John Williams (NSW, National Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I inform the Senate that, at 8.30 am today, two proposals were received in accordance with standing order 75. The question of which proposal would be submitted to the Senate was determined by a lot. As a result I inform the Senate that the following letter has been received from Senator Gallagher:

Pursuant to standing order 75, I propose that the following matter of public importance be submitted to the Senate for discussion:

Investment in renewable energy, which makes economic and environmental sense.

Is the proposal supported?

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

I understand that informal arrangements have been made to allocate specific times to each of the speakers in today's debate. With the concurrence of the Senate, I shall ask the clerks to set the clock accordingly.

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

I rise to speak on this MPI on investment in renewable energy which, indeed, does make economic and environmental sense. Unfortunately, the energy crisis that we're facing has come about because of this government's energy policy paralysis. This paralysis has been going on now for years and years because of an ideological split within the Liberal government—we had it first with the Abbott government and now with the Turnbull government—against investment in renewable energy. This investment is occurring right across the world to ensure that a number of nations, including ours, meet the Paris climate agreement that we signed on to.

Let's have a look at what's occurred under this government's watch. Under this government's watch we have lost one in three renewable energy jobs, and yet we hear nothing from the Turnbull government senators about those jobs at all. What else have we seen? We've seen wholesale power prices double. We've seen carbon pollution consistently rising, with the most recent data showing an annual increase of 1.4 per cent. We have this ridiculous internal division within the Turnbull government and their bizarre ideological obsession to stop investment in renewables. We should be ensuring that we put in place good energy policy for not only Australia but our region.

The clean energy target, which has been proposed by the Chief Scientist, Dr Finkel, is designed to get investment flowing—we know investment means economic growth; it means jobs—to ensure reliable and affordable electricity is guaranteed for Australian households and Australian businesses. Inevitably, those old, outdated coal-fired power stations will therefore start shutting down, just as we have seen in other parts of the world. There is nothing new here about Australia tackling its energy policy. It is the same story the world over.

But what did we have on the weekend? On the weekend, the National Party sought to veto the consideration of the Chief Scientist's report, which the government itself commissioned, remember—this is the government-commissioned, Chief Scientist's report introducing a clean energy target. They voted to reject it—let's just make that very clear: the National Party, which helps form government in this country, voted to reject Dr Finkel's clean energy target of 42 per cent of renewables by 2030. That is the kind of division and the kind of farce that is going on. But, unfortunately, it does not just stop there.

We now have the CEO of AGL stating that the company is getting out of coal in the next five years—he has said it way ahead of time, with plenty of time for transitioning—and yet what does the government do? The government wants AGL—and is meeting them today, and urging them—to keep this old, coal-fired power station open beyond these five years. In a tweet last week the CEO of AGL, Mr Vesey, rightly pointed out:

Keeping old coal plants open won't deliver the reliable, affordable energy our customers need

He knows exactly the industry he's playing in, because he's the CEO of AGL. He hasn't got politics on his mind—he has the interests of his shareholders, of the company and of the customers on his mind. And yet what does this government come along and do? It wants to play politics, because it can't get the support from the National Party for a clean energy target for an investment in renewable energy. And in turn, it will add to the diminution of renewable energy jobs that has been going on for years now under this government's watch. This is driven by a baseless ideology. It is stupid political opportunism, where the Nationals want to tear down this one piece of bipartisan energy policy that is providing new generation into the system, rather than support renewable energy.

I thought that the coalition was a coalition that supported market forces, that actually responded to the economics of policy. And yet we've had so many economists come out in support of carbon pricing, an emissions trading scheme, clean energy targets—action on climate change in an economically modelled sense—and this government has turned every single one of them down. But let's not forget that this is the same Prime Minister who once supported these things. This is the Prime Minister who once supported a CPRS. Just as we almost moved towards it, of course, he lost his leadership and the rest is history—and now he's completely changed his tack on things and doesn't even know what he believes anymore, but he is hiding the fact that he was an environment minister and someone that supported a CPRS. The conservative elements in the coalition are insistent, not just on the current arrangements of old, coal-fired power stations staying open beyond the next five years, like AGL's—they probably would have preferred Hazelwood's to have stayed open as well—but, no, they actually also want new coal-fired power stations. You know, it is just beyond belief where this government is leading our nation, at a time when there are countries like China that are putting hundreds of their coal-fired power plants on hold.

Today, I met with a number of really concerned citizens about what this government is doing. I met with them to hear what their views are—the views of people living out there who really want their government to take some action to invest in renewable energy. The group is named the Citizens' Climate Lobby and they want to look at the implications of climate change on Australia's national security. Indeed, they're a group of volunteer citizens who advocate for us to address global warming in the most transparent and equitable way. I had a really good chat to them, and I've had a chat to a number of community groups and NGOs in the field who made it very clear that this is not the way that they want their government headed—to be keeping dirty, coal-fired power stations open. They want their government to be investing in renewables. I look at my own home state, where we have a government owned electricity system based on hydropower and added to with wind power. These are the kinds of investments they want because they know they're a part of the clean energy future. But, instead, what we have is a government continuing their war on renewable energy.

