Bob Katter (Kennedy, Independent) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

When I was speaking in this debate previously I pointed out that food prices will rise. Of course they will. I do not know whether people here are aware but we produce about seven per cent of Australia’s fruit and vegetables, a market which is dwindling, of course—we are a net importer of fruit and vegetables now. Those fruit and vegetables go mostly from the Atherton Tableland and the area north of Tully all the way down to Sydney and Melbourne. You can manage the amount of carbon that is produced in carrying the product that far. So I do not doubt for a moment that the figures for the increase in food prices—that seven per cent figure or the four per cent figure, whichever one you choose—that came out in the Australian today are accurate.

Whilst I find confusing the figures that are being put out on the increase in electricity charges, it would appear from the figures that I have seen that the increase in electricity charges will be up around 15 to 20 per cent. So is the government going to continue on with a proposal that will put electricity charges to the consumers up by 15 to 20 per cent, food prices up by four to seven per cent and will cost around 100,000 jobs? It will cost around 100,000 jobs in the mining industries of Australia, directly and indirectly. That figure sounds exaggerated but almost all of the mines operating in north-eastern Australia are operating at a loss. The price for metals such as zinc has dropped to one quarter of what it was two years ago. Mr Acting Speaker, do they think these mines are going to run indefinitely at a loss? If they are running at a loss and you take five per cent off their gross, then that makes their net position infinitely worse. So, Mr Acting Speaker, I find it difficult to—

Peter Slipper (Fisher, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Order! I remind the honourable member for Kennedy that I am not the ‘Acting Speaker’.

Bob Katter (Kennedy, Independent) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

You are the Deputy Speaker?

Ms Anna Burke (Chisholm, Deputy-Speaker) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The way to refer to me is ‘Mr Deputy Speaker’.

Bob Katter (Kennedy, Independent) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Mr Deputy Speaker, thank you for providing me with that very vital information. I find it very difficult to believe that the government are seriously pursuing this path. They really have not been around politics very long if they think that there are no political implications, no downside, to a program that is going to increase electricity charges by between 15 and 20 per cent, increase food charges by between four and seven per cent and wipe out 100,000 jobs in Australia at a time of dire financial crisis. It is extraordinary to me that they intend to proceed down this pathway. I hope what is happening here is that there is a lot of noise from the government and then a lot of postponement, exemptions and exceptions. At the end of the day, I would hope that we are not going to see any reality come forward.

As I have said on many occasions here, I am not a global warming person. I am on the anti side of the argument, but I do believe that any responsible government throughout the world should take a bit of a look at the situation and address it. We are in the very happy position in North Queensland of being able to provide renewable energy for the rest of Australia. I represent more than half of Australia’s water run-off, for example. A little tiny one per cent of that could go a long way to providing the sorts of CO2 benefits that we are talking about in this place. There is the North Australia clean energy corridor, as it has become known to everybody. If the projects of the various proponents along this line are carried through to completion, there will be 850 megawatts of renewable energy. To put that in perspective, if my memory serves me correctly I think there are 40,000 megawatts of electricity generated in Australia, so one-fortieth of Australia’s electricity needs would be met. We already produce around 300 to 400 megawatts of electricity in North Queensland now. We have extensive hydroelectricity and in each of the sugar mills we have bagasse being burnt to produce electricity.

It is important for me to tell the House about sugar cane so that members understand. Sugar cane is a grass. By far and away the biggest agricultural man-created crop in Queensland is lawn. When people say ‘run-off’, run-off is mainly coming from your lawns, not from any agriculture. Agriculture is dwindling, diminishing and vanishing. But sugar cane is in fact a grass—it is one of the grass family. It is unlike a grain, which you have to plant every year. With grain, you have to put the steel through the ground four or five times—in cultivation, in planting, in ploughing under and in proper husbandry and management. With sugar cane, of course, you cannot do that. We only replant once every six years, so the steel goes through the ground only once every six years. The sugar cane is covered by a carbon ‘trash blanket’, as it is called, which is about eight inches thick. After we finish harvesting it is left on the ground, which means we do not need to cultivate out any weeds or use weedicides or any of those things, because the only plant powerful enough to force its way up through the six to eight inches of—(Time expired)

Amanda Rishworth (Kingston, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I am very pleased to rise to speak in favour of the bills before us today, the Renewable Energy (Electricity) Amendment Bill 2009 and the related bill. As a member from South Australia I am very pleased that these bills will have an enormous impact on the growing South Australian renewable energy industry. South Australia is home to 56 per cent of the nation’s wind power, 30 per cent of its grid connected domestic solar systems and 90 per cent of geothermal investment. With South Australia home to 7.4 per cent of population, it is clear that South Australia is punching above its weight when it comes to contributing to renewable energy in Australia.

The legislation before us today provides further encouragement for companies to invest in renewable energy. I know that many people in my electorate of Kingston want to see an increase in renewable energy and I know that they will be very pleased to see the Rudd government delivering on its key election promise to increase the renewable energy target to 20 per cent across the nation by 2020. This is in sharp contrast to the opposition, which continues to be hopelessly divided and act irresponsibly when it comes to the challenge of climate change. This legislation represents one part of the government’s comprehensive plan to tackle climate change. We have a proposed Carbon Pollution Reduction Scheme that creates a pathway to a low-emission future, and this legislation provides a real and effective renewable energy target, showing just how serious this side of the House is about renewable energy here in Australia.

The renewable energy target legislation is widely supported by industry. The Clean Energy Council of Australia has welcomed these bills, indicating they would unleash $28 billon of new investment and create over 28,000 jobs. These sentiments were echoed by Andrew Dickson, business manager for Wind Prospect, a wind energy company based at Christies Beach in my electorate. He said that as a result of this legislation Australia would see a huge surge in renewable energy investment, and he indicated that their company will definitely expand and this would result in more jobs.

In 2010 our annual gigawatt hours target will be 12,500, which is a substantial increase from the previous target of 9,500. And, of course, this target will increase through the decade to the year 2020, resulting in 45,000 gigawatt hours from renewable energy. In my home of South Australia the state government has already introduced a renewable energy target scheme. The bill before us has been designed in cooperation with the states and territories through the Council of Australian Governments and it brings the MRET and existing and proposed state schemes into one national scheme.

The introduction of the national scheme signals this government’s commitment to creating and supporting innovation in the renewable energy sector. The renewable energy target comes in addition to measures that we have already introduced and which complement this target. As part of the 2009-10 budget, the government committed to $15 billion in climate change related initiatives, including the $4.5 billion Clean Energy Initiative, which includes a $1.5 billion Solar Flagships program. This program will aim to generate 1,000 megawatts of solar energy capacity and will be by far the biggest solar generation project in history. This development will also be supported by $100 million for the Australian Solar Institute, which will continue its groundbreaking research into solar energy technology. In addition, there is the $465 million Renewables Australia fund that will support cutting-edge technology research and provide for this technology to make it to market. This has been something that people within my electorate have been very keen for. They do not want to see technology go offshore and be developed offshore. They want the technology that they come up with to be developed here in Australia. The combination of such policies and the renewable energy target means that renewable technology development in this country will drastically increase.

The bill also provides for a review of the operation of the renewable energy target scheme to be undertaken in 2014. This will coincide with the strategic review of the proposed Carbon Pollution Reduction Scheme—that is, of course, if the coalition can get its act together and support such a scheme. This government has made creating jobs its core business. The increase in the renewable energy target represents the Rudd government taking strong action on climate change, and it will stimulate investment in the industries for our future. I commend the target and the bill to the House.

Robert Oakeshott (Lyne, Independent) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise to support this Renewable Energy (Electricity) Amendment Bill 2009 and the related bill. I am fascinated by the continuation of the political debate that has been going on around this suite of legislation and the positioning of who is and who is not politically serious. This is without doubt—and I would hope there is broad agreement—the natural resource management question of our time, and when you drill down into the detail with regard to various positions there is not a lot of difference. I would hope that legislation such as this can move through this chamber quickly so that we can get certainty in the marketplace for the renewable energy industry.

