Chris Bowen (McMahon, Australian Labor Party, Minister for Climate Change and Energy) Share this | Hansard source

I thank the honourable member for his question, and I'm glad he hasn't been sharing his views about man-made climate change with the House for a change.

In answer to the honourable member's question, there are about 200 direct employees at the Gladstone Power Station—there are others employed on a contract basis and indirectly—and obviously that is a significant number to the people of Gladstone. But also this is a decision taken by the owners of the Gladstone Power Station, as they have announced, and that is in keeping with the normal protocols.

I would make this point: those opposite are strongly supporting having coal-fired power stations open for longer and sweating the assets to see them last longer. That is the biggest threat to reliability in our energy system today. Do you know why? Because just today we've had two units out at the Callide Power Station, which the honourable member would know well. They're not operating. We have totally unplanned outages across our national energy system at 3.4 gigawatts of coal fired power—not planned; not maintenance. Coal-fired power stations that are working and then all of a sudden break down—that is the biggest threat to the reliability of our energy system. In turn, that is a threat to energy prices, because that sees prices spike, and that, in turn, is the biggest threat to industrial jobs in Australia. Those opposite don't understand the opportunities of our energy system and the need to modernise it now, not decades in the future when nuclear might become available.

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