I say to the government senators opposite: if you were really serious about fixing the energy crisis, instead of meeting Mr Vesey from AGL and demanding or urging him to keep open a dirty, coal-fired power station that, in five years, he as CEO has said his company wants to close because of the fact that it, as he said, won't deliver the reliable, affordable energy their customers need, you could, indeed right now, do three things. You could intervene in the gas market so that more gas can stay in Australia for Australians and, therefore, at lower prices. You could end this ridiculous war on renewables—this ridiculous war on solar plants, wind turbines, hydro; all of this is just ridiculous. By doing that, you could implement the clean energy target that Mr Finkel, the Chief Scientist in this country—who submitted a report that the government commissioned—said should be introduced, which would drive new investment and jobs in energy. You could stop the blackouts this summer by developing a strategic energy reserve so that there is enough power when we really need it. Stop playing politics, Mr Turnbull. (Time expired)

Jane Hume (Victoria, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise today to speak in response to the matter of public importance submitted to the Senate by Senator Gallagher, our parliamentary colleague from the ACT. Senator Gallagher would like this chamber to discuss investment in renewable energy which makes economic and environmental sense. It gives me great pleasure to speak on this issue because it gives me a chance to inform both Senator Gallagher and the Senate of all the good work that the Turnbull coalition government has been doing with regard to energy policy.

As Minister Frydenberg and the Prime Minister have said many times, this government is committed to solving the trilemma which is energy affordability, reliability and meeting our international obligations for emissions reductions. Importantly, this is a government that is technology agnostic when it comes to how we go about actually achieving those goals. Rather than pursuing this ideologically driven, single-minded agenda of non-commercially-sustainable wind- and solar-energy production, I think it's incredibly important to understand the vernacular of this debate. Renewable energy and clean energy are not interchangeable, but they, in fact, walk hand in hand. This is a government that is pursuing clean energy alternatives without the ideology. Instead, its policies are based on economics and on engineering. Of course, one of those clean energy policies that could be considered as part of this clean energy mix is, in fact, clean coal. Clean coal is a technology that exists right now which renders coal-fired power stations as secure, reliable and, importantly, clean sources of energy. Clean coal technology is not something to be derided; it's not something to be mocked. It is one potential way that this government could ensure that Australian households are able to keep the lights on without paying exorbitant energy prices while also meeting those international obligations for emissions reductions. To remove conversations about clean energy sources from the debate, purely because you are ideologically opposed to them, is essentially economic vandalism. Those on this side of the chamber know very well that one of the most fundamental and important responsibilities of government, when it comes to energy, is ensuring that the lights stay on and that prices stay low for Australian households and Australian businesses.

Where once the opposition were more interested in pursuing sensible policy outcomes for the betterment of all Australians, they're now more interested in safeguarding those inner-city seats against the growing popularity of the Australian Greens. Now, perhaps it can be said that middle- to high-income earners, residents of those gentrified suburbs—those inner city suburbs, where the Greens are encroaching on Labor heartland—may not find electricity prices of particular concern. They have the luxury of being able to take an ideological approach towards energy policy. However, for ordinary Australians, that is simply not the case. For ordinary Australians, there is an ever-increasing proportion of household budget spent on electricity, and this is of huge concern. It's not just the direct effect of high electricity bills and it's not just the bills that land on the kitchen table; it's also the bills that we see in the accounts payable ledger. Electricity prices have an indirect effect on the cost of living as well as a direct effect.

Senator Gallagher has phrased her matter of public importance in such a way as to make a claim about both the environmental and the economic rationale for investment in renewable energy. Fortunately, on this particular matter, the Turnbull government quite agrees with Senator Gallagher. Indeed, for many forms of renewable energy sources, there is a very sound economic rationale. This is one of the reasons that the Turnbull government has committed to an investment in an upgrade of the snowy hydro scheme—colloquially, and of course affectionately, known and referred to as 'Snowy 2.0.'

There is hardly a better example of the government's commitment to energy security, affordability and a reduction in emissions than Snowy 2.0—an enormous infrastructure project that will allow for the kinetic storage of energy through a pumped hydro scheme. Snowy 2.0 allows us to pump water to higher altitudes during off-peak times and use that pumped water during the peak periods. This allows for a very efficient use of energy in Australia for Australian households, and it stands as a shining example of public infrastructure spending by Australian governments. Once again, this evidences the Turnbull government's commitment to solving the energy trilemma of security, affordability and reduced emissions.

The Finkel review developed a range of options to maintain the security, reliability and affordability of the national energy market and the coalition, along with state governments, has agreed already to 49 of the 50 recommendations. Many of these recommendations are aimed at ensuring the affordability and reliability of the energy market, but there is a need to safeguard base load power in Australia. We need to make sure that we have enough power to meet future needs, and that base load power is required to anchor our electricity system.