I know there has been debate going on about the coupling and decoupling of various pieces of legislation, and we are seeing a decoupling before us today. I would like to think the real test will be a recoupling with regard to the private member’s bill that I have put forward and which is currently before this House. It is called the Renewable Energy Amendment (Feed-in-Tariff for Electricity) Bill 2009 and it is about trying to get a national feed-in tariff system up and running within Australia. If we are having honesty tests about who is serious and who is not serious with regard to genuinely engaging people in a renewable energy future, I think the fact that the feed-in tariffs and the concept of a national feed-in tariff system are being overlooked at this point is certainly a great shame with regard to setting up a policy framework for the future.

Most of the states have now introduced their own variations of feed-in tariff schemes. The ACT probably has the most progressive, with a gross scheme, New South Wales has a net scheme and most states have now responded with their own state based variation of that theme with different pricing attached. If we think about the real point of forming a Commonwealth to get around absurdities like not being able to catch the one train around Australia because of variations in rail gauge, this is a modern equivalent happening on this government’s watch. We have feed-in tariff systems being established with variations amongst all the various states and territories. So a retailer, for example, offering the same product to a household is going to have different billing systems in place if they offer it in Tuggeranong versus whether they offer it in Queanbeyan. Surely this is an opportunity for national leadership. Surely this is an opportunity, if we are being serious about renewable energies and the renewable industry, to engage people in this process and to establish a national feed-in tariff system so that we can build a future that is as green as possible in the development of a new economy. So I will watch very closely with regard to my own coupling. Whilst both sides will, I imagine, support this legislation going through as far as setting some broad targets, I think the proof will be in the pudding in the next couple of days when we see where people sit on a private member’s bill looking at a national feed-in tariff system.

With regard to the particulars of this legislation, it is a bit of a no-brainer to be supporting this. I think it is certainly long overdue. It is not owned by one side of this debate or the other. I know that there is positioning going on, from the speeches that I have heard so far and from public comments that I have heard so far. The genesis of this does go back to the previous government, with the mandatory renewable energy targets, so I hope I am right to assume that both sides are generally holding hands on the concept of renewable energy targets. We can debate the concept of the size of the target—20 per cent by 2020—and we can debate the demands of the various renewable energy trade-exposed industries and the various vested interests getting their claws into the public policy process. We can debate the rights and wrongs of that and whether this legislation, like others in this suite of CPRS legislation, has been browned down. But, in the end, I think this is as good as we are going to get through the public policy debate and through these two houses. Hopefully we can see this in the marketplace as quickly as possible so that we can start to see some certainty in the many renewable industries that are wanting to do business within Australia.

On that point, I continue to want to break the conflict that seems to be raised in this chamber about the choice of either a clean future or an economy and jobs. I think that is wrong in the framing of this debate. There are many, many jobs attached to the green economies of the future, and we are starting to see some of those in the marketplace already. This is very much a jobs, jobs, jobs piece of legislation that we have before us, even if it is a renewable energy piece of legislation.

If the CSIRO is to be believed—they are talking about a couple of million jobs within the renewable industries in the next 15 to 20 years—we need to be serious in the development of public policy and not afraid to engage in the development of a new economy as we try to establish a market based response to the natural resource management question of our time. It is probably on that point that I raise some continuing concerns about vested interests in the public policy process and what I am seeing as a reinterpretation of the welfare-capitalist state called Australia. When we formed the Commonwealth the concept was supposed to be a safety net that was developed to assist those within the community who are in genuine need—individuals in the community who we as Australians did not want to leave behind. In this debate and in these times, it seems that this is being reinterpreted. When it comes to the natural resources questions in this suite of legislation on natural resource management and climate change, welfare seems to be distributed quite generously to business and it is capitalism for the rest. It seems to be that the safety net is now for the polluters—not for the poor, not for those who are in genuine need in our community. This debate, the policy framing and the discussions that dominate this place and the other place seem to be shaped predominantly around the interests of not an unimportant group within Australia but not the only group within Australia. I do want to start to prick the conscience of a few within the executive to really start to think about who is driving this debate at the moment and who should be leading into the future.

It is something of a myth that we are an energy superpower. It is a term that was used by the previous Prime Minister and it is a term that seems to have been welcomed and adopted by the current regime. We are all in politics, and we love talking it up, but on such an important policy issue we need to be realistic. The industries that are looking for the majority of the subsidies and that are putting the blockers on most of this legislation are, in reality, about eight per cent of our national GDP. They employ about 1.3 per cent of our market. They are majority foreign owned. Look at some of the major mining companies within Australia. BHP Billiton is no longer the big Australian; it is overseas-owned. Rio Tinto, Xstrata, Anglo Coal, even Cement Australia are not Australian owned. My understanding is that Cement Australia is owned by the British, the Swiss and the Mexicans. Queensland Gas and Queensland Alumina are British owned or Russian owned. Japan Australia LNG is a Japanese company. These are players who seem to be capturing the majority of the debate before us today and dominating the thinking of those within the executive who are trying to push through this legislation.

I would ask that the other contributors to national productivity be given a look-in, and they are the people of Australia. They are people like those in the services industry, which is about 75 per cent of GDP. For example, more people work in restaurants and cafes in Australia than do in the entire mining industry. That might surprise some people when they think about what they have heard in this debate over the last couple of months. Where are the subsidies for the cafe worker, the restaurant worker and the restaurant owner as we move forward in this difficult debate before us?

I raise these points again and I repeat: these are not unimportant industries that I am talking about but they are not the only industries and they are not the only voices in this debate. The companies that seem to be dominating this debate at present have already been pinged once. There was a very good article in the Australian Financial Review that raised some comparisons between the lobbying messages on some of these issues that the companies are putting up with regard to impacts on their companies versus the messages they are putting to shareholders and their current state in the marketplace—two very distinct messages.

I raise the same point, or a similar point, in regard to messages from some of these companies within Australia versus some of their activities offshore, and they are two very distinct messages that we are seeing from the very same companies. They are saying the economic sky is going to fall in within Australia if some of these changes happen, when they are intimately and very successfully involved overseas in developing their businesses—in areas such as aluminium, which was raised by one of the previous speakers—with the use of renewable technology. One of the key aspects of smelting aluminium is the use of a good, reliable water source. That is, in essence, a renewable energy answer. Companies in Australia that at times are complaining about some of these renewable energy targets and the move to a new economy are exactly the same companies who overseas in various locations are very successfully and very proactively developing the delivery of exactly the same smelting using hydro power and various renewable solutions. I hope that government is aware of this and that it is calling some of these companies on some of these issues.

And I hope that Australia does not miss the boat. The future economy in regard to energy will be intimately involved in the use of renewable energy. We need to capture it. We need to, where possible, lead on it. We have some great potential in this country. Whether it be the sun, whether it be water, whether it be wind, whether it be geothermal—you name it—we have an abundance of renewable energy opportunities and potential. The only issue that seems to be holding us up is the public policy debate, which is being dragged into the political mosh pit by the vested interests who are trying to protect their various interests in an economy past. I would hope, as we move forward and as we try and get some consensus in this chamber and in the other on not only this renewable energy legislation but the suite of legislation, that we all recognise that in the end we are custodians of building the economy of the future.

Yes, there are some voices—which are not unimportant and which need to be listened to—saying that, where possible, transitional support needs to be provided. But they are not the only voices in this debate. Over the last couple of weeks in particular we have heard some of those voices dominate and some of those voices significantly influence the positions of various members of parliament and political parties as they take a position generally on climate change and in particular on pieces of legislation as they go through this chamber.

It is a no-brainer that I hope this legislation has the support of this place. I hope it gets the support of the other place. I hope that in the future as a group of MPs we can look at increasing targets, lessening subsidies and pushing for greater involvement in a renewable energy industry Australia, because I think it is in our broad economic interests that we do so. It is in the interests of future job opportunities to do so. It is part of our international obligation as good citizens to do so as well. So I certainly support this legislation.

