicious war on renewable energy.

The Prime Minister's comments are not only ignorant but also extremely reckless. There is a growing body of credible research which shows that exposure to anti-wind-turbine messages can have a significant impact on people's perceptions of the impacts of wind farms on their health. The Prime Minister's words will only serve to increase anxiety in regional communities and will create uncertainty in an industry that offers billions of dollars of investment and thousands of jobs.

I will finish soon, because we need to salvage the message that this government has made of the renewable energy industry. And we need to do it urgently.

In my home state of Tasmania, in my home region on the north-west and west coast, we could have 200 workers on the ground right now building the proposed wind farm at Granville Harbour. The wind farm has secured all the necessary approvals and even had investor interest, until the government broke its promise that there would be no changes to the RET.

Two hundred jobs might not sound like a lot in the Prime Minister's northern Sydney electorate, but I can guarantee that it will mean a lot to the people of north-west and west Tasmania. I would urge all senators in this place to think of the thousands of regional jobs that will be created only when this legislation is passed and of the thousands of potential jobs that may never come to be if it is not.

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

It is with a sense of dismay that I rise tonight to speak on this bill, the Renewable Energy (Electricity) Amendment Bill 2015, because this debate did not need to occur. What we are seeing here is the expression of the Abbott government's opinion that Australia is running the risk, out to the year 2020, of having too much renewable energy, too much clean energy on our network and that that is an enormous problem that needs to be dealt with by bringing forward legislation.

We know for an absolute fact, because they told us—they do not even try to hide it any more; for a little while they did, but now they have got so drunk on whatever it is they are up to in their party room that they just say it flat out—that they wanted to completely abolish the renewable energy target, just like they wanted to knock over the Clean Energy Finance Corporation and abolish ARENA and any of the mainstays of this industry in getting it on its feet so that it can employ people, drive down greenhouse gas emissions and set us up for the electricity generation industry of the future. The Abbott government has been absolutely, almost forensically, determined to wipe it out. That is what brings us to this debate tonight.

Can you imagine people in future times looking back on this debate to discover a government doing everything in its power to prevent us from an oversupply of clean energy when the rest of the world is doing the opposite—albeit in fits and starts because there are people like Prime Minister Tony Abbott in all those other countries as well. In Saudi Arabia, in Canada and in other places; in the United States, various Tea Party operatives in the pay of fossil fuel industries: such people are scattered throughout the industrialised world. But imagine looking back in the Australian context and realising that the government had set out to prevent us from having too much clean energy. It is absolutely unbelievable. Trying to bankrupt clean energy companies and throw people out of work shows not simply indifference but active hostility to renewable energy.

What it amounts to, though, when you try and work out exactly what is going on here, is that the Australian electricity network is dramatically overbuilt. Apparently, we have built 9,000 megawatts or nine gigawatts of capacity that this country does not need. Basically, we have built too many generators, based on uncritical hallucinations about future energy demand—that it was just going to keep growing and growing; that energy efficiency would never play a part; that home solar would never play any kind of part; that, at a household level, people would not start getting serious about doing their bit. But that is all happening. It was thought that we would simply continue to grow forever, so we have this extraordinary overcapacity.

In WA, it amounts to an estimated $1 billion worth of generators that we do not need, with more than $300 million spent on resurrecting the old, polluting Muja coal fired power station just outside of Collie. You might as well have just shovelled 300 million bucks into the boiler and torched it. This is under the same Barnett government that, while it is not entirely responsible—because some of this stuff has a fairly long lead time—has presided over the destruction of the state's finances, with the loss of its triple A credit rating. They are now crying poor. They have abandoned public transport projects and all sorts of other projects because the state's finances are in ruins, having spent more than $1 billion on electricity generators that we do not need.

This is where we start to get a bit of a hint about what the Abbott government is up to. What exactly do we think is the motivation of the Abbott government in exercising such forensic hostility in trying to wipe out this industry? If you go looking for motive, you could be forgiven for not looking any further than Mr Maurice Newman, who is the Chairman of the Prime Minister's Business Advisory Council. This is not some nut-case blogger ranting on the Infowars website; this is the guy who runs the Prime Minister's Business Advisory Council. He has said:

This is not about facts or logic. It's about a new world order under the control of the UN.

He thinks it is effectively about some kind of communist de-industrialisation of Western powers as part of some strange, manifest agenda that is never quite spelt out. 'It's about a new world order under the control of the United Nations.' This is somebody whose advice the Prime Minister take seriously. But I think we need to look a bit further than Mr Newman.

I think we could take Mr Abbott's comments to Alan Jones on the radio the other day at face value. For obvious reasons, other senators have also quoted those comments in this debate. He said:

What we did recently in the Senate was reduce, Alan, reduce, capital R-E-D-U-C-E—

I guess he spelt it out. I did not hear the interview myself; I could not bear it—

we reduced the number of these things that we're going to get in the future. Now, I would frankly have liked to have reduced the number a lot more—

he is talking about wind installations. And then Alan pats him on the head, saying:

Good—well, you're the boss.

Mr Abbott continued:

But we got the best deal we could out of the Senate. And if we hadn't had a deal, Alan, we would have been stuck with even more of these things.

The renewable energy industry, trying to negotiate in good faith with these people to get a better outcome, are getting certainty; they are getting certainty—and this is why I think it has been a mistake to try and bargain for a reduction in the renewable energy target—that the government is trying to wipe them out. The government is trying to put them out of business.

In the Western Australian context, that effectively means the loss of about 1,000 jobs, and I will put some figures to you now about how we arrived at that number. This government has effectively, through their renewable energy policies and in conjunction with their state Liberal and National colleagues, destroyed 1,000 jobs in Western Australia: a slow clap for you all! From a peak of under 1,500 jobs in solar and 360 in wind, we have fallen to around 730 in solar and 50 in wind in 2013-14. You destroyed 1,000 jobs in an industry that we urgently need to get on its feet because of the employment potential of getting the local manufacturing sector up and running. In WA, with the end of the mining-construction boom and the settling into the operations phase, people are leaving northern towns in droves and they are leaving regional areas, and sections of the Western Australian economy are beginning to cave in. You would think that this government that prides itself on its economic credentials would be doing everything that it can to support new industries of the future. I do not know what the national figures are; others senators will speak to those. But you have destroyed 1,000 jobs in Western Australia. Congratulations!

The Climate Council has shown that, over the last year, global employment in renewables grew by 13 per cent and, in Australia, renewable energy jobs fell by roughly the same amount. The International Energy Agency reports that renewable energy continues to rank as 'the fastest growing power source'; yet, in 2014, investment in Australia fell by 35 per cent overall and 88 per cent in large-scale projects.

So, this is not just rhetoric, a kind of unhinged rhetoric, from people like Mr Maurice Newman. This is actually deadly serious. This is industry policy playing out. This is very large donors in the oil, gas and coal industries who bankrolled the government into office and basically bought the executive of a major political party now carrying out their agenda—and it is sketched out in reasonable detail in the IPA's hit list of 100 things they would like to see done to the country—almost forensically and destroying an industry competitor. This is not because renewable energy is a failure, not because it is too expensive and not because it does not work. It is because it works too well—not just overseas, but right here in Australia. WA is the second highest greenhouse polluter per capita after the Northern Territory, and, thanks to the Barnett government, when we abolished the state-based renewable energy target from 2011-12 greenhouse gas emissions in Western Australia are set to double. This is over a period of time when Mr Hunt thinks he can waive his hand magically and somehow see us be brought into line with out international commitments.

In 2011 the state government also scrapped the feed-in tariff scheme for homeowners who installed solar panels. We just produced, at home, our second annual iteration of the solar postcodes report, which maps something a little bit unusual—something that is a bit counterintuitive—for Western Australia. It is that Western Australian households, with other families from around the country, want to do the right thing. They want to do the right thing for environmental reasons, but, significantly, for cost reasons as well. I guess the myth, at least from the Liberal-National side of the chamber, is that clean energy and home-installed power stations—rooftop PV—is a plaything of the wealthy. But when you look at the numbers for the families and the households in Western Australia that are installing solar PV it is inversely correlated with the median wealth of the postcode. It is low income and outer-metropolitan suburbs that are doing their bit, and it is the government that has actually become the block. It is not simply indifference at work here. It is hostility. And we know why. It is because renewable energy is competing a little bit too well with the people who helped put you into office. We are talking about 1,080 jobs in WA alone.

Around the country the writing is on the wall. It is happening around the world as well, but we have seen some pretty vivid examples here in Australia in the last little while. Coal is on its way out. It is not that it is good for humanity. Go to Morwell in the middle of the fire—you could not breathe the air—and tell people how good coal is for humanity. The Greens have gone to the Victorian, Queensland and New South Wales state elections talking about and proposing a structured, phased closure of coal power that keeps the workforce engaged and employed through staged rehabilitation of mine sites, while you can start training people and working for a transition. There is no reason at all why the sites of the coalmines and the big generators in Australia, whether it be in the Hunter, in the Latrobe or in Collie in Western Australia, cannot be the sites of the clean energy technologies of the future, because no-one in their right mind is going to walk away from billions of dollars worth of sunk costs in transmission infrastructure in each of those three places. This is where we can be generating the renewable jobs of the future. But the government has its back turned, not through—as far as I can tell—any kind of strategic assessment of where energy reform in this country needs to go, but through simple, blind pigheadedness and refusal to admit that the world has changed.

