Scott Ryan (President) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

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

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

'Providing cheaper, cleaner energy, including investment in renewable energy; ending the power privatisation mess; better regulating power prices and gas exports; supporting the installation of more household battery systems; and backing the development of renewables projects in local communities'

Is the proposal supported?

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

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

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

I rise to speak on the matter of public importance debate today. This is a very timely debate on energy policy. Although we already knew it, the United Nations has today confirmed that Australia will not meet our Paris emissions reductions commitments under the current Abbott-Turnbull-Morrison government energy policy paralysis. We won't meet the commitments that this very government signed up to just a few years ago, and yet what is this government's response? From Prime Minister Morrison down through his ministers, we hear that Australia will meet our commitments in a canter—a statement that is misleading and downright dangerous. Of course we didn't need the UN to tell us this galling fact; the government's own data shows that, under Mr Scott Morrison's hopeless climate change policies, carbon pollution will continue to rise all the way to 2030, which is as far as the projections go.

They're finally beginning to admit the ridiculousness of their statement that, under their policies, we will meet our commitments in a canter. As Senator Fawcett told a Senate estimates hearing:

… the reduction we had over the 2016-17 year, if we continued that and that was our current settings then we would do that.

But that reduction is not a real reduction but a reduction relative to the forecast emissions. The government's own data shows that, in each year since they came to power, emissions have increased, and perhaps worst of all is reliance on the current settings. What are the current settings? Policy paralysis, no certainty for the renewable energy industry and an arrogant government that doesn't seem to care about our future energy needs. They don't care about reliability, they don't care about price and they don't care about emissions. All they care about is playing politics to see coal as their electoral saviour. It is an obsession akin to the Greens in reverse. Instead of sensible, pragmatic policies to transition Australia's energy sector to focus on what is the most cost-effective, cleanest energy, all they want to do is talk about the government building a coal-fired power plant as though it will solve all our energy policy problems. But they have no desire to work through a bipartisan agreement on energy policy.

Labor's position is clear. In fact, despite the roller-coaster of positions adopted by the government, our position has always been clear. We are willing to work with the government to deliver a bipartisan energy policy. On no fewer than six occasions today in question time, the Leader of the Government in the Senate, Senator Cormann, was asked about the government's shambolic approach to energy policy. What is their current policy? What was it? What is it? They could work with Labor to find a path forward on the very policy, the National Energy Guarantee, the NEG, they proposed just months ago. Would this Morrison government—with the architect of the NEG policy, Minister Frydenberg, as Deputy Leader of the Liberal Party—work with Labor to deliver the very policy they proposed just months ago? What was Minister Cormann's response? No commitments to work together, no acknowledgement of the complete shambles the Liberals and Nationals have left the energy sector in over the past five years, and no vision for how to break their self-imposed impasse.

It's clear only one party is serious about taking up the challenge of energy policy, and that's the Labor Party. Last week, Labor leader Bill Shorten and energy spokesperson Mark Butler announced our plan for more renewable energy and cheaper power. What we're proposing is not a short-term political fix—that seems to be the obsession of the Abbott-Turnbull-Morrison government—but a comprehensive 10-year energy investment framework that will deliver certainty for industry, lower power prices, improve reliability in the grid and drive investment in the renewable energy generation that will address climate change.

How are we going to do that? First, we'll double the original investment in the Clean Energy Finance Corporation from $10 billion to $20 billion. Then we'll provide $5 billion to futureproof our energy network through the Energy Security and Modernisation Fund, and we'll implement a new $31 million energy productivity agenda that will seek to turn around Australia's flailing energy efficiency performance, which has seen us fall to last out of developed countries in energy efficiency policy and performance on the Liberals' and Nationals' watch.

I note that the CEFC and ARENA are achieving fantastic things across our energy generation and distribution sectors, as well as working with organisations and business to improve energy efficiency. But, to keep doing this work, more finance is needed. In contrast to the ATM government, who wanted to shut the CEFC down, we see its great work and want to boost its impact across the country. We want to boost investment in large-scale generation and storage projects including solar and wind farms, boost the use of solar and battery systems for homes across the country, and boost investment in energy efficiency projects, commercial and community renewable energy projects, and industrial transformation.

In Tasmania, the CEFC's major investment is in the Granville Harbour wind farm on Tasmania's magnificent west coast. I've been a passionate supporter of the Granville Harbour wind farm since its inception by a farmer and his mate, Royce Smith and Alex Simpson. The CEFC is investing $59 million for the $280 million project. Once completed, the wind farm will produce up to 112 megawatts of renewable energy, generating enough electricity to power more than 46,000 homes. That's enough energy to power most of the homes in the north-west and west coast of Tasmania, improving our generation capacity and creating much-needed construction and maintenance jobs. It's happening right now on the north-west coast and on the west coast of Tasmania. I'm excited by this project—and by other wind farm proposals on the table in Tasmania, including at Cattle Hill and Robbins Island—and I'm excited that it is being assisted by the CEFC, a body that Labor created back when I first started in this place in 2011; a body which, with only around $5 billion in investments, has leveraged a massive $19 billion of investments in clean energy projects so far; and a body with the personnel, the mandate and, with Labor's support, the resources to drive further investment. Such further investment will hopefully include Tasmania's Battery of the Nation project.

