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

I move:

That the Industry Research and Development (Bankable Feasibility Study on High-Efficiency Low-Emissions Coal Plant in Collinsville Program) Instrument 2020, made under the Industry Research and Development Act 1986, be disallowed [F2020L00772].

I spoke previously on a previous motion to disallow this ridiculous waste of taxpayers' money, a feasibility study into a coal-fired power station in Queensland. Spoiler alert—it is not feasible. Renewables are cleaner, cheaper and create more jobs. I don't intend to repeat everything I said last time, but I do want to set out again why the Greens remain strongly opposed to this project. I'm seeking to disallow this grant of $3.3 million of taxpayers' money being allocated to a private company, Shine Energy, that has no relevant experience in order to support a coal-fired power station that we don't need in the middle of a climate crisis.

The funding was a government pre-election promise from a slush fund designed to shore up Liberal and National Party support particularly in Queensland. It was the sop to the Nationals, who love coal and who have abandoned farmers. As two farmers from a National Party-held electorate in my office earlier today themselves offered up and as I sadly had to assure them was, in fact, the case.

When Shine's thought bubble project couldn't get any funding from existing programs, the government created an entirely new grants fund: the so-called Supporting Reliable Energy Infrastructure Fund. Then it designed the terms of reference to match Shine's project. Minister Taylor announced that Shine would receive up to $4 million of taxpayer money from the fund for a feasibility study for a so-called high-efficiency, low-emissions coal plant. That was two days before Shine were even invited to apply for the money. They won the thing before they had even applied. No other tenders were sought.

We learned in estimates that the grant was announced by the minister before the department had evaluated a commissioned prefeasibility study into new power plants. I regret to inform the chamber that there has also been little oversight of grant money that has already been paid out to Shine Energy. Reports are that such money has been frittered on vehicles. There's no deadline set for completing this so-called feasibility study.

The entire process stinks. It's currently the subject of an ANAO inquiry, which is due to report next month. It is, sadly, yet another example of why we need a strong independent integrity commission and why we need more funding for the ANAO, rather than the 20 per cent capacity cut that they're going to have to cop because this government hasn't given them additional funds in the budget process—possibly because they do such a good job and would end up embarrassing the government for their own profligate and inappropriate decisions. It's also why we need an enforceable ministerial code of conduct that would prevent misuse of public money.

Even ignoring the integrity questions, as the government would be happy to do, this project is unsupportable. The government says: 'It's only a feasibility study. It may not get built.' Newsflash: new coal-fired power stations are not feasible. While the Nationals persist with their irresponsible calls for new coal-fired power plants, the Morrison government's own energy policies make it clear that new coal power is dead.

The 2020 GenCost report by CSIRO and the Australian Energy Market Operator compares the cost of building and running various electricity generation technologies. It found that coal-fired power costs—wait for it—three times as much as big solar farms or twice as much as wind. For the policy wonks out there: they cost new coal at $4,450 per kilowatt to build, they cost large-scale solar at $1,408 per kilowatt to build and they cost wind power at $1,951 per kilowatt hour to build. Analysis by the Queensland government last year found that, to be viable, a new coal-fired power station would require a wholesale price of $120 a megawatt hour. That's double the current average wholesale price in Queensland, so, unless you want Queensland power prices to double, your own coal-fired power plant proposal is not economically viable.

GenCost, CSIRO's report, says renewables are cheaper than the cost of new coal and gas-fired electricity generation, even though they require investment to expand the transmission network to link solar and wind to the grid and to build up battery storage. Even with those additional capital inputs it is still cheaper than coal, and that's not even to mention the climate impacts. It doesn't account for the benefit of avoided emissions and the damage that that will do, the public health benefits in avoiding those emissions, the jobs saved on the Great Barrier Reef, the jobs created in the renewable energy sector, and the human and proprietorial harm avoided by not making natural disasters even worse.

When asked about the Collinsville project prior to the state election, the Queensland LNP said Queensland had plenty of power and, 'The LNP is not proposing for any government investment into a new coal-fired power station.' Perhaps someone could tell former Minister Canavan that. Given that he's in the chamber, he might like to take note that his own Queensland party is not in fact proposing the very project that he has been hounding the feds for public money to support.

Somewhat surprisingly, last week the Western Australian Liberals also saw the writing on the wall and they pledged to close all publicly owned coal-fired power stations by 2025 as part of 'the biggest jobs, renewable energy and export project in the nation'. It's very interesting to see Liberal state parties accepting the economics of renewable energy. Maybe they don't accept the climate science yet, but they certainly seem to be accepting the economics of it. One hopes that the federal folk here are in contact with their state counterparts. As Frank Jotzo, who's the Director of the Centre for Climate and Energy Policy at ANU said:

… there is no prospect at all for a commercially built new coal-fired power plant in Australia. It really is an open-shut case now. Australia's electricity future is in renewables, bolstered by storage in batteries and pumped hydro.