Coalmines are closing anyway. In the last month and a half we have seen Anglesea close in Victoria and Alinta's Leigh Creek plants close in South Australia. Before that, it was Redbank, in New South Wales. Who is it going to be next? Maybe it will be Hazelwood. If you do not have a transition plan for the workforce they are thrown on the discard pile. Why is it that we are the only people talking about a structured transition for these workforces, rather than abandoning them to the inevitability that the industry is on its way out—not because of government policy, but despite it? They are being outcompeted by electricity generators that need no fuel. Once the capital is installed they run for virtually nothing. That is the game changer that you appear to have failed to understand. That is why we stand here tonight debating the destruction or the attempted sabotage of the clean energy sector—not through any kind of mysterious ideology, but, I think, through the hardheaded business pragmatism of the dying industries of coal and those in the gas industry who think they are some kind of viable replacement because they are slightly less bad than coal.

Who gets to be collateral damage along the way? It is the native forest ecosystems of this country. This is a plan that will increase logging in out native forest estate. This is something that I speak about from direct experience in Western Australia, having been involved in the very late stages of the campaign to get the chainsaws, the bulldozers and the scrub rollers out of the old-growth forests in the south-west of Western Australia. Most Western Australians thought that was case closed. And good on the Gallop government, with the support of the Greens at the time in 2001, for actually bringing an end to very large-scale clear-felling in the old-growth forest estate in the karri forest and in the jarrah forest. Most Western Australians figured that was case closed and that the job was done. They walked away and they had a rest. People had been working on that campaign for 30 years, and they went off and did other stuff. In the meantime, the destruction of our native forest continued in smaller pockets and in areas arguably not considered technically old growth, because they might have been logged by a handsaw 60 years ago. The destruction continued of the forest ecosystems that support the wildlife, support the rainfall patterns and ultimately support the biodiversity that supports us and supports our economy. And this area in Western Australia we are speaking of is one of just 31 global biodiversity hot spots. The south-west forests of Western Australia are like nowhere else in the world, and we are seeing localised extinction cascades already. It is predicted that at current rates of habitat loss we will see Carnaby's Cockatoo become extinct by 2020. As it is in Western Australia, the current forest management plan will see the rate of logging increase—not decrease, but increase—into these dying markets in these customer countries that just do not want our woodchips any more, to an area equivalent to 10,000 Subiaco Ovals every year and an impact of around 200 square kilometres of native forest to be hit.

No wonder people are establishing blockade camps. People are mobilising and getting organised again to create some kind of defence against the insanity of industrialised logging. And just as we start to get to the point where we can have an intelligent conversation about a mature transition plan—there is that phrase again—to a plantation logging estate, what comes along but a proposal to feed native forest logs into incinerators. This is a perverse redefinition of renewable energy that has fooled absolutely nobody. This is nothing to do with forest waste, unless you are happy with the concept of 10 per cent of mature, old karri forest being knocked over and sent off for sawlog, and the other 90 per cent of those forest coupes being fed into chip-mills, pulped and burnt. Do you really consider 90 per cent to be waste?

The forest movement and the WA Forest Alliance—and I want to acknowledge their extraordinarily longstanding commitment, and that of their allies, the local people in the South West towns, to the defence of the native forests of the South West of WA—have recorded trees in excess of 300 years old. Trees older than the foundation of the city of Perth are being fed into chip-mills as waste and pulped. That is what we are dealing with. Trees that you cannot get your arms around—trees that five or six or seven people could not encircle—are being classified as waste, chipped and burned. What kind of government brings forward that proposal and perversely describes it as renewable energy? This has nothing to do with waste—at least not in the sense that you mean it; it is certainly wasteful in another sense.

Given that that is the package on the table, who in their right minds would support the Abbott government in this mad endeavour to destroy the clean energy sector just as it is starting to find its feet, and to sign off on the destruction of the native forests—not just those in the South West corner that I am particularly attached to, but the wild forests of East Gippsland, the rainforests of Tasmania, and the tall forests of New South Wales—who would throw the government that lifeline? Who indeed? Enter the Australian Labor Party. After listening to some of the speeches that ALP senators have delivered tonight—heartfelt, and no doubt sincere—you could be forgiven for thinking that the ALP was going to vote against this bill. But you are not; you are going to vote for it. You have thrown Prime Minister Tony Abbott a lifeline.

Having described at some length what is at stake, and the consequences, I can understand that, for a party that did everything it could to prevent the Clean Energy Act from coming into existence, and from a Prime Minister who said he wished that the Renewable Energy Target had never been legislated for, they have put their cards pretty clearly on the table—they are ambiguous and confused and pretty messed up on all sorts of other things, but they are crystal clear on the subject of what they think of the clean energy sector. But what on earth has got into the Labor Party that it would throw the government this lifeline? I have not heard that from any of the Labor senators who have chosen to speak to this bill.

We will be opposing this bill. When it gets to the committee stage, we will see what kinds of amendments are brought forward; I gather there is all sorts of churn, and that the amendments are still being frantically hacked. Why don't you adjourn this debate, take a very deep breath, and think about—not future generations, because it has become very apparent that you could not care less, but what about the present generation of young people—people who are coming through: kids of age five or six. Try and think about how they will feel in the 2050s and 2060s and 2070s, when they are our age—it is not that far away—if they pick up the transcripts from tonight's Hansard and read about the time that the Australian government, with the support of the opposition, legislated against the possibility of installing too much clean energy.

There is still time for a rethink. And I really hope, for the sake of the young people in all of our lives and the young people in the lives of those who might be following this debate from outside, that there is a rethink—that we come to our senses collectively as a legislature, and do what is demanded of us; that we move forward with the transition, that we do not dig our heels in and try and cling to a past that we have well and truly outlived. It is time to move on. Protecting and extending the Renewable Energy Target and guaranteeing the expansion of this industry and the jobs that it can provide—that is our job. That is what we should be doing in here—not clinging onto the technologies of the past that have brought us such risk; such extraordinary present-day and near-future risk.

David Fawcett (SA, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise to make a few remarks on this topic. One of the confounds in all the discussion on this theory is that, somehow, the free energy that comes from renewables is going to make life better for people, in terms of cheaper energy and more jobs. One of the things that interests me is looking at the question around jobs, and I look at the King Juan Carlos University in Spain, who did a study on the job outcomes of their focus on renewable energy—which were that for every job that was created in the renewable space on a sustainable basis, some 2½ jobs of traditional infrastructure and industries were destroyed. And so, whilst there were jobs created during the construction phase, long-term there was a net loss in jobs in Spain.

We also see the other confound in the argument that has just been put forward around the issue of energy pricing. In my home state of South Australia, we have the nation's largest percentage of renewable energy, and yet we also have the nation's highest power prices. One of the reasons that I think we should be concerned about the drive to continuously increase renewable energy is that we need affordable power pricing to keep industries going which employ people. Renewable energy at this stage, whether we are talking wind or solar, cannot provide baseload power and so, even where we see renewable energy providing an increasing percentage of baseload power, we still have to keep in reserve, if you like, the ability to provide baseload power from either coal or gas—in the case of South Australia—which means that as they lose market share to the taxpayer-subsidised renewable sector, their costs—which they have to amortise across the ability to maintain their potential to provide 100 per cent baseload power—increase continuously per unit of power that they are able to sell. And so we get to this perverse situation, where one day we may end up having to subsidise people who are burning fossil fuels in order to enable them to continue to provide that assurance of baseload power, because the renewable sector cannot. And so, whilst it is appealing at one level to hear the debate that endless amounts of sun means endless amounts of free energy, the reality right now is that for South Australia, increasing amounts for renewables—which on the one hand looks very attractive; but on the other hand we also have the highest power costs in the nation—has a detrimental impact on the ability of industry to still function, to compete in a global environment, and to employ Australians, and means that we see increasing pressure on the non-renewable sector, which is still required to provide that backup of the potential of providing 100 per cent of our baseload power.

So whilst over time we have seen governments of both persuasions invest in renewable energy—and I recall the coalition investing in things like solar near Whyalla in South Australia and geothermal in northern South Australia—the reality is that large-scale subsidy of renewable power has not delivered the nirvana that we are hoping for. This decision to look at reducing the target is an appropriate balance of saying: let's continue some investment in renewables, but let's also recognise that an unrestrained increase in those targets could well lead, as we have seen, to increasing pricing, which makes it more difficult for communities to continue to operate industries and to employ people, which sustains the very economy that we are hoping to be the basis of Australia's future in terms of innovation, manufacturing and jobs. For that reason I support the bill brought forward by the government.

