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

In respect of the ministerial statement on energy, I move:

That the Senate take note of the document.

The minister's statement on energy was just as you'd expect from Minister Taylor—20 minutes of self-congratulation, having achieved remarkably little. It was the parliamentary equivalent of telling yourself 'good job' on Facebook. The clearest statement of what the government thinks about energy policy is not what the minister said in the House. It's what the government has been doing or, more correctly, not doing for the last eight years.

The Liberal and National government has had 22 energy policies in the last eight years. Those 22 energy policies have had two things in common. None of them have made a real difference in driving down electricity prices and none of them have made a real difference in driving down emissions. Energy emissions reduction policy actually marks a break from the government's tradition of overpromising and then failing to deliver, because this government won't even begin with the first part—promising. There's no policy, and that is because this minister's goal is not to deliver an emissions policy or an energy policy; it is to fight renewables.

This is a minister who before his appointment was a fixture at anti-wind-farm rallies. This is a minister who after his appointment went on Alan Jones's show and said, 'There's too much solar and wind in this system.' This is a minister who said in the other place:

The new climate religion … has little basis on fact and everything to do with blind faith.

His ideological position shines through loud and clear in the government's 22nd energy policy. The problem is that it was outdated eight years ago and it has only become more irresponsible since.

With the election of President-elect Biden and his commitment to net-zero emissions by 2050, more than 70 per cent of Australia's trade is with countries who have committed to net zero by 2050—and Australia is an outlier. Net zero by 2050 is becoming the global orthodoxy, and there are real costs for Australia in continuing to be a laggard. There is a race on. It is a race to attract investment to transform the global economy, and that investment means more projects and it means more jobs. Australia could and should be a leader. We should be a clean energy superpower. We have an extraordinary wealth of resources necessary to play that role, but we are not doing anything about it under this government, which is unable to settle on an energy policy. It seems increasingly likely that there may be trade consequences for countries that don't act responsibly on climate, and Australia may well be vulnerable to measures like carbon border tariffs unless we act.

Net zero by 2050 is not—as some of the people on the other side of this chamber would have you believe—an unusual proposition in the Australian debate. The BCA, the AiG, the big banks, the big insurers and the super funds have all said that the pathway to economic recovery should be aligned with the national commitment to net zero emissions by 2050. That target is supported by every state government. The reason for that support is pretty straightforward: energy transformation is an opportunity for developing good jobs. It's an opportunity for industry, and that is particularly the case in regional Australia.

The Clean Energy Council has gone on the record saying there are renewable energy products that already have planning approval and are ready to be built. That would create 50,000 jobs, and we are just waiting for an investment framework that would accommodate them. That's the advice from the industry body. It's in stark contrast to what's available from the government's gas-fired recovery announcement, which I explored with the department during estimates. I gave them multiple opportunities, on multiple days, with a week in between, to come back to the Senate and tell us what jobs would flow from their announcement. They cannot point to a single job that will be created, within a relevant time frame, in the next 12 to 18 months. This is the period when the Australian economy will need support. Yet the announcement, the press release, put out by this government contains absolutely nothing to stimulate jobs. The CSIRO modelling used by the New South Wales Liberal government shows that net zero emissions by 2050 will deliver higher wages, stronger economic growth and lower power bills.

You have to wonder what it is about Minister Taylor and his ideological fixations that don't allow him to respond to that evidence, to the government's own science research agency, because Australia is not on track for net zero and, despite what the Prime Minister is fond of saying, we are not on track to meet our Kyoto targets. We are in the bottom five of performers as ranked by the Climate Change Performance Index. But it's also apparent from the government's on data. The August figures show that in the last six-year period of the last Labor government emissions came down by 15 per cent. What happened over the six years of this government? Emissions came down by one per cent. It will take 600 years to get to net zero emissions under this government's current rate of emissions cuts.

The Prime Minister said we smashed the Kyoto protocol target. That's only if you count the reduction under the policies they opposed and have since repealed. The Prime Minister continues to claim that we'll meet and beat our Paris target of 26 per cent by 2030. That would be true if we maintained the trajectory we were on in 2013, but the government's own projections from December last year show that between 2020 and 2030, on this government's policies for a whole decade, we'll cut emissions by four per cent. It will take us 230 years, at that rate, to get to net zero emissions.

The anti-renewables crusade prosecuted by this minister, who delivered this statement, has delivered Australians higher energy prices. Indeed, the fixation with promoting new coal-fired generation is only commercially viable if there are higher wholesale prices, and analysis after analysis shows that this is true. It's what analysts have been saying, generally, about new coal for a long time. Bloomberg New Energy Finance said:

But even if the government were to completely de-risk coal by paying for the whole plant and guaranteeing an exemption from any future liabilities, the lowest LCOE that could be achieved is … still well above wind, solar or gas.

According to AIG:

… new coal-fired generators are unlikely to bring current prices down because they require even higher prices to be bankable; they are a poor fit to stabilise the grid …

Even the Prime Minister himself, when he was Treasurer, said, 'We shouldn't kid ourselves that a new coal plant would bring down electricity prices anytime soon.' Despite this, the two main outcomes that the government has delivered since the election are a grant to operate the Vales Point Power Station and a grant to Shine Energy, a decision that has been referred to and is being investigated by the Auditor-General.

There is another way to approach this. We have rich natural resources. We do have the opportunity to be a renewable energy super power exporting into our region. The minister could have chosen something very different. He should have delivered a statement that set out a real plan for Australia to bring on those jobs and bring that industry to our shores, to our regions. Instead, we got an empty speech from a minister who has described climate change as a religion, led by a Prime Minister who brought a chunk of coal into the parliament. I seek leave to continue my remarks later.

Leave granted; debate adjourned.