Kirsten Livermore (Capricornia, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

I am pleased to have the opportunity to participate in the debate on the member for O’Connor’s private member’s bill tonight. I can see from his bill that he has given the proposed amendments to the renewable energy legislation a great deal of thought. While I do not support the proposals he has put forward, I know from hearing him speak at a number of events in this House over many years that his interest in and knowledge of various forms of renewable energy are very genuine and I can see that that is what has motivated the Clean Energy Security Bill 2009.

The reason that I am not supporting these proposals is that these are matters that were given quite a bit of an airing during the consideration of the latest renewable energy bill, which was debated not so long ago in this House. That bill is designed to greatly expand the amount of renewable energy being generated in Australia. It increases the current mandatory renewable energy target by over four times, from the current 9,500 gigawatt hours to 45,000 gigawatt hours by 2020. The advice and the evidence received during the discussions and consultation over the new RET legislation show that this increase will pull through a whole range of technologies including wind, biomass, solar and geothermal energy. In answering the member for O’Connor, no doubt tidal energy will have its role to play as well.

The question of banding, which is essentially what the private member’s bill seeks to achieve, carving out a proportion of the increased renewable energy target to provide a greater incentive for particular emerging technologies, was looked at in some detail by the Senate Economics Legislation Committee when they had an inquiry into the renewable energy legislation. After listening to the arguments for and against, the committee did not support that banding proposal. I will quote from the Clean Energy Council’s submission to the committee. The reason I picked this submission is that, if you look at the membership and sponsors of the Clean Energy Council, you see that they cross a broad range of industries and companies involved in the renewable and clean energy sector. So I suppose the council is not really pushing any particular barrow. In relation to banding, the council says:

The Council is aware of a number of representations to introduce banding to the RET to guarantee a share of the target to specific emerging technologies. Banding will undermine the integrity of the RET and seriously impede the deployment of least cost proven renewable energy technologies.

Banding is a complex addition to the RET and may not help an emerging technology push faster through the costs and risks of development and commercialisation … Banding is little more than educated guesswork that will increase the cost of the RET without guaranteeing the success of emerging technologies.

The council finishes up by saying:

… there are significant issues being faced by emerging technologies that will not be solved by the RET alone. We think that this will require a separate policy measure to encourage these technologies to develop to a point when they are competitive.

The government agrees with that point of view and that is why in the budget earlier this year we put forward a $4.5 billion Clean Energy Initiative. One of the measures within that is $465 million to establish the Australian Centre for Renewable Energy. One of the programs that the Centre for Renewable Energy is in charge of is the Renewable Energy Demonstration Program, and I understand there will be announcements about the successful projects under that program. So the government is actively encouraging and promoting the development of those technologies through those measures. We do not see the RET as being the vehicle that will do that. We have avoided picking winners in the RET legislation. The targets are there to provide incentives. We do not want to pick winners within that but we are happy to consider proposals for new technologies under these other, separate government measures.

There is great news on renewables in my electorate of Capricornia with Mackay Sugar proceeding with its very significant investment into burning of bagasse to provide up to 30 per cent of Mackay’s electricity, which creates a great return and source of revenue for cane growers in central Queensland.

The time allotted for the debate having expired, the debate was interrupted, and the resumption of the debate made an order of the day for the next sitting.

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