The Battery of the Nation is a phenomenal proposal that could see a number of projects built that cumulatively would deliver an additional 3.5 gigawatts in storage and up to 3.5 gigawatts in transmission interconnection, unlocking 6.5 gigawatts of wind generation. It uses Tasmania's natural hydropower assets and our amazing wind resource to deliver pumped hydro to boost Tasmania's contribution to the National Electricity Market. It will boost reliability and decrease emissions. While ARENA is currently co-financing the feasibility study with Hydro Tasmania, the power of the CEFC is that it could provide a large amount of finance for the delivery of the project and crowd in any private investment that may be needed to get it over the line. But the Battery of the Nation isn't feasible without a national energy policy. It needs strong leadership from government to see the project over the current hurdles and into construction. It needs a national energy policy that supports greater investment in renewable energy. It needs governments in Canberra and Hobart that will drive the case for a second Bass Strait interconnector, not the current sop from Liberal energy ministers Taylor and Barnett—and not the stunts we saw today from the Greens that are more focused on reigniting division than on delivering improved outcomes for households and the environment.

Labor has put a strong plan for more renewable energy and cheaper power on the table. It picks up some strong policy work by the government in the reliability space and builds on the clear gap in their policies around emissions reductions. Labor's plan will help deliver 50 per cent of power from renewables by 2030. It will keep power prices lower, it will improve reliability in the electricity grid, and it will create tens of thousands of jobs in the renewable industry. It's time for the other parties in this place to embrace our plan and end the senseless division that we are continually seeing on energy.

Ian Macdonald (Queensland, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The Labor Party seek to have 50 per cent renewable energy. They seek to reduce Australia's carbon emissions. But I might just start on this point, because I see a number of children in the gallery. I just want to mention to the Senate, as I have mentioned before, that Australia produces less than 1.2 per cent of the world's carbon emissions. That is a fact. You won't hear it from the Greens political party because they never tell the truth in things like this. So I asked the Chief Scientist: 'If Australia stopped its emissions by 1.2 per cent—that is, if we stopped every car operating in Australia, if we turned off every light in Australia, if we shut down every factory in Australia, if we turned off the lights in every school in Australia and reduced our emissions by 1.2 per cent—what difference would that make to the changing climate of the world?' And the Chief Scientist said, 'Virtually nothing.' So this focus of the Labor Party and the Greens on reducing carbon emissions to, so they say, save the Great Barrier Reef is a complete falsity, a complete farce. The Chief Scientist acknowledges that nothing Australia does will have any impact on the changing climate of the world.

Sure, when every other country reduces their emissions and gets them down to 1.2 per cent like Australia, Australia should do that too. Australia is a good citizen of the world. We attend conferences. We agree that everyone will try and reduce their emissions. And Australia has a target to reduce emissions, signed up to in Paris. You might have heard about the Paris Agreement. We agreed that we would reduce our carbon emissions by 26½ per cent by 2030. And do you know what? We're one of the few countries in the world that is going to meet its targets and meet them well. Why do I know that? Because we've almost met them now, a couple of years ahead of the target date. We've done that by encouraging people to do the right thing. We're not going to legislate for a 50 or 80 per cent renewable energy target, because all that does is put the price of electricity up. It makes everything that happens in your home more expensive—because you need electricity for your refrigerator, for your lights, for your TV, and for your heater if you happen to be in the southern parts of the country.

What has happened is that the electricity companies have been ripping off the consumers. And one of the biggest rip-off electricity producers is the Queensland Labor government. I looked at the list today to see how many Queensland Labor senators were appearing in this debate, because I wondered how they would explain the hypocrisy of the Labor Party. The Queensland Labor government has just approved a licence for new coal-fired power stations and new coalmines in Queensland. I congratulate them for that. Coal is plentiful, it's cheap and it brings Australia huge amounts of income from our exports. And the way they build coal-fired power stations these days, there is very little emission of carbon. So the Queensland government's done that. The Labor Party people in the Queensland government acknowledge that coal's good. In fact, royalties from coal keep the Queensland government budget afloat. Yet when you come down to Canberra the same Labor Party wants to ban coal. They don't want any coal at all. They're promising to shut down the coalmines in the years ahead of us. Never mind about all the workers who would lose their jobs if that happened. Never mind about states like Queensland, who only exist because of the royalties from coal. They don't worry about that. They're only interested in trying to gain some political advantage in the leafy suburbs of Sydney and Melbourne, where they can tell whatever mistruths they like.