AEMO's analysis recently showed that there is heightened risk of shortages during the summer peaks and, without targeted action to provide additional firming capability, that threat will become real. The reckless policy of state Labor in Victoria and South Australia—of course, contributing to the closure of Hazelwood in Victoria and the Northern Power Station in South Australia—has seen the need for AEMO to take these quite dramatic steps. The government therefore stands in quite stark contrast to the ideologically driven peddlers of the myths of the panacea of renewable energy that is the calling card of those opposite and also of their party colleagues at a state level. I thank Senator Gallagher for bringing this very important matter to the attention of the Senate. It is an honour to speak on behalf of the Turnbull government on this issue. (Time expired)

Malcolm Roberts (Queensland, Pauline Hanson's One Nation Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

As a servant to the people of Queensland and Australia, I need to start by saying that this MPI is yet another MPI about trust, and it shows that the Labor-Greens alliance, destroying energy, cannot be trusted. The dictionary defines investment as 'the investing of money or capital in order to gain profitable returns as interest, income or appreciation of value'. Investment in intermittent energy sources is a waste of money. It is not an investment; it is a scandal. Let me illustrate by quoting from an exercise on Greg Combet, who was Labor's and environment and climate change minister in the Rudd-Gillard-Rudd government. Journalist James Delingpole, on 3 May 2012, identified what he claims is a scandal involving wind farms and guaranteed government subsidies:

At the heart of this scandal are the union superannuation funds that are using the wind farm scam as a kind of government-endorsed Ponzi scheme to fill their coffers at public expense. One of the biggest wind farm developers, Pacific Hydro—

Remember that name, Pacific Hydro—

is owned by the union superfund Members Equity Bank. To meet its carbon reduction quotas, we're told—

by then Labor ministers—

Australia needs to build about 10,000 new wind turbines like the ones that have destroyed Waterloo (and dozens of communities like it from NSW to South Australia).

The figures are mind-boggling. Each of those turbines will cost about $3 million, which means $30 billion even before you've started building the power lines. And where's this money coming from? The consumer, of course—mostly via tariffs whacked on to the price of conventional, fossil-fuel energy prices, in the form of payouts called Renewable Energy Certificates.

Note that wind turbines produce very little power. Because wind is intermittent, they operate at between one-fifth and one-third of their capacity, meaning they are erratic, unreliable and have to be fully backed up by conventional 'black' (mostly coal-fuelled) power. Where the money is to be made is through the REC subsidy. A 3MW wind turbine that generates (at most) $150,000 worth of electricity a year is eligible for guaranteed subsidies of $500,000 a year. A ridgeline hosting 20 or 30 turbines generates very little power—but an awful lot of free cash for those lucky enough to get their snouts in the trough.

If the unions were merely exploiting government environmental legislation to milk the taxpayer it would be bad enough …

Industry Super Holdings Pty Ltd's annual report for 2007 states that Greg Combet was Director of Industry Super Holdings Pty Ltd until the middle of 2007, the year he was parachuted into parliament. It owned Members Equity Bank and Pacific Hydro. He shovelled tens of millions of dollars into this scam. That's why we're going to be standing up, beside the people of Lakeland on Cape York—where we met with them under the poinciana trees—a people concerned about these bird chopper eyesores, the hurt energy supply and the health risks that are well documented by the Waubra Foundation and any number of peer-reviewed medical and scientific papers. This is a scam!

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

I also rise to contribute to the debate on renewable energy, a debate that, under Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull's watch, has got out of control. This weekend the party that wants to take everything out of our bush capital, The Nationals, held its annual conference here in Canberra, but that act of hypocrisy has nothing on one particular motion that was passed at their conference on renewable energy this weekend. The Nationals passed a motion which calls on the federal government, of which they are a key junior partner, to eliminate subsidies for renewable energy. This is a party of government calling for an end of support for the renewable energy industry!

I note that the Nationals, through their leader in the Senate, have continued this argument in the chamber today. Instead of proposing positive ideas to address our nation's energy crisis, instead of embracing job-creating opportunities of renewable energy, the Nationals are seeking to tear down the piece of bipartisan energy policy that is providing new generation into the system. Rather than propose positive ideas to address our nation's energy crisis, the Nationals are driven by baseless ideology and political opportunism. This is the same political party that regularly travels across regional Australia promoting the use of renewable energy, cutting the ribbons on renewable products and praising the jobs and investment created in regional communities, that then comes to Canberra, holds a national conference and stabs the people who work in renewable energy in the back. For the Liberals and Nationals, it's always about politics. They're so hopelessly behind on the energy debate that they've jumped even further into the abyss. It is clear that the current energy policy paralysis is the fault of the government, through its ridiculous move in the last parliament to repeal the Clean Energy Future package, with nothing in its place. Instead of trying to fix the problem, we had the National Party trying to blow up the one piece of bipartisan energy policy. Instead of embracing sensible solutions for our current and future energy needs, we had the National Party, with former Minister Canavan and the member for Dawson, supporting the extreme position of simply ending all government support for renewable energy.