Graham Perrett (Moreton, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I too rise in support of the Renewable Energy (Electricity) Amendment Bill 2009 and the related bill before the House. These bills action another weapon in our fight against climate change—to ensure that 20 per cent of Australia’s electricity is supplied from renewable energy sources by 2020.

I want to take you back a few years before 2020, to the year 1993. Cast your mind back to the must-see movie of the year. In January 1994 at the Oscars it won three Academy Awards. This movie beat ET as the most financially successful film ever when it was released. As I said, it was the must-see movie of the time. There are so many scenes from that movie that have become common culture, that have become part of the cultural consciousness almost. That first encounter with a brachiosaurus has been voted the 28th most magical moment in cinema history by Empire magazine. The scene where the two raptors are in the kitchen pursuing some of the characters has been ranked the 95th scariest scene of all time, according to Bravo magazine. It is certainly a very, very popular movie and a quite significant movie. Obviously I am talking about a movie about dinosaurs called Jurassic Park.

It is a watershed movie for a lot of filmmakers—a lot of famous filmmakers—because they saw that the use of computer generated imagery would allow them to bring a vision to the screen that previously, before computers were so advanced, was unfeasible or superexpensive. After Jurassic Park came out, George Lucas was able to revisit Star Wars and make his prequels, because he knew that the technology, the computer graphics, was such that he could bring his vision to the screen. The New Zealand director Peter Jackson, with his love of Tolkien’s The Lord of the Rings, now had the technology to bring his vision to the screen.

Jurassic Park was a significant film for lots of reasons. Why did it work as a movie? Obviously it had a great starting point: the novel by Michael Crichton. But the movie worked because the great director Steven Spielberg was able to get the dinosaurs to go where he wanted them to go. He was able to move the dinosaurs around. If he needed a triceratops to enter stage right and walk across the screen, he was able to get it to do that. If he needed a brontosaurus to rear up through the trees and greet Sam Neill up in the treetops, he was able to get the brontosaurus to go exactly where he wanted. If he needed a Tyrannosaurus rex to eat somebody who was cowering in a loo, he spoke, the people under him listened and the dinosaur went where it was told.

Obviously the world has changed a bit since the release of Jurassic Park back in 1993. The world has changed since that movie about dinosaurs came out. Unfortunately, when I look across the chamber now, all I see is Jurassic Park. But, unfortunately, the director’s chair is empty—swinging in the breeze—at the moment. There is nobody sitting in the director’s chair. There is no Steven Spielberg on the opposite side to tell the dinosaurs where to go—to try and marshal the dinosaurs, to say: ‘We need to have a certain vision. We need to go in a certain direction.’

Unfortunately, those opposite are a little bit like one of those other movies that also had a great text, a popular novel, as its basis, and I am talking about Tom Wolfe’s The Bonfire of the Vanities. But if you look at that great work of art, Tom Wolfe’s The Bonfire of the Vanities, and the movie by Brian De Palma, you can understand how there can be a great gap between the idea and the actualisation, between the vision and the reality. In fact, Brian De Palma’s The Bonfire of the Vanities is universally known as one of the great dud movies. It barely made any money, had poor direction and was nominated for five Golden Raspberry awards—which, I think, might be a bit of a record—for worst picture, worst director, worst actress, worst supporting actress and worst screenplay.

So I call on those opposite to find someone who can sit in that director’s chair, marshal the dinosaurs and get them to go in the direction that is necessary. The vision for 2020 is to make sure that we have 20 per cent of our electricity coming from renewable energy. Now let us look across the room at those opposite and see how their policy development has taken place since election night. I will give the current person sitting in the director’s chair his due and take it from election night. After nearly 20 months in opposition and two failed leaders, the coalition still do not have a realistic policy on climate change. The dinosaurs are still wandering aimlessly, not heading in any particular direction.

In fairness to the Leader of the Opposition, I acknowledge that last week they did release a report. Unfortunately, it is not coalition policy; it did not get up in the party room. But it is the reason, apparently, that they voted against the CPRS legislation on Thursday. What a sad day that was for the people of Australia. What a sad day it was for people like my four-year-old son, who does love dinosaurs—he is fascinated by dinosaurs. But I wonder, when he has a son and when he has grandchildren, what they will think of the current people who make up the Jurassic Park opposite. What will they say about that decision? On that point, I note that I became a great-uncle today when my niece had a son, Leonard Hastings Kallquist, and I say hello to him, a new arrival in the world. I call on those opposite to find someone who will sit in the director’s chair, give some clear directions and make sure that Jurassic Park’s days are numbered.

Judi Moylan (Pearce, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I am very pleased to have the opportunity to contribute to the debate regarding the role of renewable energy in Australia’s environmental future. The Renewable Energy (Electricity) Amendment Bill 2009, together with the related bill, is the next step for Australia as we strive to find the solution to long-term environmental sustainability.

The reality of our society is that we have become highly dependent on energy. Traditionally we have met our energy needs by using non-renewable forms of energy that not only have contributed to the global greenhouse gas problem but leave us vulnerably dependent upon the world’s contracting resources. Common sense dictates that as Australia and the world have ever-growing appetites for energy we should look to use and promote energy sources that have minimal impact on the environment, both in how they are generated and in the by-products of their use. Australia is indeed blessed with a plethora of renewable energy options that meet these criteria.

The journey of mandatory renewable energy targets internationally started right here, back in 2000. Australia was the first country in the world to introduce a national target and to create a framework, which is still in use today. The fundamental progress being made by the legislation currently before us is that this renewable energy target is being increased so that, by 2020, 20 per cent of Australia’s energy will come from renewable sources. In real terms this will progressively increase the uptake of renewable energy from 9,500 gigawatt hours annually in 2010 to 45,000 gigawatt hours by 2020. And this has been demonstrated in other parts of the world to be achievable.

The operation of this scheme is based on the requirement that wholesale purchasers of electricity meet a share of the renewable energy target in proportion to their share of national wholesale electricity markets. Liable parties can purchase renewable energy certificates from households and businesses that install solar hot-water heaters, small rooftop solar PVs or small wind turbines and surrender them to demonstrate compliance with this requirement.

While this is an extremely positive step forward, it is still far from perfect. One of my key concerns is that this scheme has the propensity to massively favour currently viable technology. Whilst it is vital that we have a scheme that can kick into action as quickly as possible, we must not allow short-sightedness to eclipse future opportunities. In particular, there has been a lot of focus on wind power, which has huge potential to supply our energy needs but is only a small part of the diverse range of technologies that must be supported. In Western Australia we do have tidal power, and I know we also have people working on geothermal. A target of 8,875 gigawatt hours, or 25 per cent of the additional target, should be set for emerging renewable technologies, to give full encouragement to upcoming innovation.

The diversity of renewable energy poses significant potential for Australia. Not only is it a key for a reduction in future reliance on traditional sources of energy but it is also a huge growth opportunity for Australian industry, both at home and abroad. With adequate government support, we are well placed to capitalise on a global hunger for renewable energy technology. Unfortunately, in recent months many in the renewable energy sector have not had the stability they need to get on and grow their enterprises. The solar industry, much of which is small business specialising in household installation, has been particularly hard hit by ill-thought-out government policies. What would it take to dismantle the solar industry in our sun-drenched country? It turns out that all it takes is some bad decision making and the prioritising of politics over good policy by the government.

