House debates

Thursday, 28 August 2014

Bills

Australian Renewable Energy Agency (Repeal) Bill 2014; Second Reading

11:07 am

Photo of Mark ButlerMark Butler (Port Adelaide, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for Environment, Climate Change and Water) Share this | Hansard source

You can add this to a very long, fast-growing list of broken promises by this government. We understand that later today we are going to see the latest in a series of broken promises when this government releases, it would appear, the review report into the renewable energy target. This is notwithstanding the clearest possible promise before the election that this government would support the renewable energy target in the large-scale part of the industry of 40,000 gigawatt hours by 2020, extending bipartisan support over four terms of parliament that this industry has enjoyed. Four terms of parliamentary bipartisan support has underpinned literally billions of dollars of investment and thousands and thousands of jobs.

The member for Riverina said, 'That's right', when I mentioned the part of the quote that deals with the budget situation. Indeed, this bill was presented by the minister in his second reading speech as one almost exclusively designed, if you read the second reading speech, to deliver savings of $1.3 billion. I listened to the member for Hinkler's speech. Obviously he has the talking points from the minister's office. This is a bill designed to deliver $1.3 billion in savings from the ARENA budget, as was specified in the 2014-15 budget papers. There was absolutely no argument in the second reading speech that ARENA has not been performing its functions or that those functions were not functions that were of continuing importance to Australia. There was no suggestion in the second reading speech by the minister that those functions would be better performed in the future by the department, working on the instructions of the minister's political advisers. If you read the second reading speech and listen to some of the other contributions from members of the government backbench, this bill is all just an innocent savings exercise.

But as members would know the $1.3 billion in savings that this bill apparently is all about has already been delivered. It was delivered by this parliament only a few weeks ago as part of the carbon repeal package. It has already been delivered. If you look at the current version of the ARENA Act, the part dealing with funding has been amended by the parliament in accordance with the $1.3 billion savings measure that was part of the 2014-15 budget and apparently is the sole motivation of the bill now being debated before the House. So the only purpose of this bill that was argued by the minister to this parliament is now completely odious. Were that correct that this is the only motivation for this bill, then one would assume that the minister would come into this parliament now and withdraw the bill and tell members of parliament, tell members of the community who are interested in this policy area: 'We achieved our $1.3 billion in savings. The industry minister has done his job according to the budget. I now no longer need to abolish ARENA because the purpose of this bill has already been achieved.'

But of course that is not the purpose of this bill. The purpose of this bill, the motivations behind this bill, are very, very different. They are essentially threefold. The first is this blind ideological commitment that the Liberal and National parties have recently acquired to completely tear down anything connected with the idea of clean or renewable energy. This blind ideological commitment now permeates the coalition party and all of its members—and if some are not committed, they are not talking up or speaking up to defend the importance of renewable energy. They will tear down these reforms even if they voted for them only a couple of years ago. Again, not in the bad old days when the member for Wentworth was leading the Liberal Party astray; in the days when the member for Warringah himself was leading the Liberal Party. He led the party to vote for this body to be established. He led the party to vote for continuing to support the renewable energy target at two elections while he was the Leader of the Opposition. Even if the coalition made the crystal clear election promises that were made in this area, they will still try to tear down every remaining part of the clean energy framework that was put in place not just during the past six years of the Labor government but extending back to the Howard government as well.

The second motivation is that there is a general strategy beyond this portfolio, beyond the climate change portfolio, being driven by this government to abolish and to silence all strong and independent voices that have been established to advise not only the government but also the parliament and the community. They will no longer have access to the strong, expert, independent advice that boards like the ARENA board were set up to provide. There is a very long list of boards and commissions and other authorities established for that purpose that have been or are in the process of being abolished by this government. It is very clear what this Prime Minister wants. This Prime Minister wants every piece of advice about contentious policy areas to come through his office—and if not through his office, then at least through a relevant minister's office—and be put through the filter of political advisers, making sure that whatever advice goes to the parliament or to the Australian community accords with the blind ideological positions that this government has in so many policy areas.

