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

I thank the honourable member for the question, and I particularly appreciate the notice the opposition gave on the front page of the Australian today, which says:

The Coalition on Monday will launch a parliamentary attack on Labor's marquee scheme …

I thought it was questions without notice, Mr Speaker, but there you go. You learn something every day. I guess, given it's the first time the opposition has asked me a question since April, it's a big deal and you have to flag it on the front page of the national broadsheet. It's a big day for the opposition.

It is the case, in keeping with longstanding practice when the government is running an auction, that those auction results are commercial in confidence. That was the result. For example, when the then minister for energy ran the UNGI scheme, if he had released the documents that showed how many bids had been received, it would have been clear there had been none, because no kilowatts were created. That would have been a suboptimal result. When you are operating an auction, what you are doing is calling on people to put forward bids. If you reveal the outcome of those decisions, you're undermining the position of the taxpayer.

The honourable gentleman criticises the fact that there was community benefit in projects supported by the Capacity Investment Scheme. That is a fundamental difference of approach, because I happen to think that's a good thing. I happen to think that, if developers of renewable energy projects in regional Australia provide bill relief and rebates to people in regional Australia, I think that's a good thing.

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