Adam Bandt (Melbourne, Australian Greens) Share this | Hansard source

I hear 'hear, hear' from the government side. It's crystal clear that this bill allows the government to intervene to keep Liddell and other coal fired power stations like it open for longer.

Government members: Hear, hear!

And they cheer. The government is accepting it. The opposition, who is now shepherding this bill through, understands that that power exists in this bill. The member for Shortland, who is the assistant spokesperson on this, made the point in his contribution yesterday that it potentially threatens the arrangements around the closure of Liddell, and the member for Kingsford Smith made exactly the same point. The opposition is about to support through this place a bill that everybody in this chamber seems to accept allows intervention to keep coal fired power stations in the system for longer. That is a bad provision to have in the bill. I expect it from the government, but the opposition should not be supporting it.

We need to do two things. One is to amend the legislation to exclude the ability for the powers under the legislation to apply when there is a planned coal fired power station closure. That's what amendments (3), (4) and (8) do. I urge everyone in this chamber to support the amendments so it will be crystal clear that AGL can proceed with its planned closure of Liddell and that other companies who accept the science can announce in good time that they're going to close their coal fired power stations and know that this legislation will not be used, as everyone accepts it can be at the moment, to interfere with their projects.

The second thing we need to do—and I understand that the opposition has made reference to things that might happen during the Senate inquiry, so I hope the opposition will change its position—is insist on these amendments when this bill comes before the Senate, so that we don't pass a piece of legislation that allows this climate-denying government to keep coal in the system for longer. Everyone is now on the same page that the government can do that, if we pass this bill. I commend these very sensible amendments to the House, so that, if the government is not going to do the right thing and come up with an orderly plan to replace coal with renewables, like they've done in other countries, then companies who decide that they want to do it won't be inhibited by this bill from so doing.

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