Susan Templeman (Macquarie, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

It's pretty clear that sensible debate in this chamber, outside this chamber, in the US and around the rest of the world has moved beyond whether or not we should be increasing investment in renewable energy. It's moved on to how we best support the continuing evolution of low-emissions technologies for energy generation. The Clean Energy Finance Corporation Amendment (Grid Reliability Fund) Bill 2020 could have been a real opportunity to finesse what the Clean Energy Finance Corporation is already doing really well, but it isn't an opportunity to do that. Unless there are amendments to this bill, we will not be supporting it.

I want to take you back about a decade, when the shockingly sensible idea of finding a way to reduce the cost of capital for important investments that benefit the country led to Labor establishing the Clean Energy Finance Corporation in 2012. The CEFC provided $10 billion of funding to support new and emerging renewable technologies and projects designed to reduce emissions. The projects it invested in have also, over those years, created jobs. It wasn't done with true bipartisanship then or now, and the Clean Energy Finance Corporation has been attacked on multiple occasions by this government. Along with attempts to abolish it, there have been continued attacks to undermine its role and dilute its purpose. We will not support legislation that continues to do that. We established the CEFC, and on this side we have consistently protected the integrity of it as a renewable energy financing body.

The CEFC has a proven track record of leveraging private investment. It isn't just doling out taxpayer funds; it works together with private funds and has helped drive more than $27 billion in additional private sector investments and return more than $718 million to taxpayers since its creation. By that measure, it's been an enormous success. Even the Prime Minister, in 2019, was quoted in The Australian as saying the CEFC is 'the world's most successful green bank'. I don't think there's any dispute about that. However, government has consistently tried to take the CEFC away from its original purpose. Prime Minister Tony Abbott, in 2015, said it was no secret he wanted the finance corporation to be abolished. There was the attempt to stop the corporation from investing in wind or rooftop solar. Now they're trying to expand it into areas that it shouldn't be investing in. Those opposite have also tried to limit the ability of the CEFC to support new technology deployment.

This bill continues the attempt to weaken the brief for the corporation. That's been criticised by energy experts who say it needs to be an independent body, it needs to have a low-emissions remit, it needs to be able to support economically viable projects and it needs to avoid investing in fossil fuels. We support those principles. They make sense. Our amendments make sure that those principles are maintained. Whether this bill will pass with our support is in the government's hands. They can accept our amendments or not.

There are some things we do support in this legislation, and one of those is giving the CEFC an expanded role to upgrade the electricity network so it better copes with renewables. In fact, anyone listening to opposition leader Anthony Albanese's budget reply last year will recall our 'rewiring the nation' policy to drag the electricity grid into the 21st century with greater connectivity for renewably sourced energy. We agree with the need to invest in transmission, storage and reliability assets of the network. These are small steps contained in this bill towards our own policy to invest $20 billion to rebuild and modernise the antiquated electricity transmission system.

Before I move to the concerns we have with this bill, I want to share the findings of a UK study, released this week, that highlights the importance of continuing and encouraging investment in wind and solar projects. The study shows what one of Australia's best bets is, when it comes to reducing emissions, and is from research by the UK Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy. It shows that the UK has seen a massive 66 per cent drop in emissions between 1990 and 2019 but an eight per cent drop in emissions between 2018 and 19. This was just from the energy sector. It shows that with our existing technologies and the sensible rollout of them you can make a significant difference. Those time periods directly correlate with the uptake of solar and renewable wind projects in the UK, and the volume of emissions is set to fall even further as they move forward. I think what's so significant for us is the bounty we have in wind and solar, and those sorts of renewable projects continue to provide us with huge opportunities. They are some of the many things, in terms of renewable energy, that we would like to continue to see the CEFC invest in.

I move now to the things we object to in this bill. It is an attempt to make some of the biggest changes to the CEFC since its establishment. One of the key ones is to undermine the independence of the corporation, and this legislation gives unprecedented powers to the minister. We designed a body that had independence from government in its decision-making, to be at arm's length, so it didn't make short-term, politically motivated decisions about where investments went. I am stunned that those opposite wouldn't support that principle of good investments based on the best advice and from an investment perspective rather than a political perspective. It staggers me that they want to see additional political interference in something like this fund. The changes being put forward today allow the minister to determine whether an investment is eligible for Clean Energy Finance Corporation support or not. The change doesn't appear to be driven by a problem; it creates a problem. I want to say, very clearly, I would have a problem with this change to the legislation no matter who was in government, no matter who the minister of the day was. It's a completely unnecessary change. But I have an even greater issue with this government and this particular minister giving himself these additional powers.