I remember that, before the Batman by-election, Mr Shorten, the Labor leader, went to Batman and said, 'We're totally opposed to Adani.' A few weeks later he was up in Townsville, where I live, where Adani has its headquarters. He was telling everyone there, 'Adani's a great company, and we welcome their investment in coal in Queensland.' So, you cannot believe anything the Labor Party says. In fact, the most common saying in Australia these days is simply this: Labor lies. And you'll find that time and time again. Unfortunately, there are no Labor senators listed on the speaking list today—and I can well understand why, because how could they explain the hypocrisy of Queensland Labor supporting coal while federal Labor, of which they're a part, are not supporting it?

As I've said, the biggest rip-off in Queensland is the state government owned—that is, the Labor state government owned—energy supplier. They run all the distribution of energy, particularly in North Queensland, where I live. They make huge profits each year—Ergon, the Queensland state government's business entity. And what do they do with those profits? They pay them to the Queensland government as dividends. Now, if you wanted to reduce electricity prices in my state of Queensland, you would simply get the Queensland state Labor government to tell their energy supplier, Ergon Energy, to reduce their prices. That way, those of us in Queensland would pay less for our electricity. It would mean, of course, that the Queensland government wouldn't get as much of the profits to try to balance their budget. So, you see, Labor is completely in shambles over energy policy. I heard the previous speaker asking why we weren't supporting the NEG, the new energy policy that the government was talking about some months ago. In those days, Labor was totally opposed to it. Today, suddenly, they think it's a great idea, and they want to introduce it. How hypocritical of the Labor Party.

We've promised as a government that we will get prices down. It's already started to work. We've reined in the power of the networks, which has secured better deals for about 1.6 million households. The retail prices in Queensland, South Australia and New South Wales will come down because of the activities of the federal Liberal-National Party government. Our pressure on the energy companies has already lowered power prices for AGL customers on standing offers, and AGL will protect customers on standing offers by implementing a price safety net. Victorian and New South Wales AGL customers will benefit from a 10 per cent discount on their usage charges. That's because the Liberal-Nationals federal government has put pressure on those big companies.

We've long said in this government that the lower power prices would happen. We've made that happen, and I expect that more will happen from the big energy companies. They've had it too good for too long, and this government is pressuring them into reducing their prices. We have an energy plan that's been put into place—it's actually working as we speak—as opposed to Labor's plan, which is all over the place, and it depends on whether you believe in what Queensland Labor are proposing or in federal Labor. Nobody quite knows what the Labor Party is going to do. All we know is that you'll pay more for your power under Labor, that you can't trust Mr Shorten to keep the lights on, as the last Labor government in South Australia showed, and that it's quite clear that Labor is on the side of the big energy companies, because it owns the one in Queensland. You can't trust Labor to take a big stick to the energy companies to stop those rip-offs. That's why the coalition government's energy plan is workable and is working. (Time expired)

Larissa Waters (Queensland, Australian Greens) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise to speak on the MPI. It looks like a Greens motion! We welcome that, and we welcome the strong language on renewables. As we've said, we want to work constructively with Labor on energy policy in the future. But this motion is just words. What does 'ending the power privatisation mess' mean in the real world? The Greens have, in our policy platform, a public energy retailer. We would see the states building and owning these crucial network interconnectors. What is Labor's policy to end this so-called privatisation mess? Everything's already been sold off, and much of it was under your administration. The difficulty of staying below 1½ degrees, which the science tells us we've only got 12 years to do, requires more than just words, and it requires a policy that does more than just subsidise renewables. We support that, but it's not enough on its own.

The Energy Market Operator—AEMO, as it's known—has said that business as usual would get us to 46 per cent renewables by 2030. Labor's policy is for 50 per cent by that same year. That's only a four per cent difference—an extra one gigawatt of new renewables over and above what would happen anyway in the next 10 years. That isn't transformative. It's not enough. Building just one gigawatt in a decade is not a solution to the climate breakdown. In South Australia, there's one chap building one gigawatt of solar already, and yet this is Labor's plan for the whole country over a decade.

Transformation is bringing the carbon price back. It's linking it to the EU market immediately. It's picking up where we left off with the world-leading climate laws and carrying on as though Tony Abbott never happened. In addition to strong support for renewables, an economy-wide carbon price is what we need to push out coal, to encourage farmers to sequester carbon and give them an additional income stream, to tax the fugitive emissions from gas and coal mining and to change the investment decisions of Australian industry. The Labor Party are sadly so traumatised by a scare campaign on carbon pricing that they can't even support a motion Senator Di Natale moved today that simply stated the facts about how successful that carbon price was and the benefits that carbon pricing brought to the economy. And, tragically, neither side of the chamber supported my motions yesterday and today about ruling out a new water-hungry, climate-destroying thermal coalmine in Queensland's Galilee Basin, right next to the Adani mega-mine, which both sides of politics support.