It's important to note that there has always been government support across the energy sector regardless of generation type. It is a core business of government to provide the energy needs for householders and businesses. There is government support for poles and wires. There was government support for building the coal- and gas-fired power stations in the first place, and that was a good thing. The provision of reliable energy is absolutely the role of government. The one-eyed approach that the Prime Minister is appeasing—the one-eyed approach that we must hark back to the good old days—will just not cut it. Holding the ridiculous ideological positions of one generation type over another is not going to improve the reliability, is not going to put downward pressure on prices and is not going to do anything for the environment.

I note that Deputy Prime Minister Barnaby Joyce said, in response to the motion passed at his party's conference, that Australia must comply with its international obligations. Mr Joyce went on to say that we must not abscond from the reality of our economics. Our international obligations include the Paris agreement. The world's first comprehensive climate agreement has three aims: holding the increase in temperatures below two degrees, increasing our ability to adapt to the adverse impacts of climate change and improving financing pathways for low greenhouse gas emission energy development. Mr Joyce would be well advised to consider that our economics are intractably linked to our international obligations and that investment in renewable energy makes sense for both the economics and the environment.

Even still, the reality of our economics is that, regardless of government intervention, the price per unit for renewable energy is on a downward trajectory and the banks are refusing to finance new coal-powered generation. The reality of our economics is that, under a business-as-usual situation, prices will continue to rise but, with a sector-wide approach through a clean energy target, prices will fall and reliability will increase. It's time for Mr Turnbull to show some leadership on energy. Labor has offered and is still offering to work with the government to find middle ground and set a place for a credible, low-carbon energy policy that will take us into the future in Australia.

Jenny McAllister (NSW, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The Attorney-General has very coyly referred to the coalition as having 'differing opinions' on renewables. It almost makes it sound like his colleagues aren't tearing each other to bits the moment the subject comes up. 'Differing opinions' makes it sound a little bit more like the Oxford debating society, but, based on the weekend reporting, one suspects that the situation is a bit more like Game of Thrones. If we're very honest about it, differing opinions don't generally induce the total policy paralysis that we are seeing from the government on energy. So let's call it what it actually is. We have full-throated disagreement between half-hearted environmentalists over in the moderates and the vociferous climate denialists of the hard Right.

It is becoming very clear that the job of the Prime Minister and the energy minister, Mr Frydenberg, of getting a clean energy target through the coalition party room is becoming more and more difficult every day. An anonymous source told the newspaper after the first coalition party room meeting on this that Finkel was dead. Unfortunately, it looks like he might be right. Unfortunately, for all of the boosters over there who would like to return to a 1970s version of Australian industry policy, the problem is that none of the participants in Australian industry are investing in coal. And there is a really good reason for that. It is because the numbers simply don't add up. The world has moved on and technology has moved on.

Oliver Yates, the CEO of the Clean Energy Finance Corporation, told a Senate committee that I sat on that he wouldn't invest in ultra-supercritical coal plants because it wouldn't be a good use of taxpayer funds. AIG wrote in February:

… new-for-old replacement of our coal fleet does not look like a good solution for price, reliability or the environment…

And, critically, they said this:

Electricity sector investors are unlikely to finance a new coal-fired power station in Australia again.

If coal was truly clean or cost effective, industry would back it. But the problem is: it isn't. Bloomberg, recognised as a global authority on these questions, provide a range of costs, but, for the levelised cost of electricity for wind in terms of dollars per megawatt hour, they say wind comes in at $118 per megawatt hour; solar comes in at $140; gas is still only $90 a megawatt hour. But ultra-supercritical coal, the preferred technology of many of the people on the other side, comes in at $203 per megawatt hour. And if you add carbon capture and storage to that, which you must do if you have any hope of reaching Australia's threadbare emissions targets, it comes out at $352 a megawatt hour. Once you do that, once you add in carbon capture and storage, coal is not the cheapest technology on the market. It is absolutely the most expensive. It is just under three times as much per megawatt hour as the most expensive estimates that are available for wind power.

The thing is: because of the enormous global expenditure on R&D in renewables and in storage technology, renewables are going to become cheaper and more effective in the coming years. Over the past seven years the cost of wind has dropped over 50 per cent and solar PV costs have dropped by 80 per cent. The technology is in transition. We have an enormous opportunity to adjust our arrangements in the national electricity market to respond to that, to use these technologies and to build a resilient system that can cope with the future. But all we get, instead, is a kind of hankering for an old-style of energy generation that doesn't make sense to business and doesn't make sense for the country.