Last year the solar panel rebate scheme became means tested, then it was scrapped altogether and then the Renewable Remote Power Generation Program was axed. The Clean Energy Council’s Matthew Warren has said:

Hardly a solar panel has been sold since the [rebate] scheme was wound up. We need clarity and certainty—

but it is precisely certainty and clarity that to date has been denied by this government. Time and time again when I am out in the electorate, people tell me that they do not want to see the environment turned into a political game, but unfortunately this legislation has come to epitomise the political games of the government. At the eleventh hour there was a triumph of common sense, and the government finally bowed to universal pressure to decouple this bill from the Carbon Pollution Reduction Scheme. As I heard the Leader of the Opposition say, this is a victory for common sense. There was simply never any other reason but political stuntsmanship to tie these bills. The Australian newspaper summed up the sentiment of Australia in describing this as a ‘ridiculous tactic’ that made ‘the government look cynical’. When so much has already been done by this government to create an atmosphere of uncertainty, one would think that they would have done everything possible to ensure the smooth passage of legislation that has bipartisan support.

All sides of politics would like to see this legislation pass through the parliament, to have the new targets up and running and give some stability to a sector which has been rattled by recent government actions. I urge the government to do all that they can to support the potential that the renewable energy sector offers. The opposition is supportive of the Renewable Energy (Electricity) Amendment Bill. I have heard the shadow minister for the environment, the Hon. Greg Hunt, say on many occasions that Australia can become a solar nation and, as I mentioned, there are other renewable sources of energy that Australia is very rich in.

This is important legislation. Probably rarely have we debated such important legislation in this House. I certainly support the Renewable Energy (Electricity) Amendment Bill 2009 and the related bill.

Kirsten Livermore (Capricornia, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

In rising to speak on the Renewable Energy (Electricity) Amendment Bill 2009 and the related bill, I note that you, Mr Deputy Speaker Thomson, have been a true champion of renewable energy in this House for many, many years, so it is very fitting that you should be in the chair for at least part of the debate.

These bills are an expansion of the existing Renewable Energy Target scheme, but to say that it is an expansion does not really capture the scale of the shift that it represents in terms of the investment in and uptake of energy from renewable resources. Yes, it essentially builds on the scheme introduced by the previous government, but no-one should be fooled by the opportunistic and very recent embrace of renewable energy by the opposition. Opposition speakers are trying to create the impression that these bills are merely an incremental change that their scheme was working its way towards. In fact, this legislation is a very significant new signal to business and the community that we are serious about unlocking the huge potential for renewable energy in this country after years of tokenism by the coalition, years in which the proportion of energy generated from renewable sources fell.

The changes in these bills will increase the existing mandatory renewable energy target by more than four times to 45,000 gigawatt hours in 2020 and contribute to meeting Australia’s targets for the reduction of greenhouse emissions. The bills will provide a market incentive to accelerate take-up of Australia’s abundant renewable energy resources, such as sunlight, wind energy and many others, including, in my own electorate, biomass. The changes in the bills will also reduce red tape by bringing state based targets into a single national scheme.

Other speakers in the debate have talked about the benefits of increasing our reliance on renewable sources of energy, the jobs that will be created and the reduction in carbon dioxide emissions that will be achieved. They have also outlined the unprecedented levels of support from this government for research into renewable energy and its commercialisation and deployment.

In the time that I have I will confine my remarks in support of the bills to two points relevant to my electorate in Central Queensland. The first one relates to an exciting initiative being undertaken by Mackay Sugar Ltd, a sugar-milling company in my electorate that has gotten out ahead of the game and is ready to generate green electricity using the gas which is a waste product from the sugar-milling process. There are roughly 950 cane farmers in the Mackay region, and I am sure most of them would be quick to point out the massive energy potential of the crops in their paddocks. That is how the farmers of the future are starting to think of themselves, as producers of energy, and Mackay Sugar is certainly thinking of the industry in that regard as well. Mackay Sugar is well advanced with its plans to build a major cogeneration plant at the Racecourse sugar mill. The 36-megawatt cogeneration project will export 28 megawatts into the grid year-round, supplying 30 per cent of Mackay’s electricity needs. We are talking about a $100 million investment that will abate about 340,000 tonnes of greenhouse gases per year.

The passage of this legislation is critical for the Mackay Sugar project, and such a project is a win for the company, a win for cane farmers and a win for the Australian community. It will help establish for Mackay Sugar and growers a steady, domestically sourced income stream that is not subject to the turmoil and ups and downs familiar in the world sugar market. It is the kind of diversification that will keep these sugar producers in the game. This project and so many other, similar projects across the country is what the mandatory renewable energy target and these bills increasing that target are all about. They will create jobs, drive investment and reduce greenhouse gas pollution. It is also important to note that it is an investment in renewables and the future of the sugar industry in the Mackay region that was not possible under the previous government, the same people who come in here today to lecture us about renewable energy.

Here is a snapshot of what the previous government did to investment in renewable energy. It comes in this quote from the Chairman of Mackay Sugar, Mr Eddie Westcott:

Significant investment has been made in this project since the introduction of the 2% MRET in 2001 but unfortunately the project was shelved in 2006 when the renewable market collapsed due to surplus capacity—

in other words, failure to support the industry through a high enough MRET. In contrast, Eddie Westcott concludes his letter by saying that if the legislation is passed Mackay Sugar’s project will go to tender next week. I will leave that for the coalition members, awaiting the support of their Senate colleagues, to ponder as the legislation goes into the Senate tomorrow. Eddie Westcott has been the champion of this project, and I appreciate the time he has taken to keep my ministerial colleagues, the Deputy Speaker and me informed of its potential and its progress at every stage. I know he would have liked the legislation to pass before this time. He has been incredibly patient. All of us on this side of the House are with Eddie in hoping that we are just days away from it becoming a reality.

The other point I wish to raise relates to the treatment of waste coalmine gas under this renewable energy target legislation. Members would be aware of the extensive coalmining operations in my electorate and, indeed, throughout Central Queensland. In recent years, a complementary industry has developed using the waste coalmine methane gas to generate electricity. Two companies, Energy Developments Limited and Envirogen, established plants in my electorate and have been able to take advantage of the GGAS incentives of the New South Wales government to underpin the viability of the projects. For many months I have been talking to representatives from both EDL and Envirogen about the threat posed to their waste coalmine methane generation activities due to the CPRS closing down the New South Wales GGAS. Both companies currently earn a large proportion of their revenue from generating and selling abatement certificates under the New South Wales scheme.

I want to see a way found to overcome the problem presented by the phasing out of GGAS. The companies operating in my electorate have put forward some proposals to amend this legislation in a way that will allow them to receive renewable energy certificates for energy generated from waste coalmine methane, thus replacing the revenue lost from the phase-out of GGAS. I have had extensive discussions with the Minister for Climate Change and Water, asking her to consider those proposals to include waste coalmine methane in the renewable energy target. We need to ensure that these companies can continue to generate low-emission electricity and provide employment in my electorate. Just as it was on the CPRS, the minister’s door has always been open on this issue and she has been willing to listen to my arguments on behalf of Envirogen and EDL.

These bills can unlock the enormous potential for renewable energy in Australia, which means jobs in new industries, significant numbers of which will be in regional and rural areas like Central Queensland. I look forward to their quick passage through the Senate so that industry has the certainty it needs to take the renewables sector forward to what is undoubtedly a bright future. It is an industry that will play a big role in the future of our country.

Peter Lindsay (Herbert, Liberal Party, Shadow Parliamentary Secretary for Defence) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I note we have a number of young people in the gallery this afternoon. What we are discussing here in the parliament this afternoon affects your future as it affects all of Australia. This particular issue is highly significant. That is why there has to be very significant debate and very significant agreement on both sides of the parliament about what we as a parliament might do about clean energy. There has been a very significant amount of discussion about the Senate refusing to pass the Carbon Pollution Reduction Scheme legislation last week, but I remind those in the gallery that all of the non-government senators, from the far left to the far right, would not support the government’s legislation. That must say something. It must say to you and to the people of Australia that perhaps things are not right.

