Daniel Mulino (Fraser, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

This government's approach to renewable energy, like in so many other areas of policy, is all announcement and no delivery. When I was considering the Technology Investment Roadmap, it reminded me of the Holy Roman Empire, which one historian said was neither holy, Roman nor an empire! This has little to do with technology, has little investment and has no road map. I thought to myself: what does a road map entail? What are the core elements of a road map? Firstly, a road map should have a destination. Secondly, a road map should have a route or a strategy to get to that destination. Thirdly, a road map should explain the resources necessary to get from point A to point B.

Well, this plan is supposed to be all about emissions reduction, but this government refuses, time and time again, to commit to zero net emissions by 2050. This government refuses to commit to a destination. How can we possibly have a road map and how can we possibly get to where we need to go if we refuse to set a destination? All of the individual policies this government talks about are limited in their own right, but they fail because there is no overarching framework; no defined destination.

Secondly, there is no overarching strategy. What we have is a wish list of technology, but there is no clarity in terms of the route to get to whatever the destination might be that this government intends to get to. We have a wish list of technology but, as Llewelyn Hughes, associate professor at the Crawford School of Public Policy, said, 'The road map sets a range of targets but scrupulously avoids putting any time frame around when they should be met.' He continues:

… the roadmap provides no detail on how the government decided which technologies to target. There also is no information enabling an independent assessment of the expected reduction in carbon emissions and increased economic activity—

from the choice of different technologies. It's a road map without a destination and without a route.

Just as importantly, it's a road map that doesn't have enough resources to get to the destination, whatever that might be. The total package of funding provided under the government's Technology Investment Roadmap was $1.6 billion over 10 years. If there's one thing about this government it's that when they announce strategy over 10 years rather than the traditional forward estimates you know it's not about them being long-term thinkers. It's about them applying the same amount of funding they originally had in mind but putting it over a 10-year period and not a four-year period. When they announce funding over 10-year horizons it's not long-term thinking; it's about them being cheapskates. In this budget, what did we see? A further $279.9 million, again over 10 years, to provide baseline crediting mechanisms. Under $28 million per year over a decade when this government, across a range of spending, is building up over $1 trillion in debt.

Their emphasis on emissions abatement is simply not good enough. If I look at my electorate, there are a number of industries, including manufacturing, which rely upon cheap and reliable energy—not just reliable in the short term, as in over the next weeks and months, but reliable in the long term. We need reliable sources of energy that will withstand changes in regulatory arrangements and changes in the need to abate carbon emissions. Yet what we have seen in manufacturing across this country over the last decade shows that this government is simply not doing enough to support a very energy-intensive industry.

Real manufacturing output has declined for the last 11 years—before the pandemic. We know that the pandemic has wrought considerable damage on this economy, but, even before the pandemic, manufacturing was in significant trouble. Last year, in fact, only 6.4 per cent of jobs came from manufacturing. That's one in 16. That is in sharp contrast to where this country used to be just a few decades ago. Australia's manufacturing sector has the lowest share across OECD nations, and it's continuing to decline under this government. This government needs to put in place a genuine energy strategy if manufacturing is to thrive. We need an energy strategy that not only provides cheaper energy but provides it within a framework that moves this economy forwards to zero net emissions by 2050, like every other major advanced economy. This road map doesn't provide a destination, it doesn't provide a route and it doesn't provide the resources to get to wherever it's trying to get to. It's not really a road map.

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