If we have a problem, it's not actually that businesses are unwilling to finance coal. The problem is, instead, this: businesses lack the certainty to invest in any of the other options that would make sense. The business community has been crying out for certainty for years, and that has intensified since late last year. It's a cry that's reinforced in the report from Dr Finkel. It's also reinforced in the two reports from AEMO that have come through in the last seven or eight days. In their report on electricity forecasting insights, they note that energy system is going through a significant transition. I'm going to quote them. They say:

There is an important opportunity—

And there's that word again, 'opportunity', because it is our big opportunity—

for new market and regulatory arrangements, improved system planning, and new market, network, and non-network solutions, to support an orderly transition…

I am a former public servant and I'm fluent in public sector language. I can translate this for the benefit of senators and anyone else who might be listening. When you put it simply, AEMO are simply saying we need to adjust the market rules to make the market work so that we can benefit from new technologies. But what's more important is what they don't say. They don't say in their report that the solution is for government to get in and get its hands dirty in managing just one asset. They don't say the government should buy the Liddell power station. They do note in their advice to the Commonwealth government that, prior to the closure of Liddell, additional resources will be required, but they're very clear that 'most stakeholders see changes to market rules as the most economically efficient way to remedy this deficiency'.

Wouldn't you think that the idea that the market might be the way to respond to a shortfall in supply might get a little bit of traction from the Liberal Party? But there's no interest in that conversation. There's no interest at all because, presumably, the last sensible people in the Liberal Party are so tied up dealing with Mr Christensen, Senator Canavan and Mr Joyce and their obsession with returning to coal and managing that problem that they can't see what's right in front of them—that there are market solutions for this and there is an industry ready to invest, but there needs to be serious reform of the National Electricity Market to do so.

I know that coalition senators frequently come into this place and point to China. They like to point to China's reliance on fossil fuels and say: 'Look how big China is. Look how dependent it is on thermal generation. See how pointless it would be for Australia to participate in any kind of emissions reduction activity.' I want to point to recent reports coming out of China, because, unlike us, the Chinese are embracing the technologies that are emerging. China is ramping up its investment in renewable energy, planning for the future and planning to meet the growing demands on its electricity system through investment in new technologies.

In the first half of 2017, renewable sources—wind, solar, water—made up almost 70 per cent of new capacity in China's electricity system. I don't pretend that they're not coming off a low base. They have an electricity system highly reliant on thermal generation. But the new investment is overwhelmingly in renewables. That is because the Chinese government can see the writing on the wall and they know that they need to make the transition. They are going to do that as part of a commitment to a global solution for climate change. Colleagues, we have an enormous opportunity to get out in front of the herd, to make change before change is foisted upon us and to build an electricity system at this point in time when new investment is required to build the technologies of the future, not stick our heads in the sand and stare longingly at the past.

John Williams (NSW, National Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

It's quite amazing to hear the other side talking about economic and affordable electricity. Amazingly, Senator McAllister talked about China. Acting Deputy President Bernardi, you come from South Australia. I know that. I was born there. I didn't know you in my younger days, but I'm very familiar with your state. What has South Australia done? There has been a huge reliance on wind generation and selling electricity cheap because of the huge subsidies on wind turbines.

Mr Acting Deputy President, do you realise that an average wind turbine at three megawatts per hour, running for eight hours a day, 365 days a year will attract around $700,000? One turbine equals $700,000 in renewable energy certificates a year. That's a pretty good subsidy to get from the people and the businesses who use electricity, from anyone who is hooked to the network, from anyone who has 240 volt to the house. That is most Australians. They are paying for that: $700,000 for one wind turbine. That means that the coal-fired generators can't compete. What happened to Port Augusta's privatised coal-fired power station? They shut it down. No money in that. They blew it up, literally.

It is amazing that Senator McAllister talked about how the Chinese are doing a great job with their renewables. Let me make this point. As I speak to you now, 621 units of coal-fired generation are being constructed around the world. You might ask: what's a unit? If you go to the Hunter Valley and visit Liddell or Bayswater power stations: they are both four-unit generating plants. You will see the four big cement cooling towers. Often the Greens and those opposite will say you can see the pollution coming out of the top of those big cement towers. It's actually water vapour, the same as clouds. It's not pollution at all.

I visited Liddell a few years ago. They put in a solar thermal plant—I think it was about $16 million—to assist the coal, to reduce their carbon emissions. Well, between the two stations, it reduced their carbon emissions by one-sixteenth of one per cent, which is not much at all for $16 million. Anyway, I was in Tonga just recently, talking to a bloke who designed and was a key player in putting the solar thermal in there, and he said that now it's been mothballed; it no longer exists. When I was there, the big risk they had was cleaning the top of the plant all the time. The dust was settling on it. If a hailstorm was coming over the hill, they had to turn all the panels upside down so the hail wouldn't break them. Here we are talking about reliable and economic supply of electricity, and of course the best thing to do that is coal, as we've had all my lifetime.

China is now constructing 299 new units of coal-fired generation, as I speak. Those 299 units will produce 677 million tonnes of CO2 a year. That 677 million tonnes extra is more than the whole of Australia produces. Just by their additional 299 units of coal-fired generation—adding to some 2,100 units they already have in place and operating—they are going to put out more CO2 than the whole of Australia. Mr Acting Deputy President, I'm going to give you a curly question. What do you think they're going to burn in these coal-fired generation plants? They're going to burn coal. Believe it or not, they'll burn coal Where will they get the coal from? They have the choice of getting much cleaner black coal from Australia, unless we shut down our coalmines, as the Greens and many in the Labor Party want to see. I don't know why the CFMEU finances and backs the Greens and Labor Party when they're trying to shut all those CFMEU workers out of a job. China is going to buy our clean coal or go to Indonesia. Even China itself has huge production of coal. China a few years ago was a net exporter of coal. One year it imported 32 million tonnes and exported 33 million tonnes. Its coal is nowhere near the quality of Australian coal, but it is going to use it.

