Kevin Rudd (Griffith, Australian Labor Party, Prime Minister) Share this | Hansard source

I thank the honourable member for Calwell for her question. The government is committed to ensuring 20 per cent of Australia’s electricity supply is generated from renewable energy by 2020. That is why we have established a renewable energy target and introduced legislation in this parliament to that effect. The House of Representatives has passed that legislation and it is now in the Senate—but I will come back to that in a moment. The reason we have done so is not just to make our contribution to bring down global greenhouse gas emissions but, on top of that, to ensure that there are new jobs generated in the renewable energy sector in Australia.

If we raised to 20 per cent the proportion of Australia’s electricity supply coming from the renewable energy sector by 2020, I am advised that would be equivalent to the electricity used in Australia’s 7½ million households. The equivalent of the electricity used in 7½ million households would be supplied by renewable energy. This is important for the environment but it is equally important for Australian jobs. Treasury modelling projects that by 2050 the renewable energy sector will be 30 times larger than it is today. Solar, wind and geothermal technologies all represent further opportunities for jobs for Australia—good for jobs and good for the environment.

This comes to the whole question of why we are acting on climate change through the Carbon Pollution Reduction Scheme and the renewable energy target legislation, in addition to a range of other measures to support investment in this critical sector in renewable energy. The reason is that the economic cost of inaction is far greater than the economic cost of action. The Garnaut review projected declines in the value of agricultural production of up to 97 per cent in the Murray-Darling by the end of the century if emissions are not reduced, as well as projecting the catastrophic destruction of the Great Barrier Reef.

At present the Great Barrier Reef generates some $4.9 billion in revenue, as the member for Leichhardt well knows, and it generates employment for about 60,000 people across Australia. The agricultural sector in the Murray-Darling Basin, as members opposite whose seats are adjacent to that region would know, employs some 90,000 people. On these two questions—that is, the impact on the Great Barrier Reef alone and the impact on the Murray-Darling—you are looking at an aggregate employment impact or effect on those 150,000 Australians employed through tourism on the Great Barrier Reef and agriculture in the Murray-Darling. That is why Australia must act.

That is also why the Australian business community wants certainty for its regulations for the future. If you are a business out there in the renewable energy sector or in the traditional energy sector, you want certainty in the regulatory environment. That is what we are on about. Pacific Hydro, for example, have some 600 megawatts of clean energy projects in the pipeline in Australia worth $2 billion. Let me quote from Mr Rob Grant, CEO of Pacific Hydro, who said in March this year—

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