It was fine for the member for Moreton to talk earlier about dinosaurs on this side of the House. Some, like Professor Bob Carter, who looks at the earth in terms of millions of years, including when the dinosaurs roamed the place, say that what is happening now may have been happening then. I do not subscribe to that view. I do believe that we are seeing global warming. I do believe that humankind is suffering from carbon pollution and that we must do something about it, but what we do has to be very carefully thought through, and that is why the Senate would not accept the government’s position and would not accept the coupling together of the Renewable Energy (Electricity) Amendment Bill 2009 and the Renewable Energy (Electricity) (Charge) Amendment Bill 2009, which we are talking about in the parliament this afternoon, with the CPRS legislation.

The CPRS legislation effectively has the support of all of the parliament and we want to see that passed. I will say more about that in a minute. But it is very important that we carefully move forward and get it right for Australia and also in relation to what other countries are going to do. We will not know that until we see what is happening in the United States, China, India and Copenhagen at the end of the year. We do not need to rush. We need to have a view and we need to be ready, but we do not need to ram something through the parliament right now if it might damage Australia. Of course, one of the sorts of things that might happen under the government’s current proposal is 80,000 jobs being lost, a lot of those in regional Australia. If you have a job, how would you like your job to be lost because the parliament rammed something through without proper thought?

We will also see very significant cost rises across the economy. For example, food prices, transport prices, fuel prices and electricity prices will all go up. We will see trade-exposed industries lose their capacity to compete and we will see carbon exported offshore to another country. Some of you will have been to the major emitters. Two weeks ago, I was in Beijing. When we were landing in Beijing, it was not until we were 1,500 feet above the runway that I could actually see the ground because the pollution was so bad. Many kids in Beijing have never seen a blue sky. We have to address that. That occurs across Asia. It occurs across Europe. It occurs in the United States. Look at what it is like in Washington. The world truly as one has to move forward and address the issues of carbon pollution, renewable energy and clean energy.

I get a bit tired of the government giving the coalition a flogging and saying that we are all dinosaurs and we do not believe in this. Perhaps they ought to sit down with us, talk to us and hear our views, and take up our good ideas. The people of Australia know that one side of the parliament does not have all the good ideas and the other side all the bad ideas. They know that each of us can contribute, and that contribution should be allowed to happen. We should be able to negotiate with the government. We should be able to speak to the government and say: ‘Here’s a good idea from our side. How about you adopt that and we’ll adopt your good idea?’ That is the way the parliament works best. That is why the shadow minister, the member for Flinders, will be moving 16 amendments to this particular bill. All of these amendments are sensible and are well argued in the shadow minister’s response to the second reading speech on this bill. I urge the government to consider these 16 amendments. I urge the government to adopt all of these sensible matters that have been put forward. I urge the media to recognise that the coalition does have a view and it is prepared to contribute, and it is prepared to listen to the government. In return, it expects the government to listen to the coalition. The amendments will seek, for example, the full decoupling of the RET from the flawed ETS. They will see the inclusion of renewable gas or waste coalmine gases as a recognised zero emission source of energy, as it is in the US and Germany. They seek coverage of the aluminium sector for both its existing MRET and its expanded RET liabilities to the 90 per cent already offered by the government for the latter. They will ensure that food processing is categorised for assistance under the renewable energy target.

The primary bill that we are discussing this afternoon sets in place a renewable energy target of 20 per cent by 2020. The majority of the parliament supports this and certainly the coalition support it, and strongly support it. We want to see this happen. We want to see this pass through the parliament, and hopefully it will be through the House of Representatives by the end of this evening. But there has been a lot of hypocrisy on these sorts of issues. We saw that when the government came to power. After a lot rhetoric at the last election, it immediately means-tested the former government’s $8,000 solar rebate. That was a broken promise from budget night 2008. Then we saw that solar rebate completely abolished without notice on 9 June this year. The former government introduced the Remote Renewable Power Generation Program, which the current government abolished without notice on 22 June at 8.30 am. Not a very good record for the current government in relation to renewable energy, and it is renewable energy that we are talking about.

The other thing that would underline a poor record is that the government has been talking about what we are discussing this afternoon since 2007. This legislation could have been in the parliament and passed 12 months ago. It could have been, but there has been inordinate delay and then there was its coupling with the CPRS bill. It left all of us shaking our heads and saying: ‘Why is this happening? Is this a political device? Is this a way of trying to wedge the coalition?’ It was, and that is unfortunate for such a great debate in our country. It is unfortunate that we have kept the renewables sector waiting for such a long time. On 16 June this year, the head of the Clean Energy Council picked up on this and said:

Any political tricky manoeuvre to hold the legislation up now will simply end up being a remarkable own goal.

That is what has happened. I think the media are now making that observation, that the government has been forced into a backdown. I do not enjoy seeing the government backing down. I would rather get the bill through parliament in a timely fashion. I would rather get on with looking after our environment and setting these clean energy targets.

The Whip has asked us to limit our remarks. I will do that. I will close with a summary which simply says that I am strongly supportive of the 20 per cent target by 2020, and I do hope that the government will see fit to support the coalition’s amendments.

Shayne Neumann (Blair, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise to speak in support of the two pieces of legislation before the House, the Renewable Energy (Electricity) Amendment Bill 2009 and the Renewable Energy (Electricity) (Charge) Amendment Bill 2009, which are important pieces of legislation and are integral to our election commitments. It is quite sad that we are having to debate this legislation today and that it is having to be decoupled from the CPRS, because that was a strong election commitment and a mandate given to us by the Australian public in November 2007. We made a commitment and when we on this side of the House make commitments we believe they are serious, that they are matters of trust with the Australian public, and our intention is be stubborn in carrying out our commitments to the Australian public.

It is important that this legislation be passed today. It is important that there be certainty for business—for those in the solar sector, those in the mining sector and those involved in electricity generation across the country. So I am pleased that the coalition want to be part of the game. All last week we saw them take off their jerseys and step off the field. They did not want to play football with us. They did not want to talk to us. They wanted to look at a study when it came to the CPRS. They could not devise a policy. At least today we are having some discussions with them about the renewable energy targets and the modifications and changes that could get this legislation through the House and into the Senate.

This is important legislation. It is important because it underpins a transformation of our economy to a low-pollution economy. It is important because of what it says to the Australian public and what it says to Australian business and Australian industry. The expanded scheme will deliver upon our commitment that the equivalent of at least 20 per cent of Australia’s electricity will come from renewable sources by 2020. The bills before this House clarify the objects of the RET scheme. They increase targets, they implement a solar credits mechanism based on a renewable energy certificate multiplier, they mandate a review of operation of legislation and regulations underpinning the RET scheme in 2014, and there are other transitional changes as well which came about through the COAG process.

It is important that we look at the previous government’s long record of idleness and ignorance on this topic. There was much rhetoric that we heard from the member for Herbert—who I often take notice of when he talks on defence issues. On this particular issue, though, the coalition certainly has form or a lack of practice in the area of CPRS and the RET. The truth is that the coalition has been quite ignorant of climate change issues. We have a division opposite, which creates frustration for those of us on this side of the House who want to get on with giving certainty to business and making sure that we transition our economy to a low-carbon economy.

The Rudd government is doing much in the area of providing assistance to transition our society and our economy. As part of our budget, we committed $15 billion in climate change related initiatives—$4.5 billion for the Clean Energy Initiative; $1.5 billion for the Solar Flagships program, which is aimed at creating an additional 1,000 megawatts of solar generation capacity; $100 million for the Australian Solar Institute, which supports research into solar-thermal and other technologies; and $465 million to establish Renewables Australia to support technology research and to bring it to market.

The legislation before the House is very important. The renewable energy target is important for those companies in Queensland and New South Wales that are involved with waste coalmine gas. Good companies like Envirogen Pty Ltd and Energy Developments Limited have invested millions of dollars and have been advocating for a long time that we have a look at an expanded renewable energy target to ensure that their operations continue to prosper and so they can make an unparalleled contribution to fugitive emissions abatement of waste coalmine methane in Australia. There are hundreds of jobs at stake. There is also much to be gained in ensuring that we adopt similar schemes, similar projects and similar attitudes to other countries that have similar economies to ours—namely, those competitors in the OECD, like Germany and the United States, who also take into consideration the treatment of coalmine methane in relation to RET and other forms of emission abatement.