India is building 132 new units of coal-fired generation, alongside China's 299. That will produce an extra 288 million tonnes of CO2. But we're going to change the world from Australia here, you see! We've got just 73 units of coal-fired generation. Those opposite want to wind them down, shut them down, get rid of them and basically spread the problems of South Australia Australia wide. That is what the Andrews government wants to do in Victoria, with a 50 per cent renewable target. Queensland is talking the same. 'Let's make electricity expensive'—a $700,000 subsidy.

I'm amazed about the people who are saying the renewable energy certificate market is going to come down. I've been looking all my life for people who can tell me where markets are going. It's just a fact of genius to know where the markets are going in the future. I want to know where the Australian dollar is going—to help our exports if it's going down or harm our exports if it's going up. I want to know where the ASX will be in couple of years time, because I've got my super invested and I've got to retire in a couple of years time. And those opposite know where the markets are going. That is simply amazing! That is dreaming. That is just not right. The markets will go where demand and supply take them.

If we want electricity prices to go down, we need good base supply so that, when the hot weather is on around much of Australia, in January-February, people—especially our elderly and those in our aged-care facilities—can turn their air conditioners them on and afford to turn them on, and likewise with their heaters in wintertime, in the freezing cold. I, like you, Mr Acting Deputy President Bernardi, know what it's like in South Australia with that cold south-easterly coming off the South Pole—it can get pretty fresh at times. That's when you need to have the heaters on and to be able to afford to put those heaters on.

Quite amazingly, there is this whole story about renewables being the only economic way to go, the best way to go. Hydro is a great way of generating electricity. As the Deputy Prime Minister, Mr Joyce, has said, we want to build new dams. When those dams are built, no doubt they will have hydroelectricity generators at the base of those dams. But watch the Greens. As soon as the site is picked to build a dam, in come the Greens: 'No, there's a frog there. You can't build the dam there. It'll destroy the habitat of the frog,' even though it'll be storing more water, as we have to do in this country, especially as the population grows, and for industry and agriculture. But the protesters will be out there: 'You can't build a dam here.' The response will be: 'But we're going to put hydroelectricity at the base of it.' They will say: 'No, you can't do that. You'll upset the habitat of the frog.'

We've seen it all before—these people with their green religion. This is what their green religion says: 'Come follow me and I will lead you to the land of poverty.' That is what their green religion is: make everything expensive, have our businesses not able to compete overseas and make electricity prices go up. The reason those opposite want to see this clean energy target set is for their politics. It means that when they go to the next election they will not have to promote their carbon tax again—as they have promised to bring back in the carbon tax that most of Australia despises. They will put up the electricity prices even more and change the planet while all these coal-fired generation units are being constructed around the world. They'll say, 'We're going to change the planet from here.' Unless we get a big tent over this country, we're not going to do that.

Here's the situation: we need affordable, reliable electricity, and coal will be a major source of that for decades to come. In Australia we are swimming in coal and gas, and in our nuclear efficiencies and capability. We have probably more energy per capita than any other country in the world, and our energy prices are going up because of that green religion—that 'Come follow me and I will lead you to the land of poverty.' That's what it means.

Sarah Hanson-Young (SA, Australian Greens) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise to participate in this debate today on renewable energy. Of course, this is an issue as vitally important to my home state of South Australia as it is for the rest of the country—and, indeed, the globe—because we are confronted with the very real consequences of global warming. We are confronted every day by the fact that too much pollution is creating changes in weather patterns, such as the hurricane that we have seen devastate the Americas only in the last few days. We know that unless we get a handle on dangerous global warming, things are only going to get worse. What we have from the government is just more desire to flog coal. Let me put it here clearly today: coal is dead; finished. It is time to get your head out of the sand and start investing in the energy of the future, energy that is here already, systems and technologies that are ready to go.

The fact that this government wants to keep spending billions of taxpayer dollars propping up the failed coal industry and making climate change worse, making severe weather events worse, is absolutely criminal. We all know that one of the best things we can do to reduce carbon emissions, reduce the negative impact of climate change, is to fund clean, renewable energy sources. And we could be doing that today by investing in battery storage. One of the things that the Prime Minister could do right now is change the settlement periods for the spot price in the energy market from 30 minutes to five. Electricity prices would drop instantly—that's what the market regulator and the commissions say. Don't wait 3½ years to do it. Get it done now and stop funding the lunacy that is the coal industry. Taxpayer money should not be spent keeping coal-fired power stations open or exporting more coal overseas to burn the planet.

James Paterson (Victoria, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Mr Acting Deputy President Bernardi, I have noticed, on occasion, a wry smile pass your face during this debate, indicating you have enjoyed the debate so far this afternoon. I hope you enjoy my contribution as much as you have enjoyed the previous contributions.

