Kirsten Livermore (Capricornia, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Parliamentary Secretary for Education) Share this | Hansard source

I want to take this opportunity today to confirm my longstanding support for the coal industry and the Labor Party’s support for clean coal technology, like geosequestration, that will strengthen the domestic industry against future challenges. Australia’s coal industry is an integral part of the Capricornia electorate, which includes many mines and the largest coking coal export facility in the world. Central Queensland is the economic engine room of Queensland and certainly one of the anchors of the national economy. In 2006 alone there were over 30,000 people directly employed in coal mining, not to mention the many thousands more people in towns across my electorate such as Sarina, Moranbah, Dysart and Clermont who also benefit indirectly from the industry. Australia’s 2006 coal exports were worth over $23 billion—a large proportion of that coming from within my electorate.

Reliable and affordable energy supplies are a key element of Australia’s security, prosperity and competitiveness. Energy policy in Australia will be a major feature of the upcoming federal election—something which will show the significant differences between the policies of Labor and the coalition. Labor has always concentrated on supporting the coal industry by driving the development of clean coal technology such as geosequestration, while John Howard has been planning a nuclear future. There are now significant energy choices for Australia: do we stand up for coal and help the industry thrive in a carbon restricted future or do we simply start building nuclear power plants all over our country?

The international community is rapidly moving to confront climate change, and the Howard government has for years failed to recognise this challenge. It has wasted more than a decade, which could have been spent preparing our economy for a transition to a carbon constrained environment. The Howard government’s attitude is stifling innovation and the development of new technologies which will mean secure jobs and more exports.

Labor has consistently argued for the introduction of an emissions trading scheme that enables the market to put a price on carbon and find the most efficient way of reducing emissions without damaging the important mining industries in my region. This trading scheme would help reach the target of a 60 per cent reduction on 2000 levels by 2050. I would like to remind the House that this target of 60 per cent was found by the Australian Business Roundtable on Climate Change to be compatible with strong economic growth and not damaging to the industry. Labor’s emissions trading scheme is economically responsible. It would provide the right incentives to drive investment in low-emission technologies and renewable energy while keeping the total cost relatively low.

It is also very important that the emissions trading scheme is fair and ensures that those industries less capable of adapting to price changes are not disadvantaged. While my electorate is the coal capital of Queensland, there are other mining industries, such as magnesium, which are far less capable of absorbing the extra costs of carbon reduction. These other industries are also very important to the national economy and must be treated fairly in any trading scheme.

A Rudd Labor government would aim to start an emissions trading scheme by 2010, with the design to be finalised by the end of 2008. Labor recognise that this is an ambitious target and there is a lot of work to be done. However, we are committed to getting an emissions trading scheme off the ground and doing it right. The coal industry is facing specific challenges in Australia, and my electorate, being a coal-exporting heavyweight, is keenly interested in Labor’s policies. Our huge reserves of black coal are a massive economic asset for the nation. Black coal alone accounts for more than 12 per cent of our exports by value. However, the move to an increasingly carbon constrained international economy and the inaction of the Howard government to prepare the nation for the future threaten the prosperity of my electorate and represent utter negligence by the Prime Minister over the past 11 years.

It is also unfortunate but entirely predictable that, in the face of a complete lack of any vision for the future, Mr Howard and the federal member for Dawson are up to their old tricks: running a fear campaign on coalminers’ jobs. It has always been the way of the conservatives to strike fear into people and blame someone else for all their failings. However, like much of the world, Australia relies on fossil fuels for most of its energy, and Labor believes this will continue for decades to come. Australia’s economic and energy security interests demand that we protect the viability of our coal industry.

To reduce greenhouse gas emissions while placing Australian coal exports and jobs on a sure international footing, federal Labor has also launched the Clean Coal Initiative. This plan includes establishing a national Clean Coal Fund, worth $500 million, to provide Commonwealth support for the development and demonstration of clean coal technologies and to generate at least $1.5 billion in new investment while working in partnership with the private sector. Labor has also pledged to significantly reduce emissions entering the grid by 2020 and for near-zero-emission carbon capture and storage technologies to enter the grid by 2030, as well as to increase Commonwealth funding for the CSIRO by $25 million over four years. These are the sorts of proactive policies to protect our energy interests and our export potential that the Howard government should have been pursuing for years.

Carbon capture and storage technologies involve the pumping of CO, in a compressed liquid form, into suitable geological formations deep underground. The most likely sites for carbon storage are depleted oil or gas fields, deep saline aquifers and deep coal seams. As the report Between a rock and a hard place points out, the technology for pumping liquid CO into oil or gas fields is well known and proven. In fact, the first commercial-scale project dedicated to CO storage in a geological reservoir has been in successful operation in Norway since 1996. However, there are a number of other examples across the world operating.

As the report sets out, there are a number of projects currently underway in Australia to test the feasibility and the commercial viability of various methods of capturing the carbon emissions released by coal-fired power stations. One of these is the ZeroGen project at Stanwell near Rockhampton in my electorate. This project, which will utilise integrated gasification combined cycle technology, has received significant backing from the Queensland government. On the other hand, I note it has yet to receive any such support from the federal government, even though, according to this report, an application for funding under the government’s Low Emission Technology Development fund was lodged in March 2006. This is in contrast to most of the other projects referred to within the report, which have between them received hundreds of millions of dollars from that fund. I have to ask: what is taking the government so long? Where is its support for this important project?

As part of its response to climate change, Labor is also investigating carbon offsetting, whereby companies offset their carbon emissions by planting vegetation or rehabilitating mining land. It is because of my strong belief in the future of the coalmining industry that I am surprised the Howard Liberal government has not taken up any of these initiatives and even today does not support the Labor Party’s initiatives. But one must only look at Mr Howard’s move—

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