Janet Rice (Victoria, Australian Greens) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise to speak on the Renewable Energy (Electricity) Amendment Bill 2015. Right across the country a shift is happening. Communities are ditching the old, destructive, polluting industry of the past and embracing the new, clean, innovative ways of the future. For the big polluters the future is bleak. For the rest the future is exciting, but now we are facing a choice: the old way or the new way. This deal, to reduce the renewable energy target and to include the burning of native forests for electricity within the target, is well and truly a backward step. The transition away from logging these centuries-old native forests is well underway. Logging of native forests is not where the jobs of the future are for these communities.

I came into this parliament with some clear aims: to strive for happiness and health for humanity; to protect our land, water and air; and to work so that the incredible diversity of life that we share this planet with can be protected and can thrive and flourish. Travelling through my home state of Victoria, I have met countless people who share my aims. Among them are community-minded business people who are leading the way in the businesses of the future, employing local people, respecting the environment and giving people from around the world the chance to experience our unique environment. People like Dave Whyte in East Gippsland. Dave runs Wilderness Coast Adventures, which takes people on cycling tours through some of the spectacular natural landscapes of East Gippsland. But his business relies on the lure of cycling routes surrounded by pristine wilderness. Dave says they experience the occasional logging coupe now but would not want to see more. People want to experience the natural beauty of the area and breathe in the fresh air. No-one wants to go for a ride through a freshly logged logging coupe or through the matchsticks of a regrowth forest.

Then you have farmer and tourist operator Ken Deacon, who has lived in Victoria's Rubicon Valley for over 40 years. Ken runs horse and bike riding tours through the forests in the Royston and Rubicon valleys, but he is struggling to cope with the level of logging. There are fewer and fewer areas of unlogged forest for his rides to travel through, and it is becoming increasingly difficult for his business to survive.

Dave and Ken's stories reflect the potential for these communities. This potential is lost when we destroy our native forest, which is what this deal seeks to do. The same scenario is playing out around the country. Over the past 40 years native forest logging has failed to protect our environment and failed to protect jobs. We have reached the point where industrial logging in public forests has had its day. The industry is looking for a future, and that future is in plantations. The most backward thing we could do would be to hold up this transition; yet this deal, to include the burning of our native forests for electricity under the renewable energy target, does exactly the opposite. It is holding up an inevitable transition. The delay is at the expense of taxpayers, at the expense of everything that science tells us about the values of our native forests, and at the expense of communities like those of East Gippsland, south-eastern and northern New South Wales, south-west Western Australia and throughout Tasmania. And it does so while doing the opposite of the intention of the renewable energy target.

Let's be clear: burning wood from native forests for energy is not clean energy. It does not reduce pollution. In fact it releases carbon into the atmosphere, speeding up climate change. This move would prop up and entrench an industry that is destroying our native forests. It is a desperate act from a government that is ignoring climate science in favour of their big business, flat-earther mates.

Climate change is real. It is happening, and if we do not take serious action to dramatically, drastically and urgently reduce our carbon pollution, the devastation it will cause is unthinkable. Winding back our commitment to clean energy by reducing our renewable energy target completely denies this reality. Arguing that we need a reduction because the target now represents more than 20 per cent of our energy use is a wilful denial of the whole purpose of the target. Achieving a greater proportion of our energy through clean energy sooner rather than later is cause to celebrate. It gives us the ability to take the next step of increasing the target to closer to the aim of 100 per cent renewable energy that we know we must achieve as soon as possible to give humanity and the planet the best chance of a healthy future.

Of course, by including burning wood from native forests for energy, it is worse than merely reducing the target to 33,000 gigawatt hours. Making the burning of wood from native forests for energy eligible for renewable energy certificates attacks the production of renewable energy on multiple fronts. Firstly, it reduces the number of certificates available for truly clean energy sources like wind and solar. Critically, it destroys the integrity—the clean, green brand—of renewable energy. Who wants to buy renewable energy when it has come from the logging of our precious native forests and has destroyed the homes of animals and birds like koalas, spotted quolls, swift parrots and powerful owls? But it gets worse. Climate scientists and campaigners alike know that when it comes to forests, the critical action to take when it comes to tackling climate change is to protect them—not to log them, but to let them grow old to keep soaking up and storing carbon, cleaning up our polluted atmosphere.

Minister Greg Hunt has a report on his desk that he so far has refused to release that shows that, if the forests of the Central Highlands of Victoria in the Great Forest National Park were protected rather than clear-felled, it would be the equivalent of stopping the pollution of 3.2 million tonnes of carbon every year and it would be worth at least $40 million per year to the Victorian government. You compare that with the massive subsidies, the loss of at least $5 million a year, for continuing to log the forests of East Gippsland. In stark contrast, allowing wood from native forests to be burnt for energy is going to drive the ongoing logging of our precious forests and the destruction of these important carbon stores.

We know that the Abbott government is not happy with this deal on the renewable energy target. The Prime Minister said just last week that he thought it an imperfect deal, and referring to the genuinely clean energy source of wind, he said, 'I frankly would have liked to have reduced the number a lot more.' So what is the government trying to get out of this deal? In addition to reducing the amount of clean energy Australians can benefit from, the government has tried for one big notch on their environment-destroying belt. Like a rundown car, the government wants to jump-start the native forest logging industry so that it can just go a few more kilometres. It might be dirtier and it might cost more to run, and everyone else has moved on to the next model, but the government is determined to stick to its 1950's ideology and prop up the industries of the past.

We have heard time and time again that this is just wood waste, but it takes only a quick look to realise that this is not waste at all. If it were only about sawmill waste then the regulations would only be about sawmill waste. If it were only about lower value wood products that cannot be sold elsewhere, there would not be an entire category in the regulations where 100 per cent of the logging coupe can be fed into the burners. If it were only about cleaning up tree heads and branches, then that would be what the regulations specified as well. If you go up to a logging coupe, you will see truck after truck with whole logs, but you have never and will never see a truck carrying timber offcuts, bark and branches that would otherwise be discarded—never. Why? Because it is simply not worth it to load it onto the truck and to pay the costs involved in transporting bark and branches. Any promises that biomass will be limited to otherwise discarded wood are simply nonsense, and this is the crux of the issue. What the government wants to burn is not wood waste at all. You can bet your bottom dollar that it will result in the destruction of whole logs and logs that could be sawn and that it will increase the logging of our native forests. It will send communities like East Gippsland backwards. So why does the government feel the need to prop up the industry?

Native forest logging in Australia over the last 40 years has been dominated by the production of large volumes of low-value woodchips. We must be absolutely clear what this means, what industrial-scale clear-felling looks like. We have a situation where one logging coupe is an area of forest the size of Melbourne's Royal Botanic Gardens, or larger, and it is totally destroyed. A few isolated habitat trees are left, but otherwise it is a moonscape. Only 10 to 20 per cent of the trees felled are cut into timber, cut into logs that are considered suitable as sawlogs. The other 80 to 90 per cent are classified as residual logs and are sent off to the chipper. The area is then burnt and reseeded, mostly with eucalypts, losing the vital diversity that forest animals rely on, and most of the animals that lived in this forest have died. Without the woodchipping industry, there would have been much less of our native forests destroyed, and more of the logs removed would have been used efficiently for sawn timber.

The industry is moving past the need for woodchipping. Sawmills are working out that it is actually possible to use smaller logs, younger logs, less perfect logs to create sawn timber. But, ridiculously, that is not the direction the industry has been pushed in. These logs do not even have a chance to be sawn. They have gone straight off to the chipper because of large contracts to export these woodchips overseas. But things have changed. Eucalypt plantations in Australia and overseas now produce better quality woodchips for paper pulp and do not rely on the clear-felling of precious native forests. They are certified under the internationally recognised certification system of the Forest Stewardship Council.

The market for the low-quality forest-destroying woodchips from Australia has crashed. The inclusion of wood from native forests in the renewable energy target is aiming to find a new market for these 80 to 90 per cent of logs that are removed from native forests, the so-called residual logs now so-called waste. So the industry is looking for a new market to justify the ongoing subsidised logging, and this new market is energy. It is aiming to turn hundreds of thousands of trees every year into pallets to be exported and burnt overseas. It is aiming at supporting the establishment of energy generation here and subsidising the establishment of such energy generation. I repeat: this is not about waste. Let that be absolutely clear. If it were about the tree branches, the bark, the tops of trees, then the legislation would exclude whole logs. It does not.

It is no surprise then that some of our biggest polluters are lining up to cash in on this deal. Indeed, one of our filthiest power stations, Hazelwood, in the Latrobe Valley, already has accreditation to use wood waste under the renewable energy target. The Prime Minister describes wind turbines as 'visually awful'. I would invite him to visit the Hazelwood coalmine, which burned for 45 days and spread ash over the entire region. Why would Hazelwood go to the trouble of getting accreditation if they were not planning to burn wood from native forests? They are waiting to pounce. They know the Abbott government has got their backs. They are ready for rules to change so that all the native forests in Gippsland and East Gippsland become classified as wood waste.