So I would like to see the government have a look at that particular aspect. There are many jobs in New South Wales and Queensland to be gained and there is much to be expanded in terms of construction and development. Queensland and New South Wales are leading players when it comes to these areas. I am pleased that the government is talking to the industries accordingly. I call upon the government to have a really close look at this aspect because this is important for the states of New South Wales and Queensland.

This legislation is innovative, creative and 21st century. It will go a long way to making sure that our economy and our society look to the future, not to the past, when it comes to renewable energy. The targets in this legislation are terrific in terms of saying where we want to go as a country. This legislation is educative and international, and I ask that the coalition support the bills before the House.

Bob Baldwin (Paterson, Liberal Party, Shadow Minister for Defence Science and Personnel) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise today to speak on the Renewable Energy (Electricity) Amendment Bill 2009 and the Renewable Energy (Electricity) (Charge) Amendment Bill 2009. I am a representative of a region, the Hunter region, that not only generates the bulk of New South Wales electricity but also, through industries such as the aluminium industry, consumes a large part of that electrical generation. Given that, you will understand that I, as a part of the coalition, believe in the importance of a clean energy economy for Australia. As such, it is with some reservation that I support aspects of this legislation in its current form, which admirably sets out to achieve a renewable energy target of 20 per cent by 2010.

The coalition has a proud history of putting in place measures which ensure the preservation of our environment in a manner that does not burden the back pockets of Australian industry or the public. Former Prime Minister John Howard, along with the coalition, was by and large a strong advocate of putting in place measures which would protect Australia’s environmental future. In the speech entitled ‘Safeguarding the future: Australia’s response to climate change’, the former Prime Minister spoke of targets that would be set for the inclusion of renewable energy in electricity generation by the year 2010.

The mandatory renewable energy target, MRET, scheme was subsequently implemented through the Renewable Energy (Electricity) Act 2000 and the associated Renewable Energy (Electricity) (Charge) Act 2000. As such, the implementation of this bill, with the support of the coalition, reaffirms our strong commitment to a 20 per cent of renewable energy target. We accordingly offer provisional support for the legislation before the House today, subject only to key amendments which we will move in the Senate. Let it be known that we, the coalition, believe in the potential of wind energy, solar energy, geothermal energy, wave energy, tidal energy and algal energy to contribute to our clean energy future.

Clean energy is, with green carbon, one of the two most fundamental steps to dramatically reducing Australia’s net emissions. It is also about broadening the base of energy security. Clean energy is about creating jobs in rural Australia. In fact, the coalition were so committed to this concept that in the lead-up to the 2007 election we guaranteed 100 jobs would be created with the development of a $360 million solar power plant on the doorstep of the Paterson electorate if the coalition were voted back into government. It was with great pride and passion for the environment and creating Australian jobs that the coalition made this pledge and set aside $20 million in funding for the CBD Energy solar project to manufacture solar power systems for both export and local use. Had the Rudd government supported this project, it would have been fantastic news for the future of renewable technology development and our region in the Hunter. Had the Rudd government supported this project, it would have seen around $400 million per year in exported solar panels that would have helped reduce the global emissions footprint. All we see is rhetoric and spin and little or no action.

The coalition has always been committed to putting into place schemes which will ensure a more sustainable and greener future for Australia. That is why whilst in government the coalition introduced the $8,000 solar rebate, which was widely applauded and utilised by the Australian public. We were as determined then as we are now to come up with clean energy economies. Unlike the present Labor government, we the coalition are determined to be a part of the solution and not the problem. We listen to what the Australian public have to say and we do not disadvantage them, empty their back pockets or put the environment on the backburner. We are proactive, and we want to get it right the first time by conducting the necessary investigations and providing reports which remain open and transparent at all times.

In direct contrast to our well-received initiative of introducing solar rebates, this Rudd Labor government disappointingly broke a major election promise and introduced means-testing for the rebate on budget night 2008. This cut out mums and dads on $50,000 each. It took solar panels beyond the reach of ordinary families in electorates like mine of Paterson. To add insult to injury, the Rudd Labor government put the Australian public offside and disadvantaged tens of thousands when on 9 June 2009 they scrapped the rebate altogether without any prior notice. The Rudd Labor government have to decide: either they are in or they are out when it comes to supporting renewable energy and reducing emissions.

This was an absolute sham, and the Rudd Labor government should be ashamed of their disgraceful actions. By ending the rebate prematurely, they left hundreds of people in the lurch and they all but crashed an emerging industry. They replaced the coalition’s plan with a scheme which will result in most families who invest in a common one-kilowatt system receiving about half of what they would have gotten under a coalition rebate. For a Prime Minister who continually sees the need to ask himself the question, the question the Prime Minister should now be asking himself is: where are the incentives?

Continuing in what is quickly becoming an infamous Rudd Labor government tradition, on 22 June 2009 at 8.30 am, without any notice to the opposition, they abolished the Renewable Remote Power Generation Program. This was a program which helped families, businesses and not-for-profit organisations connect to the power grid or install solar or wind units. With no warning or compensation granted, the axing of this program again sent thousands of Australian families and solar companies into chaos. For a government that claim to represent the hardworking Australian, how can they justify sending an entire industry and its workers into disarray? Solar companies have said that the Rudd Labor government’s decision will cost them an enormous amount of money and that they will consequently have to lay off staff. This is the disgraceful Rudd Labor government, who on the one hand plunge Australia into record levels of debt and on the other hand squash the solar industry and consequently send thousands of jobs flying.

My constituents demand to know how Labor expects to get back into budget surplus whilst at the same time implementing policies that will ensure a greener future for Australia. My belief is that this juggling act will not be possible under the reckless Labor government and that it will take a coalition government to be re-elected to ensure a clean energy economy for Australia’s future.

On the topic of the renewable energy target, I would like to know why the government has delayed its introduction by over one year. As I mentioned before, the coalition openly endorses the setting of a renewable energy target of 20 per cent by 2020. It would also enable the government to introduce a new solar rebate scheme based on renewable energy certificates that come with small energy units such as solar PV systems. This legislation progressively increases 9,500-gigawatt-hour annual mandatory renewable energy targets to 45,000 gigawatt hours by 2020, which I support. The legislation also replaces the coalition’s solar rebate of $8,000 with a solar credits scheme which issues renewable energy credits to installers of solar photovoltaic systems of 1.5 kilowatts or less. These credits can be traded on the market for a return of between $4,000 and $4,500 for a common one-kilowatt solar panel system.

Under the act, wholesale purchasers of electricity—that is, liable parties—are required to meet a share of the renewable energy target in proportion to their share of the national wholesale electricity market. Those who do not meet the target will face a financial cost. The Renewable Energy (Electricity) (Charge) Amendment Bill 2009 sets that cost at $65 per REC or each one megawatt hour.

I have stood before this House before and openly expressed my concern about the Rudd Labor government’s ETS model. It is my very real fear that, under the Rudd government’s current proposals for an emissions trading scheme, Australian businesses will be left out in the cold, Paterson’s businesses will be left out in the cold and Australian exposed businesses will be left disadvantaged against other competing countries in the market. Thankfully, Labor has come to its senses and agreed to decouple the renewable energy target from the ETS. To have tied the two together would have been to forgo common sense and would have subsequently been the marker of massive risk and uncertainty for Australian businesses over the next 20 years.

The coalition foreshadow moving the following amendments in the Senate: firstly, a full decoupling of the renewable energy target from its flawed ETS, which was voted down in the Senate: secondly, the inclusion of renewable gas or waste coalmine gas as a recognised zero-emissions source of energy, as occurs in the United States and Germany: thirdly, ensuring that food processing is categorised for assistance under the RET: fourthly, coverage of the aluminium sector for both its existing MRET and expanded RET liabilities to the 90 per cent already offered by the government for the latter.

