Anthony Albanese (Grayndler, Australian Labor Party, Prime Minister) Share this | Hansard source

I thank the member for his question about what the energy sector and the business community think about energy policy in this country. The Australian Energy Council CEO, Louisa Kinnear, has said: 'Keeping coal open for longer is likely to increase costs rather than decrease costs. It also means there are not the right market signals for new renewable investment to come in, because coal is still sitting in the system. We can't keep coal in the system forever. There is a large proportion that do need to exit.' The Australian Industry Group's Innes Willox, who I have quoted before, said that there was 'no interest' in going backwards on net zero. The Business Council of Australia CEO, Bran Black, said:

We need to make sure that we continue to guarantee Australia is a competitive place in which to do business. What that means in very practical terms is that we need to have a clear plan and pathway towards what net zero looks like.

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… so that there is confidence to invest.

Andrew McKellar, the CEO of ACCI, said:

Business does need certainty … If we're going to get the investment in place for the future, we need to understand what is the policy …

To characterise the policy of those opposite at the moment, there seems to be a bit of a plan not to have a plan, unfortunately. Louisa Kinnear of the Australian Energy Council, when talking about the way forward, said: 'We are now in a trajectory for a high-renewable system supported by gas, battery storage and pumped hydro, and that is generally going to deliver the lowest cost outcome.' That's what the experts actually had to say.

When those opposite were in office, we had an energy system that was 50 years old. So 24 out of 28 coal-fired power stations announced their closures and nothing replaced them. They had four gigawatts leave the system and one gigawatt enter the system. As a result of a lack of supply, costs increased. What we are dealing with now is how you transition. Those opposite pretend that that's not the case. They pretend because they are too busy fighting the ongoing climate wars that have been in place, on their side, for decades now, holding Australia back.

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