Climate change is affecting us now. This is not something to worry about for future generations. It is happening now. Queensland is on fire. There are more than 138 fires burning in my state right now. The fire commissioner has said:

We have never ever in this state been in this situation before. We've not had a catastrophic level before.

The Premier has said this has never been seen before. This is exactly what climate change is going to continue to do to weather events. More than 30 schools have been closed, which is kind of ironic. The Prime Minister yesterday was condemning kids for wanting to participate in the school walkout on Friday to beg governments to take action on climate change, and now these kids in Queensland don't have the chance to go to school because of climate-induced bushfires. I hope the Prime Minister can see that irony.

We also know that support for climate action is stronger in the community than it's been since 2008. The community want us to do something. They can see that we've lost half the reef's coral cover. They can see that people are suffering from the sorts of climate-induced weather events that are currently wreaking havoc in Queensland and, I might add, in Sydney, with the massive downpours. But all Labor are doing is salvaging the policy that the Liberals threw in the bin. The NEG was a policy that was designed to get through a Tony Abbott government. It would further entrench the market power of the big three energy companies and simply add to the so-called privatisation mess, which this motion apparently opposes.

I beg both sides of the chamber: please stop approving new coalmines. The science could not be clearer. Our planetary system cannot handle new coal being added to the system. We welcome the strong support for renewables by the Labor Party. It's not as strong as we think the science would tell us it should be and it's not as strong as the Greens will push for—that's exactly why you need us in this chamber—but we welcome your strong steps. But please stop backing new coal. The reef can't handle it and our communities can't handle the extreme weather events. My heart goes out to Queenslanders and the fantastic emergency service personnel coping with what will become the new normal. (Time expired)

Jenny McAllister (NSW, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Assistant Minister for Families and Communities) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Climate change and energy have been in the media again this week after reports that this issue was raised by disgruntled voters on polling day in Victoria on Saturday. I'm always glad to see climate change being discussed, but I think it does a disservice to the issue to speak about it just as an electoral question. The government doesn't need to address climate change because of what happened in Brighton or Hawthorn or, indeed, Wentworth. The government needs to address climate change because of what is happening to the Great Barrier Reef, what is happening to our bushfire season and, indeed, what the science tells us is happening all around the world.

The need to act is real, and the government is failing to meet it. There is no plan at all to address climate change. What is their policy on climate and energy? Minister Cormann was asked about it repeatedly in question time today and it was very clear that there is no answer. There's a jumbled set of recommendations that draw on a really important report by the ACCC, but it goes nowhere near being a comprehensive energy policy. It goes nowhere near creating the kind of long-term certainty that industry tells us again and again and again that they require if they are going to invest. That's what's needed right now.

We need to be very clear about the problem in the energy sector. It is an investment strike. Investors in that sector are saying that, until there is clarity and until there is certainty about energy policy, they will not be in a position to make the necessary investments. All the while, our existing capital stock is running down. It's past its used-by date. It is going to need to be replaced, and that's going to need private sector investment. But no-one will invest while the government is all over the shop about the energy policy that they propose. Part of it is a failure to be able to deal with emissions reduction. Nothing about the energy policy that they've got at the moment—weak as it is—deals in any way with climate change. It's confirmed explicitly by no less than the energy minister. Mr Taylor, in the other place, has stated:

Emissions reductions are the least of our problems …

Tell that to the people of Kiribati. Tell that to the people who risk having their livelihoods eroded by damage to the Great Barrier Reef. Tell that to the people who work in the alpine area during the ski season as each year we see a decreasing likelihood we'll get the kind of snow cover necessary to sustain a skiing area. Tell that to people whose houses will be threatened by bushfire. Tell that to people who are at risk of very serious illness or death owing to the increasing frequency and severity of heatwaves. Tell them that emissions reductions are the least of our problems.

Emissions reduction ought to be at the forefront of our thinking, but this government cannot come to terms with it. They are bereft of policy ideas. The environment minister, Melissa Price, has indicated that the government may revive the Direct Action policy, a relic of the Abbott period. We're five years in and back to what was always a cobbled-together policy. Direct Action is expensive and ineffective. It is a form of corporate welfare. Research confirms that many of the projects funded through the Direct Action program are projects that would have gone ahead anyway. Landfill operators have been awarded subsidies in each of the auctions. Their projects, often, were already generating revenue from electricity sales and already generating revenue from renewable energy certificates.