Across the country, in Western Australia, the proposed Manjimup power station could destroy the karri forest. So not only will genuine clean energy sources like solar lose out from the smaller target, but their biggest rivals—the big, old, hulking coal fired power plants pumping out dirty power—will start getting renewable energy certificates. The age of coal is over. Just as this backwards government is trying to prolong the transition from old growth to plantation logging, this legislation will be holding up the switch from these old dirty, coal plants to the clean energy of the future.

There is a different future for the timber industry, as there is for the renewables industry, and in fact it is much further advanced. We do not need industrial-scale clear-fell logging creating 'waste' in order to produce sawn timber. In fact, we already do not rely on it: 85 per cent of the wood products that we produce in Australia come from plantations, and this percentage is increasing. Plantations are much more efficient in their production of timber and they do not rely on the destruction of our precious native forests. The plantation sector looks on the native forest sector with bemusement. They scratch their heads and wonder why the government keeps on propping it up, subsidising it, when they are getting on with the business of creating high-quality wood products without any fuss, without huge community debate, without the environmental destruction. They do produce genuine renewable energy from their waste, because they are burning genuine waste—sawdust and sawmill offcuts—that they have grown themselves over the past 20 to 30 years. These plantation products are already eligible for renewable energy certificates, and we have absolutely no argument with them.

I want to specifically address the issue of production of sawn timber from eucalypt plantations, because that is what the purported justification for the ongoing logging of our forests comes down to in the end. Whenever the industry talks about logging, they do not show the devastation of clear-fell logging or the massive mountains of woodchips waiting to be exported from Eden or Burnie. They do not even show the pallets and tomato stakes—the low value products that the bulk of sawn timber from our native forests gets turned into. They show lovely polished floorboards, staircases, window frames and dining room tables. I would like to share with people that the largest eucalypt sawmill in the world, producing the largest volumes of desirable sawn timber, destined for high-value products like floorboards, staircases, window frames and dining room tables, is in Uruguay; it is producing wood from plantations of Australian 'flooded gum' that are only 20 years old. This mill and the whole industry have solved the problems of sawing young green wood that our industry has not been interested in solving, whilst they have access to wood from native forest. We can create sawn timber products from local eucalypt plantations; CSIRO researchers have outlined how it can be done. If and when we decide to stop the devastation of our native forests, the sawn timber industry will change and work out how it can be done here too, and we will be able to enjoy the beauty of wood products without the beast of forest devastation. But this happy outcome is not going to occur under this deal.

This deal comes down to a choice: who do we want to prosper? Is it the big polluters who are set in their old ways of destroying our most precious natural assets at the taxpayers' expense? Or is it the hard-working small business owners like Dave Whyte and Ken Deacon? Is it the magnificent forests that provide us with so many benefits? Is it the clean energy innovators who are facilitating the shift to the economy of the future? I know who I side with. We must side with the community; we must not let the Renewable Energy Target to be tainted with the burning of our community's precious native forests.

Lee Rhiannon (NSW, Australian Greens) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

This bill, known by many as the 'dead koala power bill', should not pass. What the government calls the Renewable Energy (Electricity) Amendment Bill is shameful. This is a saga that highlights how far the Abbot government will go to deliver for its corporate constituency. In this case, the Liberal-National corporate constituency is the fossil fuel industry and those companies that want to continue logging native forests.

This bill trashes two things Australians love dearly: renewable energy and native forests, home to so much of our unique wildlife. The locals of south-east New South Wales tell me that they are not feeling much love at the moment. They are not feeling much love because of their deep concern about what this bill, if passed, will do to the forests and their pleasure at seeing more solar panels go up on homes and businesses in their area. The apt title of 'dead koala power bill' comes from south-east New South Wales and it resonates very deeply with them, as this bill would breathe new life into the now near-defunct Eden woodchip mill. This mill was just about to close; South East Fibre Exports had announced that its mill would no longer purchase timber from East Gippsland state forests. The general manager nominated international market pressures as the reasons. What he is referring to—and it is what Senator Rice has just gone into great detail about—is the poor woodchip prices and the contracting markets for native forest woodchips.

There is a huge change going on in the industry. As Senator Rice also set out, the shift is to plantations. That is where the transition should be taking the industry. What is happening here tonight is a push to open up the burning of our native forests. South East Fibre and its Japanese owners, Nippon, would be cheering because their hope of revival looks like being delivered, and that is an enormous setback. Burning native forests in the name of RET opens the door to new and more destructive ways to make a profit from Australia's native forests. It is an issue of great concern. The Eden woodchip mill is owned by Japan's biggest paper manufacturer, and they could well be the first cab off the rank with a 5.5megawatt wood fired power station. The destruction that will then roll on in south-east New South Wales and north-east Victoria will be immense—the loss of precious habitat for the powerful owl, for koalas, for quolls should not be tolerated

But it needs to be recognised that that destruction goes hand in hand with this legislation that is before us.

We can clearly see abuse of the RET system with this wood fired power station at Eden because it can only be viable with renewable energy subsidies. Again, as other speakers from the Greens have set out, the whole concept is founded on this misleading idea of so-called waste from the forest, misunderstanding the complexity of forest ecosystems and how much of that waste is actually part of the carbon cycle and nitrogen cycle and how the forest seeds itself and feeds animals. A living tree growing in a forest in New South Wales, sadly, can now be classified as waste.

I warmly congratulate the many activists, campaigners and local residents who have taken up this issue because they know what it will mean not just for their local area but for all of us. To lose these forests, for them to be damaged, as they surely will be, should not be tolerated. I extend special congratulations to the South East Region Conservation Alliance, which brings together CHIPSTOP, the Bega Environment Network, ChipBusters, the Coastwatchers Association, the Colong Foundation for Wilderness, Friends of Durras, the Gulaga (Mt Dromedary) Protection Group, the far south coast branch of the National Parks Association of New South Wales and South East Forest Rescue. These organisations have put decades into this and have been able to protect much of the forest. Again, they can see what a setback this would be.

I will share with you some of the comments from these people that are most relevant to our debate tonight. Harriett Swift, a spokesperson for CHIPSTOP said:

We know that burning trees for power production is far from renewable and that in many cases emissions from burning trees are more intensive than burning coal … Biomass power will also produce a toxic cocktail of emissions that are harmful to the health of nearby communities.

Ms Swift said that:

… big old trees that would provide habitat for many native species are already scarce. Species of trees that are currently not logged will now be permitted for burning, including trees supporting koalas, black cockatoos and a multitude of threatened and endangered wildlife species.

I have been fortunate to have toured many of these forests with Ms Swift and many of the other people working in this area. I have been fortunate to see these species. These are beautiful forests. They need to regenerate in many areas. Many of them are stunning as they are. But none of them should be touched. None of them should be under threat from this bill.

Ms Heather Kenway, a spokesperson for SERCA, has said:

This government has no interest in preserving the precious little left of our intact native forests for wildlife, water, tourism and future generations … Will they wake up, like the Easter Islanders, only when the last tree falls? We need to leave NSW native forests in the ground to regrow and recover, switch to plantations for our timber needs, and formulate an energy plan for NSW that does not include 'Dead Koala Power’.

Noel Plumb from ChipBusters and Frances Pike from Nativesrule have said: 'Certification as clean energy under the RET will give the industry a public taxpayer subsidy while reducing funding support for genuine clean energy like wind and solar, a triple whammy as taxpayers subsidise forest destruction and the extinction of koalas and undermine renewable energy supplies.' They are important comments that I urge senators to consider and reflect on carefully.

I have just a few comments to make about the renewable energy target. As should be clear, wood waste from native forests should have no part in the RET. It was, in fact, removed as an eligible energy source in 2011. For four years the door was closed on burning forests in the name of renewable energy, and the RET went from strength to strength. As we know, it has been very successful in reducing emissions. I draw people's attention to the speeches of Senator Christine Milne and Senator Larissa Waters, as they have set this out in detail.

The federal government, however, have tried to blame rising electricity prices on the RET. This is where we start to get an insight into the corporate constituency of the government and what is going on here. Electricity prices doubled in the last six years, but the RET played very little part in that. The resulting array of interests stacked against the RET are considerable. We see this with electricity utilities, coal companies and forestry interests. What is going on here? Electricity prices have gone up. We have these companies complaining and obviously intensely lobbying the government. The Liberals and Nationals are getting an earful from these companies that are concerned about how this is all playing out.

So what do we see from the Prime Minister? He has become a crusader for coal, talking up the interests of corporate coal. What do we see from coal companies? We see a considerable and increasing level of generosity in the form of political donations. It was in October 2014 that the Prime Minister announced:

Coal is good for humanity …

These were his words at a time when the world is turning its back on coal. Yes, for many decades coal was critical to powering our country, but we now know the dangers involved. We now know that there is another way. But here there is a Prime Minister who goes to such lengths, using such loaded language, to try to paint coal as a great saviour. The Prime Minister went on to say that coal will be the world's main energy source for years to come. This does give us an insight into why he is waging war on the RET, because effectively that is what is happening with the legislation before us. He is out there really representing the interests of coal companies.