All of that makes throwing public money at the Collinsville folly extremely negligent. This chamber could stop that criminal waste of public money today. We could disallow this funding instrument. We could do our job and refuse to waste $3.3 million of taxpayer money on a climate-destroying coal-fired power station run by a company with no experience in energy.

Regional Queensland, along with the rest of Australia, doesn't need a white elephant coal project. Those communities need real, sustainable jobs powered by renewable, clean energy. They need a government that acts with integrity and they need a government that takes the climate crisis seriously and cares about their future. I look forward to seeing whether or not sanity will prevail on this obscene waste of public money for a feasibility study into a climate disaster when the grids are already oversupplied and we have cheaper, clean alternatives. I look forward to seeing how the vote goes on this.

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

The Senate leader of the Australian Greens, Senator Waters, quoted a lot from professors and people from other political parties about whether or not this should happen. But, nobody that I heard her quote—I missed the beginning of Senator Waters' remarks, but I doubt there were any quotes—actually live in Collinsville or even live in North Queensland. I know, visiting Collinsville many, many times, that they would love to see this job-creating project in this region.

I know that the Indigenous people, the Birri people of this region, would love to see a project of this nature come there and provide them jobs. Indeed, the Birri people know about energy. They were involved in a solar panel project a few years ago with RATCH at the site of the old Collinsville coal-fired power station. They were very happy to receive some hundreds of jobs through that project. Of course, renewable is a sugar hit. It only lasts for a little bit, then the jobs go away. That's exactly what happened to the Birri people. Once the solar panels were installed, all the jobs went, and there were no more jobs for them there at Collinsville. They were meant to go back to penury and poverty, whilst renewable energy warms the hearts of those in the city. They want real jobs. They want ongoing jobs. That's why they got together as a group. A Birri leader, Ash Dodd, formed a company called Shine Energy. They decided to get behind a coal-fired power station because they've got a coal mine on their lands. All that coal currently goes overseas to create jobs in other countries, so they thought, 'Why don't we keep some of it here for our own people?' and use some indigenous coal here to create Indigenous jobs. Yet the Greens are once again denying the franchise to Indigenous peoples because they are pursuing an ideological campaign against coal-fired power; not one supporting people who actually live in these regions.

I only have limited time, so I want to quickly ask: what are the Greens afraid of? If everything Senator Waters says is right and this $3.3 million study that we're debating here—it is a study we're debating here tonight, not the project—comes back and says, 'This is not viable, it can't work,' I've said on the record that I'll accept that. That's fine. Let's focus on what can work. If Senator Waters is so confident in what she's said, what is she afraid of? Won't the inquiry find that? I know she is afraid. Senator Waters is quite intelligent and she would know that there have actually been a number of detailed engineering studies showing that a coal-fired power station at Collinsville would stack up with lower prices for people in North Queensland, and it could potentially make money depending on how it works with the price guarantee that exists in Queensland. Back in 2013, Wayne Swan commissioned a study by GHD which found this very thing. Another report by, I think, Energy Edge, which was commissioned by the Queensland department of environment and energy, had very similar conclusions about this coal-fired power station.

It stacks up for a reason: there is no base-load power station in North Queensland, and, with increasing investment in renewables in North Queensland, the case for this power station becomes even more clear, because there needs to be a station that can follow the load of, particularly, solar in North Queensland. With modern, coal-fired power technologies, we can make sure that the coal is there in the morning and the evenings when the sun is not, to ensure that North Queensland people have power 24 hours a day, just as I'm sure Senator Waters would like, and, most importantly, keep those manufacturing industries going in Townsville, like the copper refinery and the zinc refinery and many other jobs in that industry in Townsville. So I look forward to seeing the results of this study. I hope the Senate confirms it, as it did late last year, because we should back Indigenous Australians in their desire to create jobs in their region. And we desperately need some reliable, base-load power in North Queensland.

Zed Seselja (ACT, Liberal Party, Minister for International Development and the Pacific) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

This was a commitment the government took to the last election. We keep all our commitments, including this one to the people of North Queensland. We are creating jobs and opportunities for Australians, particularly in a post-COVID-19 world. We want a stronger economy, supported by affordable, reliable power. A vote to disallow is a vote against jobs in North Queensland. There's already been a disallowance motion in the Senate on this matter. This is just another stunt by the Greens and a waste of the Senate's time.

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

The question is that the disallowance motion moved by Senator Waters be agreed to.