Julie Owens (Parramatta, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Parliamentary Secretary for Small Business) Share this | Hansard source

I was out meeting with some rather large manufacturers in Western Sydney recently, and we were talking about rising power prices and how many of them had gone to cogeneration some time ago; they had just moved away from the grid system altogether and gone independent. One of them said to me that they believed that the energy system was having a Kodak moment—that the way we did it and the way it could be done are now so different and the price differences so great that we're looking at a Kodak moment. They didn't mean a photo op; they meant a time of dramatic change.

We need a far more sophisticated debate about this than we're currently having, because we need a reliable grid and we need a guaranteed supply. Sticking your head in the sand and ignoring the tidal wave of new technologies and new options that are coming our way from across the world is foolish and risks the very grid that you're trying to protect. The world is in transition. We can follow—and we will, because the world will go that way—or we can let our businesses lead and become the owners of the technology and the patents that the world will use to make that transition. We need to do that and we need to do that now. Every month and every day we delay leaves us further behind.

The grid is looking at a perfect storm. It's ridiculously expensive now to connect to the grid. The wholesale price has doubled since this government was elected, and retail cost per unit is going up. That alone will bring other businesses into the field, because of supply and demand. At the same time, the cost of alternatives is going down, and that creates a perfect storm. The fix that we've seen so many retailers introduce, which is to increase the fixed element of the bill so that going solar on your home or your business provides less advantage, is a short-term fix. Ultimately, as the price of alternatives drops further, that will drive people off the grid. It won't protect the grid; it will drive people off it—and that is not good. It will mean, over time, that people who can afford to will go off the grid and those who can't will be left bearing the costs for the entire grid.

It is not a long-term solution, yet we can already see big developers deciding that their latest high-rise isn't going to connect to the grid, even in Western Sydney. Meriton is talking about taking whole high-rises off the grid. People in regional areas, where the cost of connection is very high, are going off the grid. Our own Prime Minister has battery storage and solar in his home. Manufacturers are openly talking about doing something else, forming their own power companies and literally walking away from the current system that we have.

Start-ups, including one accelerator in Sydney and quite a few companies in my electorate, are already trying to use technology to find ways around the way we currently do things. Random Hacks of Kindness at the University of Western Sydney has been working on BittWatt, which is a peer-to-peer power platform that will allow consumers in the suburbs to literally trade with each other. It's on its way. It is incredibly exciting. But it's also hugely problematic, because we need the grid and we need sustainable power. So we need a government that will enter into serious discussions about how we move from where we are now to where the world is going and how that disruption—and there will be disruption—will take place without disrupting the guarantee of supply. We need an incredibly sophisticated discussion.

There's another driver in all of this—that is, people want to move. The member for Indi's motion refers to the 67 per cent of people who think that we're moving to renewable energy too slowly and the 73 per cent who support setting a target. People want to go there. The price is coming down; the possibilities and the technologies are moving in. I want to mention two organisations in my electorate that are driving this change. ParraCAN, which has been around since 2007, has already got groups of customers together to get bulk deals on solar panels. There's no doubt they'll do the same with batteries. They've been meeting regularly and working to grow the renewable sector in Parramatta since 2007. They've now formed the Greater Western Sydney Energy Alliance, which works with business and consumers together to drive growth of renewables in Western Sydney. I would particularly like to congratulate Richard and Maria Maguire, who have worked so hard to put this process together. They meet regularly. They've got a major meeting coming up shortly. People like that and people right across our communities are driving this change. The government can go with it, or they can ignore it—but they ignore it at all of our peril.

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