The coalition will also seek to, firstly, eliminate a loophole in relation to the multiplication of RECs for industrial heat pumps and, secondly, move that a portion of the RET be banded and reserved for emerging renewable technologies, such as industrial scale solar, geothermal, wave, tidal and biomass. This would be 8,875 gigawatt hours or 25 per cent of the additional 35,500 gigawatt hours renewable energy.

Until the last term of this parliament, Tomago Aluminium was in the electorate of Paterson and, even though it is now in the electorate of Newcastle, many of the thousands of workers, both direct and indirect, are my constituents, as are workers at the Kurri Kurri smelter in the electorate of Hunter. The very idea that the Rudd Labor government has not moved to ensure long-term viability of the aluminium industry through environmental and economic stability is an act of economic and social treason against both workers and businesses alike, not to mention the broader local communities that rely on the economic flowthrough effect of this industry

The New South Wales Labor government has just increased, by 20 per cent, the cost of electricity to consumers, and that is prior to the introduction of any ETS model. The big question that the Prime Minister should be asking himself is: what will the cost be post introduction of his CPRS and what effect will it have on consumers and businesses alike? What will the downstream effect be on business, on costs and on consumers? How will it be sustainable in the face of greater international competition?

The coalition will reserve its final Senate position, subject to the resolution of these issues. But we will negotiate in good faith and we want to see this legislation pass. The government has been its own worst enemy in bringing forward this legislation. It promised action on this target back in 2007 and yet, here we are, nearly two years down the track and the matter has only now been brought up for debate, which has been curtailed in this House to one day for such important legislation as this. The government has only itself to blame for its incompetence and tardiness.

I am committed to ensuring that constructive renewable energy legislation is passed through the parliament. I am very pleased that the government is backing down from its approach of holding hostage renewable energy—that is, solar, wind, geothermal energies—to the passage of the emissions trading scheme.

However, further changes need to be made, and I cannot stress enough the importance of the coalition’s proposed amendments being passed though the Senate. As the Leader of the Opposition said earlier today:

We’ve—

the coalition have—

set out some amendments in detail. They range through a whole … of measures, including protecting trade exposed emissions intensive industry, also making sure that there is room in the renewable energy target for the emerging renewable energies, like geothermal … solar … tidal … wave energy—these are important technologies—

and their potential growth needs to be taken into consideration when considering this legislation. The coalition’s aim is to get the best renewable energy legislation and the best emissions trading legislation through the parliament that it can. To do that we have to work together. The question for the Prime Minister is: does he want to work together, does he want to listen to the views of others and engage positively and constructively with us? There is a right way and a wrong way of achieving a 20 per cent renewable energy target, and the Rudd government must remember this the next time it goes to pull the carpet out from underneath the Australian public and industry by cancelling schemes without notice. Therefore, if the government is willing to consider our reasoned amendments then this legislation will pass.

Tony Zappia (Makin, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I speak in support of the renewable energy target legislation package. It is important legislation, and that is certainly one thing I agree with the member for Paterson on. But I do not agree with his comments in respect of the solar panel rebate and the management of that scheme by this government because, under this government, during 12 months in office, some 80,000 panels were to be installed around Australia. Contrast that with some 10,000, as we heard earlier on in question time today, that were subsidised during the 12 years of the previous Howard government.

These bills, the Renewable Energy (Electricity) Amendment Bill 2009 and the cognate bill, form part of the Rudd government’s response to climate change. Let us make no mistake at all about it: this legislation is as much about climate change as is the CPRS legislation that was blocked by the coalition members last week, because the objective of reducing greenhouse gas emissions underpins this legislation. The objective of reducing greenhouse gas emissions is driven by the belief that rising greenhouse gas emissions are contributing to global warming and to climate change. The overwhelming body of peer-reviewed scientific opinion subscribes to the view that greenhouse gases are a major contributor to global warming. The overwhelming body of scientific opinion on climate change and the devastating consequences for humanity simply cannot be ignored. We have a responsibility to the people of today’s generation and an even more onerous responsibility to future generations, who have no voice whatsoever in decisions made today.

Raising the nation’s renewable energy target to 20 per cent by 2020 is an important step in the Rudd government’s climate change strategy for several reasons: firstly, it results in a reduction of greenhouse gas emissions; secondly, it provides targets and certainty for both industry generally and electricity generators particularly; and, thirdly, it provides confidence to those industries investing in renewable energy technologies. Of course, this legislation also underpins the establishment of renewable energy certificates, which are central to the continuation of householder rebates for the installation of solar energy panels.

There is a mistaken view, held by some members opposite, that any policy measure that seeks to reduce carbon emissions will have a negative impact on jobs and economic activity. Treasury modelling has shown that this policy will in fact create jobs, and that modelling has been supported by separate independent modelling by many organisations time and time again. Further evidence of the economic benefits of renewable energy can be seen in some of the stimulus packages put in place by governments around the world in response to the global economic crisis. Investment in renewable energy plays a significant role in these packages. I want to make reference to and quote some of those packages.

According to analysis by HSBC published in the Financial Times, in South Korea 81 per cent of the total of its government’s stimulus package is being spent on renewable energy projects—that is, US$36 billion of investment, which it is anticipated will create some 950,000 green jobs. In China 38 per cent of the total stimulus is being spent on renewable energy, which is in the vicinity of US$220 billion. In the United States 12 per cent of President Obama’s stimulus package is being spent on renewable energy—over $50 billion in combined investment from the two stimulus packages; and this is expected to create 2.5 million green jobs.

Also worth noting is the number of other nations who, like Australia, have made investments in household energy efficiency a priority for their stimulus packages. Programs similar to the Australian government’s energy efficient insulation plan are part of stimulus packages in Germany, Britain and Canada. Polling published in today’s Age newspaper shows that 55 per cent of Australians support the government’s Carbon Pollution Reduction Scheme and do not think we should take the path of the opposition’s latest delaying tactic of waiting until the Copenhagen meeting in December.

The Financial Times analysis of the Rudd government’s program said:

Australia has only recently begun to engage seriously with climate change … Canberra ratified the Kyoto protocol in 2007 and now plans to cut greenhouse gas emissions dramatically.

This international analysis by HSBC and the Financial Times reaffirms what we and the Australian people already know: that, after 12 years of inaction by the previous Howard government, Australia finally has a Prime Minister and a government determined to address the issue of climate change and ensure Australia becomes a low-carbon economy. These bills take a significant step along the path of lowering Australia’s carbon emissions. I commend the bills to the House.

Alex Hawke (Mitchell, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise today to speak on the Renewable Energy (Electricity) Amendment Bill 2009 and the Renewable Energy (Electricity) (Charge) Amendment Bill 2009 I think in the same way that all members of this House are rising to praise the idea that we need to be looking at alternative sources of energy, and particularly renewables. I think the search for a source of energy that is renewable and that has as little impact on the environment as possible is an objective which all members of this House would have no trouble supporting and indeed taking steps towards. This is a very noble objective, and that is why I think it is regrettable that we have seen in the last week important legislation such as this before us being coupled to other legislation unnecessarily in a way that delayed the ultimate success of this very important piece of legislation on renewables.

The primary aim of the Renewable Energy (Electricity) Amendment Bill 2009 is to set in place a renewable energy target of 20 per cent by 2020. I think that is a wonderful thing. I think the alliteration of ‘20 per cent by 2020’ is a wonderful success for the highly paid political adviser who no doubt came up with it. But, on a serious note, of course we ought to be seeking an objective, and 20 per cent by 2020 is not a bad place to start. I think this government ought to think very seriously about the steps it is taking in terms of supporting our renewable industries, because we have seen a lot of confusion and lack of serious focus on how to get the renewable market up and running. In the mechanisms of this bill we see another attempt by the Rudd government to set up a renewable energy industry. The story of the last year, since the election of the Rudd government, has been a series of measures which have led to a lot of confusion in the industry. One of the themes that we have seen over the last week in terms of responses to climate change and the emissions trading scheme has been about providing industry with certainty and providing business with certainty.