Advice from the Wilderness Society is that land clearing undertaken in states where the LNP have wiped out land clearing protections has basically taken out all of the value obtained by the $1.5 billion in taxpayer funded emissions gains. That's according to the government's own figures. So public money that was spent cutting greenhouse gas emissions by planting trees and restoring habitat under the coalition's own Direct Action policy will effectively have been negated by little more than two years of forest clearing elsewhere in the country. It is a hopeless joke.

The $2.5 billion Emissions Reduction Fund has contracts to present 124 million tonnes of emissions through vegetation projects, but, in the same period, forest clearing has released more than 160 million tonnes of carbon dioxide since the fund began in 2015.

The very sad thing is that there has been no lack of options for this government. But, like a fussy toddler, they've just taken everything that's been given to them, chewed it up and spat it out. We understand, more than anyone in this chamber, the need for bipartisanship. We've offered bipartisanship, because we think that's what the country deserves and what industry deserves. We offered it for the emissions intensity scheme, but that was vetoed by then Prime Minister Abbott. We offered it for the clean energy target developed by Dr Finkel, and that was also vetoed by Prime Minister Abbott. We offered it for the National Energy Guarantee, the next iteration of their policy mess, but that was first abandoned by Prime Minister Turnbull and then ignored by Prime Minister Morrison.

Why does this government keep proposing energy policies and strategies and then abandoning them? It is because they are fundamentally divided. They cannot work out what they stand for on energy policy. They cannot come to any internal settlement about how they ought to approach this question, because half their party room doesn't even believe climate change is real. Many of them are in this chamber, and I'm certain their contributions this afternoon will reflect that.

The government is wrong. We do need action on emissions. Climate change has, in one way or another, cost the Liberal Party two Prime Ministers, but the Liberal Party's inaction on climate change has really cost Australians. Australia's emissions in this last year, once you exclude unreliable data on land use in forestry, were the highest on record, and it's the third consecutive year for record-breaking emissions. At this rate, we will not meet our Paris commitments. No amount of wishfully saying, 'We've met them in the past and that in itself is sufficient guarantee that we'll meet them in the future,' will cut it. You actually need a policy. Prices are going up. Industry tell us that it is the uncertainty in the market that is driving up prices, and they are demanding action.

Back when the Finkel review came out, the Business Council chief executive, Jennifer Westacott, said:

Australia hasn't a moment to lose now that we have a comprehensive, independent blueprint to restore the security, reliability and affordability of our electricity system.

The CEO of Energy Australia and a board member of the Reserve Bank, Catherine Tanna, has said, 'The solution to high prices is a national plan to transition the future of energy into renewables.' How has the government responded to this? With nothing—nothing about the future emissions intensity of our energy system. They have the big stick of divestment, which they talked about endlessly, but that is a policy that is almost entirely bereft of support or friends. How far from the pack have the coalition government drifted if the BCA is criticising them on their policy because it provides insufficient certainty to industry? The BCA have described the government's current energy plan as 'ad hoc' and 'extreme' and, like Ms Bishop, they have urged the government to adopt the NEG.

We have a plan to reduce emissions. I say this to the Greens political party: it doesn't matter if a cat is black or white as long as it catches mice. The real thing that matters when it comes to the environment and when it comes to climate is your target. I will tell you what our target is. It is zero net emissions by 2050 and 50 per cent renewables by 2030. We know that investment in technology will be necessary to meet that. That's why we've announced support for batteries and that's why we're saying that we will double the investment for the CEFC. Research and analysts are telling us that the best policies not only have an impact on emissions; they will drive prices down. That's the basis of the Labor policy. That's the policy we've put together, because we know renewables are the cheapest form of new generation.

We know that we need new generation capacity, and we know that we cannot afford to muck around any longer. We have had five years of inaction. Consumers are suffering, the environment is suffering and, frankly, confidence in our national political process is suffering. We take climate change seriously. We take energy policy seriously on this side of the chamber. That is not a question of electoral maths; that is a question of science and a question of engineering.

Eric Abetz (Tasmania, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Labor's audacity and lack of self-awareness in opting to choose energy for the topic of today's policy discussion would be laughable but for energy's criticality to the wellbeing of our fellow Australians. Labor's energy policy is not about helping pensioners, helping low-income families, helping small business and helping our farmers to balance their budgets and pay their bills. Labor's energy policy is not about helping the young or the environment. Labor's energy policy is about appeasing its extreme Left, who worship at the Paris altar of impractical, counterproductive and job-destroying green ideology. Make no mistake: the Labor Party, led by Mr Bill Shorten, will deliver the Australian people an energy bill that will leave them short. In Labor's desperation to develop an energy policy, they crept into the Liberal Party room, rummaged through the Liberals' rubbish bin and are now hailing as their policy bits of our discarded policy. They claim that somehow that is innovative and worthy of support.