We are here today debating this MPI because on the weekend a grassroots political party, our valued coalition partner, the National Party, engaged in a grassroots political debate about a weighty policy issue facing Australia. Unlike others who have spoken in the debate so far, I'm not going to condemn the National Party for confronting these issues; I'm not going to condemn branch members from the National Party for raising these issues. They are doing exactly what they should do as active citizens in our democracy, helping their political party to deliberate on these very weighty and difficult issues. I congratulate them for tackling this issue, for proposing a solution, and for debating it in such a constructive way.

I also want to congratulate my colleague Senator Williams for his excellent contribution to this debate. I particularly want to single out his fact-filled response to Senator McAllister's claims about China. In a sense, Senator McAllister is right: China is investing at a record level in renewable energy. But Senator Williams is also right: it is also investing at a record level in coal. It is investing in coal by building new coal-fired power stations, and by retrofitting existing coal-fired power stations to make them more efficient and to extend their life. China is investing in all forms of energy on a massive scale, because they are a country with massive energy needs and they need to increase their energy. They have taken what you could perhaps call an energy-agnostic approach, or an 'all of the above' approach, and they are investing in every form of energy available. Curiously, that's similar to the approach that this government has taken. This government adopt an 'all of the above' energy policy approach, where we are willing to invest in and support all technologies that can help meet Australia's energy needs. So it was curious to see Senator McAllister raising China as an example contrary to the direction the Australian government is taking.

The statement of the MPI listed for debate today is really a statement of the obvious. Is there anybody who opposes the statement: 'Investment in renewable energy, which makes economic and environmental sense? In fact, is 'renewable' even a necessary word to have in that sentence? We all support investment in energy which makes economic and environmental sense, or at least we should. The sad fact is that some participants in this debate don't support the investment in energy which makes environmental and economic sense if it clashes with their ideological opposition to and hatred of traditional sources of thermal energy, including coal and gas. We saw a very good example of that earlier from Senator Hanson-Young. Of course, I suspect what the Labor Party are getting at in their motion is not really that we should all support investment in renewable energy which makes economic and environmental sense; I suspect what they are really getting at is that we should support investment in renewable energy whether it makes economic sense or not. It all depends, of course, what we mean by economic and environmental sense.

For the record, I should say that I'm excited by the technological developments and evolution in renewable technology. I think there's been some fantastic progress already made, and there's no doubt that there have been significant improvements in the efficiency of renewable energy, and that is a really positive thing. As a sidenote, there have been improvements in the generation of energy not only in the renewable space but also in the traditional forms of energy production. That is why we have seen the advent of so called high-efficiency, low-emissions, ultrasupercritical coal-fired power stations, which generate energy far more efficiently, far more effectively, and with a lower environmental burden than their predecessors did.

But although there have been some exciting developments in renewable technology, and although there no doubt will be more in the future, I think we also have to acknowledge that there are some limitations to renewable energy today. We should be honest and confront that. One of those limitations is their inability to provide reliable, consistent baseload energy, and we have seen this most powerfully in South Australia. As we all know, on a great day—a windy day—the South Australian wind farms can produce up to 120 per cent of South Australia's energy needs and export its energy elsewhere. But we also know that, on a bad day—a day that's not windy enough, or too windy—South Australia's wind-energy generators provide no energy at all to South Australia, and put it in a very perilous state indeed. Until we can figure out how we can efficiently and, crucially, affordably store energy generated by renewable energy power forms on a large scale, then it can never supply all of our baseload power needs. Obviously, the government is taking a really important and bold step in this direction by supporting the further development of the Snowy hydro scheme, which will allow it to store more energy and supply it at times of critical need. But we all admit that that's not going to be a silver bullet and, on its own, won't solve this problem.

The reality is that renewable energy today, as we know it, is intermittent and unreliable. It doesn't provide that traditional and reliable baseload power that only thermal power like coal and gas does. So, if we're talking about the economic sense that we need to justify an investment in energy, there is always going to be, and there will be for some time, a big role to play for traditional power sources, I think, for the foreseeable future.

I think it's also important that we consider cost. There's a very common refrain in this debate—and we saw it a bit from Senator McAllister earlier—that renewables are cost-competitive or sometimes even, they claim, cheaper than traditional forms of electricity. And, if that were the case, that would be a wonderful thing. But the same people who say that renewable energy is cost-competitive or, indeed, cost-advantageous compared to traditional forms of energy also say—whenever anybody suggests that perhaps we should look at the generous subsidies that the renewable energy industry has received in recent years in Australia—that, if we touch it in any way, let alone scrap it, the sky will fall in and the renewable energy industry, as we know it, will collapse. Now, those two ideas are contradictory: they cannot both be true. If renewable energy was competitive or indeed cheaper than traditional forms of energy, it would need no support through subsidies or government mandates and it would exist healthily and on its own perfectly fine, if they were removed.