The third motivation has nothing to do with the $1.3 billion that has already been saved. It is that this government or this Treasurer—I am not sure which—want to get their hands on the remaining money that is in the ARENA Act, the remaining money that the government itself voted for in the Senate only a few weeks ago to keep in the ARENA legislation. There was no mention whatsoever in the minister's second reading speech about the fact that the ARENA Act has a whole lot of money left in it for ARENA to continue to do its important work. I have read this speech a couple of times: there is no mention whatsoever of the remaining $2.4 billion that is still retained in section 64 of the ARENA Act. Section 64—this is subject to the amendments that were passed by the Senate not on the votes of the Labor Party, but on the votes of the government and a range of crossbench senators—is the version of the ARENA Act that was voted for by the government only a few weeks ago. It includes, in section 64, yearly maximum payments to ARENA still out to 2021-22 that amount to about $2.4 billion over that period.

There is not a single mention of that in the minister's second reading speech. There is not a single mention of the fact that there is a clear, legislated process put in place by this parliament for ARENA to apply for those funds, to be granted those funds from Treasury up to the maximum amounts, the $2.4 billion out to 2021-22. There is no mention of the fact that parliament requires that any unspent funds be carried over—that is, not returned to Treasury but carried over. There is no mention of that whatsoever. There is no mention of the fact that Section 65(5) says:

If ARENA makes a request for payment in accordance with this section … the Commonwealth must, as soon as practicable, pay ARENA the amount requested.

There is no mention whatsoever of the remaining funds.

The minister says in his speech that the consequence of abolishing ARENA would be to transfer the functions of managing the existing contracts to the department. What he says is there are a range of existing contracts that are part of the almost 200 projects that ARENA has overseen over the last few years. They need to be managed, obviously. If ARENA were abolished, that job of managing those existing contracts, based on past payments by ARENA, will transfer to the department. But the second reading speech says nothing about what the department might do with the funds that are set out in section 64. And we know why he says nothing about it, because this is, essentially, a smash-and-grab exercise. This is a smash-and-grab exercise. Whether it is motivated by the Minister for Industry, or whether it is driven by the Treasurer or the Prime Minister, who knows? They will not tell us. But we do know that it is a smash-and-grab exercise.

There are two conclusions about what this will mean. Firstly, Treasury may just take the money back and put it into consolidated revenue. It will be lost to the renewable energy sector, which is developing new, cutting-edge technologies, commercialising those technologies and working out and acquiring the knowledge, and sharing that knowledge with the rest of industry. That opportunity will just be lost to Australia into the future. If that is not the consequence, and if Treasury does not take the money back, then what will happen is that the money will presumably be put into some great big new slush fund managed by the Minister for Industry and doled out according to the views of the political advisers in the minister's office to pet projects that are favoured by the backbench of this government.

They are two possibilities that we face in this parliament. Frankly, either conclusion means that this bill should just be thrown out by the parliament not only on the basis of ARENA's track record alone—which I think the minister acknowledged, generously, in his second reading speech—but also on the basis of the important work that remains to be done in this fast-moving and highly competitive area. ARENA should be left in place to do that work.

Even this minister was gracious enough to recognise the great work that has been done by ARENA over the past few years—the great work of the very expert and committed board and also the very qualified and hardworking staff. It is not easy work to discharge the functions that are set out in the ARENA Act by the parliament, because it is about identifying cutting-edge technologies, sorting out the wheat from the chaff and knowing, through your gut instinct and the experience you have developed over many years in an industry like this, what technologies are likely to work and what technologies are likely to become winners. It is not easy work. But there are almost 200 projects that have been the subject of support by ARENA—far too many to list and, frankly, too diverse to list. But suffice it to say that all those projects, together, span the full range of functions that ARENA was given under the ARENA legislation.

I want to talk about a few highlights of those projects. Last year, in my incredibly short duration as the climate change minister—which will never be surpassed, I am sure, as it was a matter of only a few, but a wonderful few, weeks—I was able to announce—

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