This is where it becomes relevant to look at the political donations from the resource industry to the government. I will go through what some of those contributions are. I am not suggesting some deals have been done; we do not know what discussions go on behind closed doors. But there certainly is a public perception that this money is not handed over for no reason. These are just some of the resource companies that have put in hefty donations to the coalition parties. Adani, the company trying to build Queensland's largest coalmine, donated $49,500 to the Liberal Party of Australia. Gina Rinehart donated $25,000 to one campaign alone. That was the foreign minister Julie Bishop's campaign. That money came through Hancock Coal Infrastructure Pty Ltd. The figures all come from the Australian Electoral Commission. Some of them are collated on the Greens 'Democracy for Sale' website.

There is also a very useful reference from Australian Mining on the 7 April this year. They detail a whole range of resource companies that have been very generous to the Liberal and National parties. They have identified that the bulk of small donations from mining companies went solely to the Liberal and National parties. These companies each donated $20,000 to the Liberal Party: Silver Lake Resources, Northern Star, Whitehaven Coal and BC Iron. The NSW Minerals Council gave $32,250 to the coalition. Santos, infamous with regard to coal seam gas mining, donated a hefty $185,300 to the coalition. There was $500,000 donated—and this was just to the Liberal Party—that came from Nimrod Resources. That is a privately owned exploration company working around Bourke in New South Wales. These are just some of the donations that have gone to the Liberals and Nationals from various resource industries. This again is very relevant to this debate, because the RET has been a very important part of our work in addressing climate change in Australia. We are seeing another aspect of the work that was undertaken a few years back to deal with climate change being unwound—and this is just one more aspect of it that we are seeing tonight. We need to really look at the forces at play here. We do know that the renewable energy target was delivering jobs and investment around Australia. Most importantly, it was bringing down carbon pollution—the carbon pollution that is causing global warming. But this is all under threat now. It is under threat because those corporate interests are so close to this government—and this is a government that very much delivers for its corporate constituency.

We know this bill will allow the burning of native forest wood. We know that the Eden woodchip mill is set to get a new lease of life, as will many new power stations that will come into operation using this so-called new form of energy. Let us remember at this point that this is just a pre-industrial form of energy. We were burning forests hundreds and hundreds of years ago. That was what was happening across parts of Europe. We learnt that that was not necessary. So this is really turning the clock back in terms of how destructive this bill is. We also know that the coal industry, as it loses markets in many countries, is finding a safe haven in Australia under Prime Minister Abbott. That safe haven is about to be extended with these polluting power stations and these woodchip mills. Meanwhile, what will happen to the precious habitat for koalas, quolls, the peaceful owls, the beautiful bower birds, all those array of honeyeaters? I am a keen birdwatcher, so I have had the pleasure of going through many of these forests and seeing many of these unique birds and, periodically, but not so often, seeing the beautiful marsupials. Now so much of this is under threat, because, when you start burning forests, you are losing habitat, and habitat is what is critical for these native species. It will be an extraordinarily backward step if this bill goes through. It is the bill that should be trashed—not our environment.

Penny Wright (SA, Australian Greens) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I too rise to speak on the Renewable Energy (Electricity) Amendment Bill 2015. First up, I want to place on the record that we need to consider this bill in the context of a government that has a completely irrational antipathy towards renewable energy. How do we know that? Let me count the ways! I will come back to this in more detail later, but I think this is really important for anyone looking at these debates in the future. I am sure they will pore over them and think: what were they thinking at the time with all the evidence that we know now about the direction in which we need to go in Australia? They will say: 'How could this have been?' We have Joe Hockey and his comments about hating wind farms. We have the Prime Minister, Tony Abbott, and his comments previously about hating wind farms. We have an ostensible review of the renewable energy target. In the face of a promise before the election that the government would not be changing the target, we have a review. The person appointed to run that review is someone who has a history of denying the reality of human-induced climate change and who has worked in the fossil fuel industry.

That said, I know that there are coalition MPs and senators who do not have an antipathy to renewable energy, who do understand the challenge that we are facing in relation to climate change. I would like to think that they are looking on in horror at the stance that is being taken resolutely by their leadership at this time in history. Particularly, if they have kids and grandkids, they know that the decisions that we are making today will inevitably have far-reaching consequences that we will all be held responsible for.

Here we have a bill that will reduce the target for the amount of renewable energy that we will have available to us in 2020 by 8,000 gigawatt hours at a time when countries around the world are doing the opposite. The worldwide investment in renewable power generation in 2014 was almost double that of fossil fuels. In early 2014, 144 other countries had renewable energy targets. I deplore the reduction of the renewable energy target from a target of 41,000 gigawatt hours by 2020 to 33,000 gigawatt hours. I also deplore the fact this legislation extends heavy emitting, trade exposed industry. That will have the effect of shifting more costs onto households and businesses.

It is hard to reconcile when we think about the rhetoric of this government. Do not listen to what they say; look at what they do. I deplore the changes to regulations associated with this legislation that will allow native forests to be burnt again. Burning wood for energy to keep us warm, and later to heat water to create steam to turn turbines, was something that we did in the past. That was the Industrial Revolution, which saw forests destroyed to feed the fires and to drive the looms and machines. Who would have thought in 2015 that we would be returning to a situation where we would be classifying the burning of trees as renewable energy when we in fact have the technology and we have infinite supplies of sunshine and wind that can feel the energy needs of the future?

Not only that, but we risk burning whole logs in forestry furnaces in an irresponsible and desperate attempt to prop up an industry that is incapable of being economically sustainable without huge government subsidies. The amount of money that goes into propping up the forest industry is there on the public record. This is just one more example of that. The other thing that people need to understand is that this will also have the effect of undermining further the investment in the real clean energy, like solar and wind, because allowing the burning of biomass will actually take up a proportion of the target—about 15 per cent, to use the forestry industry's own figures.

But why is that? Why would a government create in uncertainty in the way that they have done? What evidence is there that they have been deliberately destabilising and undermining the renewable energy sector? Can it just be a matter of anaesthetics? We know that Joe Hockey hates wind farms. He told us in May last year when he was speaking to Macquarie Radio. He was asked about whether the government would target clean energy programs in its quest for massive spending cuts. He was very candid and said:

Well, they say get rid of the Clean Energy Regulator, and we are.

He then mounted an attack on wind farms, specifically the wind turbines operating outside of our national capital here in Canberra. He said:

Well, if I can be a little indulgent, I drive to Canberra to go to Parliament and so on, I drive myself, and I must say I find those wind turbines around Lake George to be utterly offensive and I think they are just a blight on the landscape.

He was not asked his opinion about the look of coal fired power stations or nuclear power stations.

But he is not on his own. It must be something about being on radio that encourages an intimate, sharing tone among members of the cabinet. We had the Prime Minister last week speaking to Alan Jones and confessing that he finds wind farms:

… visually awful … they make a lot of noise.

Our Prime Minister was very frank last week. He said:

What we did recently in the Senate was reduce, Alan, reduce, capital R-E-D-U-C-E, we reduced the number of these things that we're going to get in the future. … I would frankly have liked to reduce the number a lot more but we got the best deal we could out of the Senate. … And if we hadn't had a deal, Alan, we would have been stuck with even more of these things.

Those are the Prime Minister's own words.

Then we have the review of the RET last year, where the hand-picked reviewer, Dick Warburton, had worked as a former Caltex chairman in the fossil fuel industry. He denies the evidence of human induced climate change and he is a pro-nuclear advocate. The cost of that review was over half a million dollars. The review's own RET modelling showed that keeping the renewable energy target at its level or expanding it further will actually push power prices down. Again, I ask this: when we think about the rhetoric of this government that professes to be so concerned about the cost of living for people in Australia, if they were really serious about relieving electricity bills, why would they not be lifting the target instead of reducing it?

We have a RET that is reducing pollution, creating jobs and bringing power bills down. Why would any responsible, thoughtful, orderly or methodical government set about to destabilise it? I think the answer comes back to something the quite a lot of people have explored during this debate; that is, the influence of mates. We have mate Maurice Newman, chairman of the Prime Minister's Business Advisory Council, who talks about the RET, renewable energy and climate change not being about facts or logic but being concerned about a new world order under the control of the United Nations. We know that the government has many mates in the fossil fuel sector who stand to lose a lot if the push to renewable energy continues unabated.

Indeed, Minister Ian Macfarlane let the cat out of the bag last September when on ABC Radio he told us: 'There are about 9,000 megawatts, around five to nine coal power generators' excess capacity, which would be driven out by clean energy under the existing act.' Of course, this will happen. We are moving inexorably away from fossil fuels to a clean, decarbonised energy future. Trying to prevent it is as ludicrous as trying to turn back the tide. But what we see here is fossil fuel investors, fossil fuel companies and people who stand to make a lot of money out of the industry determined to prolong the carnival as long as possible and make as much money in the meantime. We have a government that is doing everything it can to support that endeavour.