I welcome the Labor Party's commitment to recycling, because that is practical environmentalism, but can I say: recycling is not so good when it comes to policy. The policy was discarded for a reason: the cost to our fellow Australians—to our pensioners, low-income earners, small businesses and farmers. The Liberal policy in this space is clear: we commit ourselves to being good, very good, environmental stewards. And being good environmental stewards does not mean wrecking people's lives with carbon taxes and higher energy bills and breaking household budgets. Our policy puts price before Paris—an agreement which is now disavowed by or not impacting India, China and the United States, making up a very large proportion of the world's CO2 emissions. So, with a bit over one per cent of the world's emissions, through which we provide the hungry populations of the world with cheap and quality cereals, dairy and meat products, we have nothing of which to be ashamed and everything for which to be thankful.

As was experienced under Labor, Labor's high energy bills saw jobs and production flee to our near neighbours, who were using our coal to ensure that they had cheap energy prices. So, under Labor, we were reducing our emissions whilst others were increasing their emissions with our coal so they could manufacture things that used to be manufactured in Australia and have the privilege of then exporting them back into Australia—not good environmental policy for the world, not good social policy and not good economic policy.

On being elected, the Liberals abolished the carbon tax and restored economic confidence. Make no mistake: you can have all sorts of people talking about a lack of confidence in our economy, but there is one very good, independent indicator of economic confidence, and that is jobs growth. And have we delivered on that front—over one million jobs in less than five years. Tens of thousands of our fellow Australians are now benefiting from being fully engaged with the economy, which enables them to regain the dignity of self-reliance and the capacity to contribute to themselves, their family and their nation.

Labor's latest attempt to increase our energy bills and leave us short is to pursue a 50 per cent Renewable Energy Target—a target which will swing the wrecking ball through household budgets and the Australian economy. If you want to quote the Business Council of Australia, that is exactly what they have said about the Australian Labor Party policy, something that was missing from the previous speaker's commentary. As a nation, to date, we have sunk literally tens of billions of dollars into renewable energy whilst our energy bills have in fact gone sky high. This is Labor economics at its destructive worst. Talk about welfare for business: the renewable energy sector has been the greatest beneficiary of taxpayer subsidies and funding over years which have delivered higher energy costs to the detriment of our households, our pensioners, our small businesses, our farmers and, of course, our major manufacturers. Using taxpayers' money to subsidise an inefficient and unreliable energy supply so we can all then pay higher energy prices to boot, on top of those tax subsidies, is neither good economic sense nor, indeed, common sense.

If that isn't enough, Labor, not having learned from their pink batts debacle, now want a new pink battery debacle by offering a $2,000 taxpayer subsidy to those willing to buy a toxic battery. It's something the Greens and Labor never talk about: what happens when these batteries meet the end of their life cycle; what are we going to do with them? But, that aside, these batteries will be provided for people with solar panels on their roof—or, one assumes, also, potentially, for people with windmills. So just think about this: a battery that will cost, very conservatively, at least $8,000 to $10,000, under Labor will receive a $2,000 subsidy. How many pensioners will be able to afford the $6,000 to $8,000 shortfall? Not a single one. How many truck drivers, retail workers or nurses will be able to afford these expensive batteries? None; not a single one. But Labor's self-styled urban elites will be able to afford the difference and pocket the subsidy, whilst pensioners and low-income earners will pay even higher energy prices and more taxes through these subsidies. That is Labor social injustice—just another example of how Labor has lost its way.

Labor once actually championed the battlers, the pensioners and the low-income earners. Today they champion the green elites at the expense of the battlers, as is further witnessed by their iniquitous retiree tax grab which will only impact, yet again—you've guessed it—the low-income earners. But, if the retiree tax grab is not enough, Labor will increase the cost of living of low-income earners by their green-appeasing, household-budget-and-job-destroying energy policies on renewables and batteries.

There are four key planks to the Liberal policy. One is a price safety net to stop big power companies ripping off loyal customers. In fact, the Labor Party is wont to quote the Business Council of Australia—I don't actually hear the Business Council of Australia championing this Liberal policy of a price safety net to stop big power companies ripping off loyal customers. I wonder why. Possibly some of them may be members—I don't know—of the Business Council of Australia. Isn't it a stark situation when it is the Liberal Party supporting the pensioners and the low-income earners, and we have the Labor Party championing big business?

We will provide a safety net to stop big power companies ripping off customers, we will stop price gouging and dodgy practices—another key plank to our policy—and we will back investment in reliable power by underwriting new electricity generation to improve competition. We will support 24/7 reliable power by requiring energy companies to sign contracts guaranteeing enough energy to meet demand. We, on this side, will always put pensioners and price before the ideology of Paris.

