Tim Wilson (Goldstein, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

My question is to the Prime Minister. Will the Prime Minister advise the House how the government's recent energy announcements will make renewable energy reliable for households and businesses, including in the great electorate of Goldstein?

Malcolm Turnbull (Wentworth, Liberal Party, Prime Minister) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I thank the honourable member for his question. Of course, his great electorate of Goldstein is located in the state of Victoria—the state whose premier has an energy policy that is calculated to take that state down the same road as South Australia. It has been driven by the recklessness of the Labor Party's ideology instead of economics and engineering. Ideology is no substitute for planning.

The Labor Party have taken an approach to energy which puts thousands of Australian jobs at risk, which has seen the price of gas go through the roof, which has seen gas less available to businesses and more expensive than ever and which has seen South Australia enjoy—if that is the right term—the least reliable and the most expensive electricity in Australia. Labor have no plan for energy security at all. They have a huge renewables target, but how are they going to get there? They do not know any more than Jay Weatherill did.

What this debate needs is engineering and economics. Every step we have taken is securing Australians' energy future. The Labor Party left us with a gas market that was short of gas and the price going through the roof. Why was that? Because Labor governments, especially in Victoria, where the honourable member's electorate is, have been banning exploration. Victoria has lots of gas—lots of conventional gas, in fact, so there is no need for fracking—but a left-wing Labor government will not allow it to be developed or explored.

Of course in South Australia, across the border, the Labor government will allow base load power to be closed down—one power station after another. They have a wind resource that can generate up to 150 per cent of the state's demand or, depending on the wind, nothing at all. So what did they depend on? A long extension cord into the Latrobe Valley.

We are dealing with that. We have addressed the gas issue. We are working with the gas producers. They have given a commitment to ensure that there will be gas available for peak energy requirements on the east coast. That is a vital commitment which we have secured. We continue to secure more gas for domestic purposes for Australians. But above all, we have taken the biggest step to make renewables reliable by committing to the plan to increase the generation capacity of the Snowy Hydro scheme by 50 per cent. It will be the biggest pumped storage system in the Southern Hemisphere and one of the biggest in the world. That is our approach: engineering, economics and a plan to secure Australia's energy future.