Meanwhile, if we think about the effects on the people that this government purports to govern for—the people of Australia—we will have more landscape destroyed by coal and gas mining; we will have stranded assets; worse climate change; and we are reducing our readiness to transition to clean energy. As we approach the time, and it will happen—I fear, ultimately, without much notice in the end—when other nations de-carbonise and stop taking our coal, our gas and our fossil fuels. That is when we will have a workforce in Australia that will not be transitioned to the clean energy future and will be out of jobs on a mass level. Given the claims of this government to manage the economy, it is grossly irresponsible to jeopardise both existing jobs and the jobs of the future by ignoring every indicator that a transition is needed now. The evidence is there.

We have the clear evidence of the effect of the deliberately induced uncertainty on the part of this government. The uncertainty has shattered investment confidence. Investment in Australia in all renewables fell 35 per cent in 2014. It was the lowest level since 2009—this at a time when the rest of the world is moving ahead. In China there was an increase of 33 percent; in Brazil, an increase of 50 per cent; and Australia fell 35 per cent—it went 35 per cent backwards last year. In the solar industry employment fell 28 per cent—down by 5,000 jobs to 13,000 jobs, and prior to this government being elected there were 23,000 jobs in the solar industry. This is a government that purports to be good economic managers. Thirteen large-scale photovoltaic projects went on hold. Large-scale renewable investments fell 88 per cent to $240 million, back to 2002 levels. Only four wind farms were being built. Australia fell from number 11 worldwide in relation to large-scale renewable investments to number 39—behind Burma, Panama, Sri Lanka, Costa Rica and Honduras.

Now we have this proposal that we are debating—to reduce the RET. Supported by Labor—yes—to reduce the RET to create certainty, and the only certainty that we really have is that the RET will be reduced. There is certainty that any reduction in the 2020 target will reduce the amount of new renewable energy investment over the next decade. That is certain. As well as that, it is certain that this will significantly damage investments that have already been made in good faith, based on the existing legislation—the existing target. There is certainty that reducing the target will have a significant impact on the commercial viability of all current and future projects, because the value of revenue for large-scale projects is based on the value of renewable energy certificates created by the LRET scheme, and that is determined by the demand and supply dynamics of the market. If the 41,000 gigawatt-hour target is reduced, the market dynamics will fundamentally change and the value of RETs will decline. This will correspond to a material reduction in the revenue that a project would receive, and it will result in significant financial impact. This, again, is at the hands of a government that purports to be responsible economic managers.

I want to speak briefly now about the particular perspective of someone coming from South Australia, which I am proud to say is that renewable energy capital of Australia. We have the highest level of energy generated from renewable sources in the nation. If the RET is reduced—

Lisa Singh (Tasmania, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Parliamentary Secretary to the Shadow Attorney General) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Mr Acting Deputy President, on a point of order. Whilst I acknowledge that South Australia is going ahead in leaps and bounds in renewable energy, Tasmania still remains the renewable capital of Australia.

Sam Dastyari (NSW, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

There is no point of order. I will remind the Senator that frivolous points of order are not going to be tolerated in this Senate while I chair.

Penny Wright (SA, Australian Greens) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I must admit, it is a healthy debate to be having. I think that it is really important that we are vying to be the renewable capital of Australia. I have to say that the evidence is there that, indeed, South Australia is the renewable energy capital of Australia, and I will go onto establish why. South Australia has the highest percentage of homes with solar panels, at 23 per cent; the most energy sourced from renewables; and the most investment at risk—$2.9 billion of investments in clean energy, and there is a risk that that will go overseas if there is not enough certainty and if the RET is reduced. There are South Australian projects at risk. There is the Ceres wind farm on the Yorke Peninsula—a $1.5 billion investment, and more than 500 jobs. There is the Infigen Energy Woakwine wind farm in the south-east—150 jobs created. There is the Pacific Hydro Keyneton wind farm in the Riverland—more than 500 jobs created. We have Port Augusta, where recently there has been an announcement that the Alinta power stations—the two coal-fired power stations near Port Augusta—will be closed by 2018, which will, indeed, introduce the possibility that South Australia will become the first totally renewable energy state in Australia.

South Australia has 517 accredited solar installers; 16 wind projects of 561 turbines and 1,205 megawatts of capacity. Today, Tindo Solar, which makes the only Australian produced solar panels, and other solar industry representatives, are saying that there will be damaging job losses in South Australia—which is already experiencing significant job losses in many other areas of manufacturing—if the renewable energy target is changed and reduced. The predictions are that large-scale solar will beat wholesale coal power pricing anywhere in Australia by 2020 in less than five years.

When we come back to the closure of the coal fired power stations near Port Augusta, we also know that there is an extremely strong community push—from the residents, from the council and from many others—for a concentrating solar thermal plant. There has been a lot of work done on the feasibility of that plant, with a potential for baseload power to be created there using molten salt. It is a very exciting initiative. There is a lot of enthusiasm in the community and, as I said, from the council, because there has been a long history of damaging health effects from coal fired power stations in Port Augusta. Moving to a solar thermal power station would be an amazing opportunity for South Australia to showcase baseload power. There would be jobs available for the existing power workers to be able to work there and there would also potentially be jobs in manufacturing, in creating the components—the mirrors and the panels—which would be used in any associated wind farms as well.

There are a lot of good things happening in South Australia. It is absolutely imperative that those things are happening in South Australia, because it is a state where there are significant challenges in terms of other manufacturing. It is a state which the current government are ignoring at this stage. If they are insistent on going ahead and allowing the passage of this legislation to further undermine the renewable energy target, that will only make the situation far worse for South Australia. So I urge my colleagues to think seriously about this legislation, to think about the future and to think about what we are doing. I urge them not to be beholden by short-term interests in maintaining and propping up an energy source that we know has health effects, is contributing to climate change and is more expensive than the alternatives; I urge them to vote against this legislation.

Richard Colbeck (Tasmania, Liberal Party, Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister for Agriculture) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

It gives me pleasure to rise to make a contribution to the debate on the Renewable Energy (Electricity) Amendment Bill 2015. I particularly make some comments in relation to the government's addition to the scheme for the utilisation of biomass as part of the renewable energy sector.

Lisa Singh (Tasmania, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Parliamentary Secretary to the Shadow Attorney General) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Already!

Richard Colbeck (Tasmania, Liberal Party, Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister for Agriculture) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I did say that I would give you something to interject about, Senator Singh.

I have to say at the outset that it really mystifies me why the Labor Party appears to be so opposed to this. The Labor Party themselves, when in government, and the rural affairs committee in the House of Representatives, chaired by former member for Lyons Dick Adams produced a very good report called Seeing the forest through the trees. One of the recommendations in that report was that native forest should continue to be able to be utilised in the generation of renewable energy, as it was then under the regulations that stood at that point in time. Because of a deal done with the Greens, and because of the Labor Party not having the strength or the courage to stand up to the Greens in the circumstances that they were in in government at the time, the Labor Party brought in regulations to prohibit the use of native forest residue to be utilised and to qualify for renewable energy credits.

There are claims being trotted around here by organisations such as The Wilderness Society, the Australian Conservation Foundation and Environment Tasmania that this will bring devastation to the environment and to native species around the country. Yet that is not what happened when these regulations were in place previously. It is not what happened at all. So the suggestions of devastation from the Greens demonstrate that nothing has really changed about the Greens.

The Greens will say absolutely anything to justify a particular cause at a particular point in time. We have had plenty of evidence of that. Obviously, they are doing it now; they are trying to demonise this particular initiative that the government has put forward. I recall that in the 1980s the Greens were actually campaigning against renewable energy in Tasmania. Bob Brown, who later became a senator and spent some time in this place, was campaigning against hydro-electric development in Tasmania. What was he suggesting as an alternative? Bob Brown, at that point of time, was actually suggesting the construction of coal fired power stations in Tasmania as an alternative energy source to renewable hydro-electricity.

Senator Wright and Senator Singh were having a bit of a debate about how much renewable energy is produced in what states. I think that the correct number is that Tasmania produces something like 40 per cent of Australia's renewables through our hydro-electric schemes. As I said, the Greens campaigned against those schemes and proposed the construction of coal fired power stations in Tasmania. I wonder what might happen to someone who proposes that now. But that is what the Greens did, demonstrating that they will say anything in their cause at a particular point in time. It does not have anything to do with fact or science; that is just the way that the Greens work, and so it is with this particular issue. The science is really quite clear in relation to using forest residues as a source of renewable energy, and you do not just have to take my word for it. In Europe, the WWF, along with the European Biomass Association, have a target of 15 per cent of energy from renewables coming from biomass by later this decade. So the WWF is on the program in relation to this.