This government has not committed to zero emissions by 2050. This minister has stated he has a lack of enthusiasm for wind and solar and renewables. More than that, as a direct result of the Morrison government's chaotic and continuing energy policy failures under this minister, investment in new large-scale renewable energy has collapsed. Yet here's a minister who wants us to give him more power to control where investments are made. New figures from the Clean Energy Council show that just three new projects have reached financial close in the last quarter. That's the lowest quarterly investment, in dollar terms, since the index was started in 2017. Investment's more than 50 per cent below the quarterly average for the 2019 calendar year. Investment and jobs in renewable energy should be soaring in Australia, not only to bring power prices down but to grow the jobs in energy intensive manufacturing and other sectors. We have an opportunity there. Instead, UTS and the Clean Energy Council project 11,000 renewable energy jobs will be lost in the next two years under this government's energy policy vacuum. That's just when our focus should be on creating jobs.

So, no, I don't trust the minister with powers to override the CEFC decisions, and that's not even touching on the Clover Moore letter and subsequent investigation nor grasslands nor watergate affairs that the minister's failed to be accountable for. There are senior business people on the Clean Energy Finance Corporation board, and they don't need ministerial direction from any minister. We will try and amend that change that government wants to make.

The second issue we have is around the attempt to define 'low-emissions technology' to include gas. Right now there is no prohibition on the corporation funding projects related to gas, but gas simply doesn't meet the emissions standards that are required. You cannot call gas a low-emissions technology. That doesn't mean it isn't important to the Australian economy, as part of the mix. It will have a role for years to come in firming up the grid, particularly the small, quick, fire-up units that help stabilise supply in times of high demand. These are the so-called peaking plants, which are quick to fire up and quick to turn off. There is no question that gas has a really important role, but the question is: should the CEFC be providing a public subsidy for it? We say no. We say that, if gas were a low-emissions technology, the government wouldn't need to put this amendment in and gas would pass the existing test for CEFC investments. It doesn't meet the test of being low-emissions technology, just because it isn't. We think the CEFC should remain as it was intended to be: a renewables and decarbonisation funding tool. That's its purpose.

The third concern that we have about this bill is around the removal of the requirement that the investments made by the corporation make, or set out to make, a positive return. This is another one I'm just staggered by. Those opposite pride themselves on being the good economic managers—and hasn't that come into question!—and all the things they claim they stand for, yet they're happy to change legislation so that an investment using taxpayer money does not need to deliver a return. I'm just staggered that that is being considered. You wonder why they would do that. As I said earlier, the Prime Minister himself has referred to the CEFC as the world's most successful green bank. That is due not only to the jobs it's created and the investments it's leveraged from the private sector but also to its return to government. The returns it's made to government help make it one of the best decisions that this parliament has made. The question that has not been answered by anyone opposite is whether they want the CEFC to make investments that don't provide a positive return. Is that the purpose of this—to specifically set out to do that? If so, my question to them is: why would that be a purpose?

As I have said, there is no question that the Clean Energy Finance Corporation has played a really big role already. In spite of the attacks by Liberal governments to abolish it, undermine it and divert it from its course, it has still helped this country with investment in renewables. It needs to be allowed to continue to help Australia, and it needs to be there so that we can leverage investment from the private sector and make the most of the opportunity we are given—the opportunity of sun, wind and open spaces. We have an opportunity to be a world leader in renewable energy, rather than just sitting back, watching the rest of the world gallop on ahead of us and going, 'Maybe we should have done that.' Our opportunity is now. We are fast running out of time, and the Clean Energy Finance Corporation provides a terrific vehicle for us to invest. Rather than the bill we have before us today, it would have been good to see those opposite amending a piece of legislation that is already creating jobs, allowing it to create even more jobs, jobs that will last into the future.

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