Tim Storer (SA, Independent) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise to speak on this matter of public importance regarding energy. Meaningful action on climate change in this country is long overdue. The Australian people have made their views clear. The voters of Wentworth, the voters of Victoria and the young people protesting outside this parliament this morning have all made their views clear: we must act now to reduce our emissions and stop shirking our moral responsibility to future generations. The recent IPCC report was yet another stark reminder of the urgent need for action. Reducing emissions should be a key priority of this government. As one of the wealthiest countries on earth, we should be leading the way. But the latest figures from the Department of the Environment and Energy show that our emissions are actually increasing—up 1.5 per cent from December 2016-17.

The good news is that the answers to the problem are also the most affordable and economically responsible. Renewables are now the cheapest form of new energy in Australia, and advances in batteries and pumped-hydro storage technology mean that this power can be made available 24/7. My home state of South Australia provides an example of how an influx of new renewables is putting downward pressure on wholesale electricity prices. It's also delivering badly needed jobs and investment to regional Australia. As the Senate agreed in the motion I put to it this Monday, renewable energy coupled with energy storage technologies can provide fair dinkum power that is cheap, reliable and clean.

Energy efficiency provides another good example. As study after study has shown, it not only has huge potential for reducing emissions but also can dramatically reduce our energy bills. My bill, the Treasury Laws Amendment (Improving the Energy Efficiency of Rental Properties) Bill 2018, was a direct response to this opportunity to provide cheap, reliable, clean energy with maximum savings to households.

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

I rise to also contribute to this matter of public importance. In doing so, I will say at the outset that I agree with Senator Storer that meaningful action on climate change is well overdue and Australia should be playing its part as a wealthy nation in the region to limit our pollution and reduce greenhouse gases. Our country—and indeed the world—is undergoing a period of rapid destruction in the energy sector. But, through innovation, scale and our need to respond to climate change, renewable energy is becoming the future of that energy mix, and rightly so. This year, 2018, has been a record year for rooftop solar installations as well as large-scale solar and wind developments. But it's vital that we have the energy policy that reflects and anticipates these market developments, our environmental obligations and the need for a transition plan from fossil fuels to renewable energy. The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change exclaimed recently: 'Climate change is no longer an emergency; it is a disaster.'

On that front, I would like to take this opportunity to outline the Morrison government's renewable energy target. Excuse the silence, but there is no policy. That, there in itself, weighs up exactly what we are dealing with in this country: a Morrison government that does not have an energy or a climate policy, a government that is missing in action. Electricity prices have increased by nearly 19 per cent in the past three years—three times as fast as wages growth. The government have blamed blackouts on wind farms, and they've treated coal as though it's some sort of panacea. In fact, the just-released 2018 United Nations Environment emissions gap report makes clear that the government has no interest in climate change as there has been no improvement in Australia's climate policy. On current projections, applying the government's policy—well, lack of policy—by 2030 we will be well above the Nationally Determined Contributions target under the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change. Under Morrison's hopeless climate change policies, carbon pollution will continue to rise all the way to 2030, which is as far as the projections currently go. It is for those reasons that moderate Liberals are now speaking out against the government's continued kowtowing to the hard-right wreckers of their party room that have dictated action on climate change and energy for so long.

As Bill Shorten aptly observed last week, the single most important thing about energy and climate right now is to actually have some sort of policy. Well, Labor does have a very comprehensive policy. Labor's energy plan, announced last week, addresses comprehensively the energy market as a whole. It delivers predictability, investor confidence, more renewables, cheaper power and more jobs. We're committed to ensuring that there's a just transition for workers in existing generation facilities that will be eventually phased out, notably coal, and for affected communities. We'll ensure households can reduce both their power bills and their carbon footprint, notably by making battery storage more affordable and improving efficiency. And we'll promote the modernisation of our energy infrastructure—in particular, by investing some $5 billion in a new energy security and modernisation fund and by doubling the original investment in the Clean Energy Finance Corporation.

But we also realise that energy policy should not be this partisan. Our preference is to achieve some sort of bipartisan agreement, and it always has been. So we'll continue to pursue the National Energy Guarantee, which can deliver our 50 per cent renewable energy target by 2030. It's clear that some on the other side want to move forward in this direction. The member for Curtin has called on her colleagues to 'consider energy policy through the prism of securing bipartisan agreement with Labor', which 'must and has to be balanced with concerns for our environment and preservation of our planet'. But even the former Prime Minister, Malcolm Turnbull, recently said that the Liberal Party and the coalition are not capable of dealing with climate change. Australians deserve a government that will take action on climate change, reduce pollution and invest in our renewables. Australia deserves better, and Labor is ready to be that. (Time expired)

Amanda Stoker (Queensland, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Australian families and small businesses will benefit from the government's plan for affordable and reliable energy, while they would suffer enormously under the plans that are put forward by Labor, which can be described as nothing more than a throwback to the Rudd-Gillard-Rudd years and all of the disasters that that entailed. But, before I get onto that, let me say a few things about the Morrison government's plan for energy. For all of the complaining that we hear on the other side, there is a simple, clear, practical plan that we have seen is already reducing prices for Australian households and Australian businesses.