I have a document here that was published in Future Science. It is not just one piece of science but a compilation of global science, and it looks at life cycle impacts of forest management and wood utilisation on carbon mitigation. It says:

If the Greens are looking for a source of a reduction in emissions when compared to utilising coal, a compilation of science published in Future Science says that you can reduce your emissions by 96 per cent by using residual forest biomass as a feedstock for utilities.

Now, do the Greens support reducing emissions or don't they? I think that is a very good question, because the IPCC also promotes using biomass as part of the process, using sustainable forest management as the basis of that process. And that is what we are talking about here in Australia. We are not talking about mass entry into the forests, to utilise them for generating energy; we are talking about using materials that come from forest operations that would otherwise occur and using the residues from that process to generate energy. It simply makes sense. In fact, the IPCC states:

In the long term, a sustainable forest management strategy aimed at maintaining or increasing forest carbon stocks, while producing an annual sustained yield of timber, fibre or energy from the forest, will generate the largest sustained mitigation benefit.

That statement comes from the IPCC. Yet the Greens like to quote the IPCC ad nauseam when criticising the coalition or anyone else who does not agree with their view of the world. But of course it becomes inconvenient for them when they are dealing with this particular matter. The process is also supported by the FAA; it is supported by CSIRO. So there are multiple sources to support the basis of utilising native forest residues, utilising biomass, to generate energy based on sustainable forest management principles. And that is exactly what we are talking about. The regulatory regime that we are proposing under this legislation mirrors the regime that previously existed and that did not lead to wholesale harvesting of the forest for generating energy, using biomass. It did not. Why? Because the principles of sustainable forest management were at the forefront of that regime. We have in our systems a high-value test that says that the primary purpose for harvesting cannot be for generating energy.

The Greens utilise the Dirtier than coal report, out of the UK, which is a critique of the UK bio-energy strategy that allows burning whole trees for energy production. It completely dismisses or, more to the point, does not take into account the strategies that we have here in Australia, which are based on sustainable forest management. We do have good forestry management in this country. The reality is what the Greens are trying to do: their objective is to kill the entire native forest industry in this country. Their objective is to close down the entire native forest industry in Australia, firstly, on public land and then on private land. That is their objective. They want to take away any opportunity that industry has to utilise the residues because they know that if they destroy the utilisation of the residue stream they bring down the entire industry.

So this has got nothing to do with renewable energy; it has to do with an economic attack on the forest industry. They use conservation as an excuse, but they conveniently forget that we come from the premise of utilising residues from sustainable forest management. And I really do not understand why the Labor Party are not on board with this. The report of the committee, chaired by their own Dick Adams—a bipartisan committee and a bipartisan report, supported by both Labor and the coalition—recommended this. Two days later, at the behest of the Greens, the regulations changed. The suggestion that this is a last-minute entry into the negotiations would be one of the biggest furphies perpetrated by the Labor Party in recent times. The Labor Party knows that this has been a part of coalition policy right through the last election. The Labor Party knows that we worked with the then crossbenchers in the House of Representatives to have the regulation that they brought in overturned, at the behest of the Greens. The vote in the House of Representatives was tied; it was lost on the casting vote of the Speaker. So the suggestion by the Labor Party that this is a last-minute entry into the process is quite simply dishonest. But why would you expect anything else from the Labor Party?

This provision quite sensibly provides, based on sustainable forest management, the opportunity for an alternative revenue stream, an alternative use of native forest residues for the Australian forestry sector. It provides a way forward, particularly perhaps in the southern forests of Tasmania where the industry has no outlet for the utilisation of its residues. There are mountains of it piling up in the south—

Jacqui Lambie (Tasmania, Independent) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

A fire hazard!

Richard Colbeck (Tasmania, Liberal Party, Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister for Agriculture) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Senator Lambie, I will take your interjection because that is exactly right: it is a fire hazard. In fact, during the tragic bushfires at Dunalley a couple of years ago the residue stacks around that sawmill at Dunalley were one factor in the destruction of that sawmill. Yet the Labor Party sits by and allows this process to continue while hardworking and honest timber workers in the southern forests of Tasmania have their livelihoods threatened by the fact that the Labor Party here in Canberra will not support their livelihoods, despite the fact—

Lisa Singh (Tasmania, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Parliamentary Secretary to the Shadow Attorney General) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise on a point of order, Mr Acting Deputy President. The parliamentary secretary is highlighting livelihoods being threatened, when it is in fact this government that has thrown thousands of livelihoods of Australians—

Christopher Back (WA, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Senator Singh, with respect—

Lisa Singh (Tasmania, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Parliamentary Secretary to the Shadow Attorney General) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

working in the renewable energy sector for the last 20 months—

Christopher Back (WA, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Senator Singh, that is a debating point, as you know. Senator Colbeck, please resume.

Richard Colbeck (Tasmania, Liberal Party, Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister for Agriculture) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Mr Acting Deputy President Back, Senator Singh is developing a bit of a habit of raising debating points as points of order and was warned by the previous occupant of the chair for this practice.

Lisa Singh (Tasmania, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Parliamentary Secretary to the Shadow Attorney General) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

You encouraged me!

Christopher Back (WA, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Resist the encouragement, Senator Singh!

Richard Colbeck (Tasmania, Liberal Party, Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister for Agriculture) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The Labor Party does endanger the livelihoods of forest workers in Tasmania, despite the fact that the Tasmanian division of the Labor Party and Labor opposition leader Bryan Green have come out in support of this measure. He wants Tasmanian Labor senators in this place to support the forest industry in Tasmania. I wonder why they will not do it. There is no rationale for them not doing it.

Senator Singh could perhaps have a chat to Dick Adams, Sid Sidebottom or Geoff Lyons, who all lost their seats at the last election. I can tell you that one of the reasons Dick Adams lost his seat, after a swing of over 13 per cent, was that the forest industry workers in Tasmania found that, when they really needed him, because of the stance of the Labor Party he could not be relied on. He could not be relied on, despite the fact that he had brought out a report supporting the use of native forest residues in the renewable energy target. Two days later, the Labor Party dudded him. The result was a swing of over 13 per cent against the Labor Party. Yet the Labor Party in this place still will not support forest workers in Tasmania, or anywhere else around the country, although there is very clear evidence that, based on sustainable forest management, utilisation of the residues of native forests for the generation of energy can reduce carbon emissions by up to 96 per cent.

You really wonder if the Labor Party are at all genuine in this debate. They cry; they caterwaul; but, when it comes to the real substance of the issue, when it comes to supporting workers in the forest industry, when they are really needed they are not there—and forest industry workers actually know that. I stood around the tailgate of a four-wheel drive in the forest in Northern Tasmania with some workers and they said, 'We've all voted for Dick Adams in the past, but not anymore, because when we really needed him he wasn't there.' You would have thought, Mr Acting Deputy President Back, that the Labor Party would have learnt their lesson.

So, the suggestion that this is a last-minute thing is a complete misrepresentation. It is a falsehood. It is a furphy. It is dishonest. Supporting the forest industry was written into our election policy at the 2013 election, and I am very pleased that we have now put that provision back into legislation so that we do have a genuine opportunity to reduce carbon emissions over the utilisation of coal by using native forest residues, sensibly based on sustainable forest management as supported by the UN's FAO, as supported by the IPCC, as supported by the CSIRO and as supported by so many high-quality, world-renowned forest scientists in this country.

Nick Xenophon (SA, Independent) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

At the outset, I indicate and express my support for the renewable energy target. I believe that it is an instrumental part of Australia's climate change policy and that it has been a driving force behind investment in renewable energy, but there have been a number of issues in respect of it which I will address shortly. I do believe in anthropogenic climate change. I believe that it does happen, that we need to address it and that, to quote Rupert Murdoch, we need to give the planet 'the benefit of the doubt'. I think we need to have a number of effective policies in place.

The nub of the issue is: how do you reduce greenhouse gases as effectively as possible and in the most cost effective way possible? I think that having an efficient emissions trading scheme is the best way. Having a market based mechanism is the best way in the longer term. That is not the policy of this government, but I have worked very hard in the context of the Direct Action legislation on the Emissions Reduction Fund, working constructively with Minister Hunt and his very capable advisers, to drive a number of amendments that I think make the Emissions Reduction Fund much more robust and much more effective, with a safeguard mechanism that has real teeth. The framework is there. The government need to honour their commitment to make sure that a practical effect of the legislation is a safeguard mechanism.

As I said, the issue is: how do you drive the best possible reduction in emissions as efficiently as possible? Back in 2009, when Hon. Malcolm Turnbull was opposition leader, Mr Turnbull and I jointly commissioned Frontier Economics to prepare an alternative emissions trading scheme that was based on energy intensity. It was considered. It was thoughtful. The predictions made by the Managing Director of Frontier Economics at that time, Danny Price, proved to be very much true: having a scheme involving a lot of revenue churn would be economically inefficient and not as effective as it could be in environmental terms. That is why I still maintain that what was proposed by Frontier Economics in the report, study and modelling commissioned by Malcolm Turnbull and me back then would have led to greater reductions in emissions at a more affordable price and that it was a better option. Sadly, politics got in the way. Malcolm Turnbull was no longer opposition leader. He lost his leadership essentially over the issue of the ETS—it has claimed a number of casualties over the years. As a consequence, we ended up with a policy that I thought was clunky and inefficient.