The truth is: we know that renewable energy does require a lot of assistance in order to be competitive and, hopefully, with technological development and change in the future, it will be able to stand on its own two feet. But it is false to say that it is able to do so now.

Another very common refrain in this debate is that what we lack today is certainty and, if we provided certainty for energy industry investors, these problems would be solved. The truth is that we do have certainty for some energy industry investors and we have a lack of certainty for others. The energy industry investors, who have certainty, are those who want to invest in renewable energy, and that's why billions of dollars are being invested in renewable energy in this country year after year after year. At the moment, it's at record levels. They've got the certainty of knowing that, if they make an investment in renewable energy, they will be in part protected by the government to ensure that they get a good return on their investment. Those subsidies and protections in the form of policies, like the renewable energy target, ensure that they've got their certainty. So there has been no shortage of investment in renewable energy.

There has, however, been a shortage of investment in traditional forms of energy generation, and that's why, for about a decade, no new coal-fired or gas-fired power stations have been built in Australia. They lack certainty because they know there is a great risk that in the future there will be a Labor government and that that Labor government will hit them with a carbon tax, an emissions trading scheme or an emissions intensity scheme. They know at some point that that will come and, when they have to get a return on their investment over 30 years, that's a very serious prospect indeed. So these are the people who have lacked the certainty to invest, these are the people who have been absent from the market. It is telling that even South Australia's Labor Premier Jay Weatherill recognises this problem and, in order to get around it, has proposed the extraordinary step of effectively renationalising the electricity industry in his home state by building a government-funded, gas-fired power station.

So the idea that, if we provide even more certainty than already exists for renewable energy investors, this problem will somehow be solved, that prices will come down and that we'll have the reliability we need, is a total furphy. If you want to get prices down, you need to provide certainty for everyone, and that includes our traditional forms of power generation.

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

Imagine how the men and women in what used to be Holden's factory in South Australia feel watching the debate around coal and renewable energy. I'm glad I don't have to explain why Holden closed its factories after the coalition government refused to support them with taxpayers' money. They've been watching the government falling over itself to change the rules to subsidise coalmines and power plants, wondering why it's one set of rules for one industry and another set for another. Obviously, I need to ask the question: didn't Holden give enough political donations?

We set up rules for how the energy market will operate and then we ask people to invest based on those rules. Then we change the rules and wonder why nobody wants to invest. It's not the fault of the renewable energy target that nobody wants to invest in new coal-fired power stations—and, when I say nobody, I mean nobody outside the Nationals party room. Blaming the success of one technology for the decline of another makes no sense when what's needed is a mix of all of the above.

Renewables and coal have to coexist. This isn't like the rise of CDs, marking the decline of cassettes. We need all of the above. Any government with foresight would have seen the problems we're experiencing today coming a mile away. Instead of shoring up Australia's energy security, governments on both sides have preferred to play the leadership version of musical chairs. For a party obsessed with opinion polls, they've done a shocking job of listening to the polls telling them the price of electricity is one of the biggest issues concerning all Australians. If you really want to help with electricity prices, stop fighting and arguing and start working together. Energy policy needs to be bipartisan, and, as long as it is not, there will be question marks over its future, let alone its investment. The higher the uncertainty, the higher of price. Stop blaming renewables for your failure to reach consensus. The problem isn't your subsidies; it is your party room.

Richard Di Natale (Victoria, Australian Greens) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The reality is that coal is dead. We have Engie closing Hazelwood. They don't see any future in coal. We have AGL, whose stated aim is to get out of coal. They have absolutely committed to closing down Liddell, that old clunker of a power station, because they understand that coal is dead. And yet here we have a government trying to conjure up some sort of spell, like a medieval wizard trying to bring coal back to life. The reality is that coal has no long-term future. Today, we learnt that the government, through Efic, a finance body, is going to throw good money after bad to try to continue to fund fossil fuel projects. They're doing what they can to pressure AGL into keeping Liddell open. The reality is that we are seeing the decline of an industry, a whole sector in transition, and this government doing everything it can to stop that transition. They don't have a national energy policy; they've got some slogans. Their policy is to try to keep these old clunkers going for a few more years in an effort to win a few votes and try to wedge the Labor Party. This is instead of acknowledging the reality that any comprehensive energy policy needs to recognise that there has to be more investment in renewables like solar and wind. There has to be an investment in storage like battery technology. Batteries are a game-changer, and yet here we have a government sticking their heads in the sand.

They have a go at the mob over here, calling him 'Red Bill', with allusions to the Labor Party being socialists. Well, the mob over there is prepared to throw taxpayer money at keeping this old clunker of a coal-fired power station open—unbelievable! It is absolutely remarkable that we are seeing a Liberal-National Party government that are a wholly owned subsidiary of the coal lobby. They have been captured by the coal lobby. Their energy policy is written and authorised by the coal lobby, thanks to those billion-dollar donations. The reality is we need to shut down coal in an orderly way and bring in more solar and wind. It is about energy efficiency and demand management, and that's how we make the transition to a clean, renewable economy.

Debate adjourned.