First, there's a price safety net to stop big power companies ripping off loyal customers who don't have time to shop around all the time for a better deal. By knowing what that base rate is, consumers will be better able to determine what really represents good value. And it will stop situations where, as we've already seen, some households are paying over $800 more per year, and small businesses nearly $3,500 more per year, than the cheapest market offer they've had. Second, we will stop price gouging and dodgy practices by big energy companies, including banning sneaky late payment penalties and making energy retailers pass on savings and wholesale prices through to consumers. These two policies are part of the government's big-stick approach which is designed to stop the rip-offs and lower power prices. You can see the opposition mock this big stick all they like, but they have to mock it because they've got nothing to compare to it. If all they can do is ridicule, it shows they have nothing to match the robustness of these measures.

The approach is already having an impact. AGL have announced cheaper power prices for over 150,000 families and 27,000 businesses. On the other hand, the Labor Party have made it clear that they're not interested in challenging these big energy companies and, instead, would prefer to protect their record profits rather than protecting consumers. While Bill Shorten shows by his actions rather than by his words that he's on the side of big energy companies every day of the week, the Morrison government have shown that we are always on the side of working Australians and small businesses.

Third, we're backing investment in reliable power by underwriting new electricity generation to improve competition, increase supply and reduce wholesale energy prices. Fourth, we are supporting 24/7 reliable power by requiring energy companies to sign contracts that guarantee enough energy to meet demand through a reliability obligation. Clearly and simply, the coalition stands for more affordable and reliable power.

The contrast with Labor could not be starker. They can talk about things being messy all they like but, boy, there's a lot of mess on their side. Not only is this motion a mess but so too is Mr Shorten's plan for energy. Take the big battery proposal. Families come to the doors of representatives in this place day in, day out saying they cannot afford their quarterly energy bills. They demand, ask and plead that we do something about it, and Labor's answer is to say, 'Well, we'll give you a $2,000 subsidy on a big battery if you chip in $10,000 to $20,000.' If you can't afford your quarterly energy bill, you can't afford to shell out for a great big battery. And, of course, the last time Labor offered to install things in the houses of Australians, it was pink batts, and we all know how well that ended up—burning rooftops and Australians losing their lives. I know this is just another invitation for the kind of big government chaos that characterised Labor's last government, and we need to do all we can to stop a repeat of that happening in this country. It is an elitist policy, it is an unfair policy and it is a policy that puts virtue signalling on renewables over the practical bills of Australians, and that's something that the coalition does not tolerate. The coalition will fight every day of the week for cheaper energy prices for all Australians and their small businesses.

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

The United Nations insists taxing carbon dioxide emissions is necessary to stop the climate warming. I am not convinced, but Labor, together with the Greens, has swallowed this rubbish hook, line and sinker. The Chief Scientist of Australia, Alan Finkel, told the Senate in June last year that reducing carbon emissions by 100 per cent would make virtually no difference to the global climate. Labor plans to ignore the advice of the Chief Scientist of Australia and embark on a plan that will destroy the living standards of most Australian families.

Labor's unrealistic promise is to reduce carbon emissions by 50 per cent by 2030, but Labor has been coy about how this will be achieved. Labor's promise to create a just transitional authority recognises hundreds of thousands of workers will find themselves jobless as a result of their energy and climate policies. Mark my words: Labor's irresponsible plan to rapidly transition to a low-carbon-emitting Australia will end in tragedy. About 38 per cent of carbon emissions come from the production of electricity, gas and water, so that sector cannot, on its own, deliver the 50 per cent savings promised by Labor. So I ask: where will the savings in carbon emissions be made? There is real danger that petrol and diesel prices will rise, just as they have in France. The French government, now deeply unpopular, has increased fuel prices to pay for the transition to a low-carbon-emitting France. Additionally, they tax vehicles on the basis of their carbon emissions per kilometre travelled. Next year the French government expects cars to emit no more than 117 grams of carbon per kilometre, and it is estimated that one in four cars will emit over this level and be subject to fines up to A$15,600. Labor must rule out taxing carbon emissions on Australian vehicles, including those used in agriculture and mining. Taxing carbon emissions on vehicles would devastate the economy. Before it's too late, we need to be out of the Paris climate agreement, and we need less foreign interference in the way we make policies for Australia. (Time expired)

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

The time for the discussion has now expired.