I think Direct Action will work and has worked, but there is more work to be done. What we are facing here in relation to the renewable energy target is a scheme that, in my view, has needed amendment, because when the scheme was designed a number of years ago, with bipartisan support, it was anticipated that renewable energy would make up about 20 per cent of overall energy consumption. There are a number of reasons it has not, including energy efficiency measures that have been effective; but also, sadly and tragically, the demise of the manufacturing industry in this country has meant that a number of major manufacturing facilities have closed down, which has reduced the demand for electricity, particularly amongst energy-intensive industries. It is important, however, that we have some certainty for this industry. Discussions around changes to the RET, the repeal of the carbon tax and the proposed abolition of the Clean Energy Finance Corporation, amongst others, have sent a message of uncertainty. I think certainty is important, but it must be with a robust framework that will deliver results in the most effective possible way, both for consumers and for taxpayers. That is why, despite the target being lower than I would like ideally, and despite there being no carve out for technologies that can provide baseload power, I will be supporting this legislation broadly. But I will focus on the issues of wood waste and biomass, and also the issue of wind energy, because I see them as inextricably linked in relation to this.

In relation to the issue of wood waste, an article on 5 June in the RenewEconomy publication gave a summary of some of the arguments. It mentions Ross Hampton, the CEO of the Australian Forest Products Association, who said on 15 May that biomass used for electricity would be a very small amount. He downplayed his own initial estimate to the Warburton review of the 3,000 to 5,000 gigawatts of power a year, admitting that AFTA had put the figure to the review panel, but saying that it was a very theoretical number. I have dealt with Mr Hampton and worked with him constructively in the past, and I hope to continue to work with him constructively in the future. Perhaps it was better that that very theoretical number was not put to the Warburton review, although I do have my serious doubts about the effectiveness of the Warburton review, its robustness and a whole range of other matters. I thought that it was not a very good exercise in having a robust, independent review. I do not think that it was anywhere near as credible as it needed to be. Perhaps some of my colleagues on the other side of the chamber will say that I am being too kind, and maybe I am.

In relation to the issue of biomass, in the pre-2011 regulations, according to the RenewEconomy publication, which I think gives a neat summary, 'there were certainly very few biomass projects to receive Renewable Energy Certificates'. The article goes on to say the:

… post Regional Forest Agreements decade was a period of almost boom conditions for the woodchipping industry. Both prices and export volumes increased to record levels and profits were high. It would have been impossible for the energy industry, with or without Renewable Energy Certificates to compete with the prices the industry was getting for woodchips for fibre.

Some commentators would make the point that things have now changed and that this could loom larger in terms of the issue of biomass, but let us put this into some perspective. Biomass can produce methane, which is 15 times more potent and more damaging to the environment than CO2. It needs to be dealt with. There is also the issue of fire hazards, and I think that is a real issue in terms of appropriate clearing. Mr Acting Deputy President Back, given your role with the Country Fire Association in WA, I think you know about the issues and risks with bushfires, and I hope you do not mind me mentioning that, given your expertise and your history in relation to that. I do not know whether the issue of biomass will be the saviour of the forestry industry, as the industry is saying, and I do not think it will have the uptake that some in the environment movement are fearing. But I think it is important that there must be some adequate safeguards, and that is something that, from my point of view, is still subject to negotiation. I understand there will be some further amendments in respect of this issue, and I am grateful to my colleagues in the Greens—Senator Waters and Senator Rice—who I have had discussions with and will continue to have discussions with about this.

I think it is important that in the committee stage there is a robust debate and discussion about this, and that questions are appropriately answered. I think people know that my view in relation to procedural matters is to bring on a debate. Sometimes it is appropriate to say that we need to have a set time for this, but when it comes to the committee stage of a bill there ought not to be a gag. If we have to spend all week here, if we have to spend the weekend here, or if we are here for the next month debating this, if it is the will of the chamber not to cut off debate then my view is that we need to thoroughly canvass these issues. That is why I say now, as I have previously when it comes to the substantive debate of a bill, that I will not support a gag. In regard to the issues relating to biomass, I think we need to see what further amendments there will be and what undertakings will be made by the government. I think the committee stage is the appropriate stage to deal with those amendments.

I want to refer to Frontier Economics, who, back in September 2014, issued the paper 'Can Australia still meet its emissions target with changes in the RET?' The people at Frontier Economics are pretty dispassionate. They made the point that the RET 'is a relatively high cost approach to reducing emissions because it focusses on specific forms of electricity generation', and that it has contributed to a large surplus of generation capacity. They are simply stating facts about how the national electricity market works. They make the point that:

The RET does not generate an increase in wealth in the economy, but leads to a transfer of wealth among participants in the electricity market.

In that respect, it is being critical not of the RET per se, but of the way that it is operated and particularly of the way that wind energy—and this is also my view and the view of others—has distorted the national electricity market because it is not baseload. It is intermittent and unreliable, and if you have a heavy reliance on wind, as there is in my home state of South Australia, it can, and does, have an impact on the market. Frontier Economics has made some good points about this, and their overall thrust is that there are better and more efficient ways of reducing greenhouse gases than simply using the RET by itself. It needs to be a whole package of measures. I see the advantage of the RET as one of driving technological change, in the sense that it drives efficiencies for solar panels; for solar-thermal generation, which is very exciting in terms of its potential for baseload power; and for other forms of renewables such as landfill gas. Soaking up that methane from landfill not only is essential from an environmental point of view, but does provide baseload power, which is very important. If you want to shut down thermal generators, coal fired generators, you need to have the backup of baseload renewable alternatives, and that is why solar thermal is important.

In that regard, given the announcement made last week by Alinta Energy concerning Port Augusta, in my home state of South Australia, the importance of the Solar Cities project and the importance of finding the funding and the financing for the solar thermal project in Port Augusta take on an added significance. It is something that I have raised with the Minister for the Environment on a number of occasions, it is something that has an added urgency to it and it is something that I have raised with the Clean Energy Finance Corporation in broad terms.

In the course of this debate, this cannot be simply seen as a silo about a renewable energy target and the issue of wood waste. It is also worth mentioning, most importantly, the issue of wind generation. I have serious concerns about the proliferation of wind turbines in Australia in terms of both their economic impact and their community impact. I know a position is taken by some, which I consider to be unfair, that there is a nocebo effect—that somehow this is some sort of psychosomatic illness of communities. Just last week, Mr Acting Deputy President Back—and you were there as well—at the hearing of the Select Committee on Wind Turbines we heard from two residents in South Australia who were hosts of wind farms. They are receiving something like $200,000 a year from the proponent for hosting the wind farm. They, basically, had their lives disrupted significantly because of the noise and the vibration of the wind turbines. The power company effectively had to spend a fortune on their home to block the noise as much as possible. Those people were brave enough to speak out that there is a real issue there.

I am calling for a commitment to some independent scientific assessment of this—objective science and objective measuring of the noise and other issues including infrasound. Even the levels of acoustic noise need to be dealt with, and that is why I was very pleased to support Senator John Madigan's bill in respect of wind turbines and excessive noise. That is what we need to revisit. We need to give those communities a sense of empowerment. If the current rules are being breached, they need to be enforced. The current rules need to adequately reflect the science and the genuine concerns of the communities around noise and sleep disturbance—if you do not sleep, it has health effects. These are the issues that need to be dealt with in the course of this debate.

I want to briefly mention, before we go to the adjournment debate, matters that have been raised with me by Susan Jeanes of Jeanes Holland and Associates. Susan Jeanes is a former coalition member for the electorate of Kingston. I think it is fair to say that she would be described as a moderate—Senator Birmingham is chuckling. I do not know what that means, but I have a lot of respect for her. There is a nod there and hopefully the respect is mutual, Senator Birmingham. She is someone who has advocated in this space and is a great proponent of large-scale solar projects and of ensuring that those forms of renewables that are more reliable and do not have the same level of community impact and disruption get a fair go. I am very grateful for a short paper that Susan Jeanes provided to me. Issues were raised around the role of the Clean Energy Finance Corporation, which I believe has an essential role in climate change to be involved as a guarantor for power-purchasing agreements for smaller retailers, to create a focus on Australian solar projects for the low-cost, very active US bond market, and to have longer than usual debt-financing terms so that you can encourage those more reliable forms of renewable energy, including large-scale solar, landfill gas and genuinely new hydro—because it is a form of baseload renewable. I know there is some controversy about that. My colleagues in the Greens may have a different view, but we need to encourage baseload renewables and those more reliable forms of renewable energy. The problem is that there currently are not enough incentives for those baseload renewables.

I will conclude my remarks in the second reading debate now. I look forward to the Committee of the Whole stage, which I expect will be robust and contentious, but I hope we get to a suitable conclusion.

Debate interrupted.