Of course, if you have been in the solar industry since the election of the Rudd government then the last thing you would have had over the past 18 months is any certainty. That lack of certainty has been to the great detriment of the solar industry in Australia. When the Rudd government, suddenly and without warning, scrapped the $8,000 rebate, there was a mad rush of applications to get in before the last day of the deadline. Many people missed that deadline, and I had a number of them make representations to me. I had a number of representatives of the solar industry in New South Wales contact me about that. I lament with them the fact that these decisions were taken without warning and without notice.

Certainly I thought that the attitude of the Minister for the Environment, Heritage and the Arts here in this place, when he said that the problem he was trying to solve was that the solar industry was overheating, sort of revealed a fundamental misunderstanding of what the government is trying to do with all of its settings that it puts into place. Governments are not there to subsidise continually the behaviour of every person in every sense; we are attempting to create a viable market, something which can sustain itself, ultimately—and as quickly as possible, I might add. So the fact that there was a great demand for solar panels—and the proposition was that it was overheating; that there was too much demand and that the system had gotten to a point where demand was very simulated—is something I think we ought to really celebrate and rejoice about.

However, this is an attempt to rejig the solar industry. Hopefully, this will lead to a situation where there is more certainty in the solar market, because in the last 18 months there has been a litany of decisions that have not provided certainty. I do not think you would find a genuine solar industry representative who would come forward and say, ‘We’ve had a very certain 18 months.’ Indeed, one of the successes of the Howard government was the solar panel rebate in creating the foundations of a market for a sustainable renewable like solar power. If you look at some of the comments, I think that is backed up by many people. Some of the managing directors of different solar companies made comments like, ‘This is the third setback for the solar industry in as many weeks,’ when the rebates were scrapped. There were other comments, such as that they were promised smooth transitions from the $8,000 rebate to the new solar credit scheme, which was pulled with only hours of notice. I think the retrospectivity of it in terms of the renewable energy targets policy was to be regretted.

There is an elephant in the room in relation to energy policy. Certainly renewable energies are to be lauded, but there is also something else that we as a place ought to consider, and that is the viability of nuclear power. Though not specifically addressed in this bill, I think it is important, because while we search for renewable energies—and this legislation before us is an attempt to set the foundations for a market—there is no contention that renewables will be able to provide us with our baseload power into the future. We need to look at options for baseload power generation that will enable us to meet our emissions targets and deal with the problems that we are facing with climate change.

Australia has one of the highest per capita rates of greenhouse gas emissions in the world, primarily because of our reliance on fossil fuels. So, given that undesirable outcome for Australia that we have one of the highest per capita emissions in the world, if we are serious about tackling this then we ought to seriously consider alternative energies that will be sustainable, and there is no proposition that renewables will provide our baseload power into the future. So, while I am a very strong supporter of the renewable energy industry—whether it be geothermal, solar or more power from hydro plants and all of the wonderful things that come with that and the clean energies that can be provided—I believe it is not the case that this is a serious option at this point in time for baseload power generation. Therefore, as a parliament looking forward into the future of this country, we need to consider very seriously that with our uranium reserves and our ability to develop a nuclear industry we can generate the power we need in a cleaner way, with a substantial supplement from renewables and a viable renewable market.

This legislation replaces the solar rebates with a solar credit scheme which issues renewable energy credits to the installers of solar panel systems of 1.5 kilowatts per hour or less. These credits can be traded on a market for a return of between $4,000 and $4,500 for a common solar panel system. This is a mechanism which I endorse. Market based mechanisms are something which we know works and something which can provide a platform for future arrangements.

It is interesting to note that this government seems to lurch from policy to policy in relation to markets. When they are running for election they love markets; when they get into government they hate them. When we are dealing with climate change they seem to discover their enjoyment of market based mechanisms again. But never mind the inconsistency and the inconsistent signals we get out of this government in relation to market mechanisms. Market mechanisms, without any doubt, work. If we are unable to use them as part of our arsenal in dealing with climate change, then we are not serious about handling the challenges that we face as a country. I 100 per cent endorse the concept of creating viable markets as a powerful mechanism for dealing with climate change or the problems caused by the pollutants created by industry.

I think it is regrettable that this legislation is before us after the last week. We have heard a lot of derision from the government but not a lot of openness to negotiating about what is a very important matter. Finally, the government has relented, decoupled this bill and sought to bring it here as its own individual bill, which it always should have been, because I believe that renewables will enjoy the support of members in this place and enjoy the support of the community in terms of what government action will be taken.

The opposition is proposing amendments, and those amendments are very important, especially given the fact that we are looking at the coverage of the aluminium sector for both its existing targets and expanded renewable energy target liabilities to the 90 per cent already offered by the government for the latter. I think those amendments are worth while. I think the government ought to consider them. If they are serious about renewables, if they are serious about making this the best possible scheme that they can, then they ought to be negotiating on these very important matters.

Many of the government backbenchers say they believe that we are in the biggest crisis of our time. We have heard that very dramatic language. I have seen Kevin Rudd, the Prime Minister, stand in front of a camera at the Great Barrier Reef and say that, if we do not act, this will no longer be here. That is the Prime Minister of the country standing in front of a television camera and, with quite a high degree of alarmism, warning that a great iconic piece of Australia may not be here if we do not act. If those things are true, then I believe the government ought to be here in this chamber negotiating very seriously with us about this legislation and about the emissions trading scheme legislation and, in particular, accepting the very good ideas that are being put forward by the opposition in the form of amendments to this legislation.

In summary, I think it is easy to say that this House, and I particularly, will almost certainly go on to endorse what is an important step in our energy generation process. Renewables will play an important role in Australia’s future. However, I do not think we should blind ourselves to the fact that we need to be considering very seriously the next step in baseload energy generation into the future. But I endorse this legislation.

Sharon Grierson (Newcastle, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise to speak in support of the Renewable Energy (Electricity) Amendment Bill 2009. I have to say that I marvel at hearing the new experts, the weekend experts, in the opposition telling us what we need to do now about climate change and renewable energy. That tourism slogan ‘Where the bloody hell are you?’ certainly applies. Where were they for 12 years? I am incredulous. It is just amazing. It is also amazing to me that there would still be the suggestion that we are all over the shop and that we are swapping and changing. Yet we see no clear message from the other side at all. We see no certainty for business in their arrangements, just some suggestion that they are the holders of all knowledge on this. I do not think the public agree with that. The public agree—and I think there is absolute consensus in this country—that there must be action on climate change, there must be a CPRS or an emissions trading scheme and there certainly must be legislation and initiatives from government to boost the renewables sector. When you hear the opposition say we have not been consistent, and you look at $15 billion in the last budget alone to support clean energy and renewable initiatives, you have to wonder where their attention has been. We know it has been on leadership instead of doing the work that they need to do to impress us or the public of Australia.

We know that renewable energy is vital in reducing greenhouse emissions, and we have already agreed to meet certain targets in the Kyoto protocol and beyond that. We have to get on with this legislation. This bill gives effect to the government’s commitment to replace the existing mandatory renewable energy target scheme, the MRET, with a national renewable energy target scheme. It aims to see an annual 45,000 gigawatts per hour of electricity produced in Australia from renewable energy sources by 2020, in comparison to the existing MRET scheme, which had a much lower target of only 9,500 gigawatt hours. The 45,000 target is expected to ensure that the equivalent of at least 20 per cent of Australia’s electricity supply is generated from renewable sources. That is something that can only come about through leadership and inspiration and it can only happen if we give the certainty to business that this legislation provides.

In this decoupled legislation—of course, dependent on the actions of the opposition—there is assistance; it does provide extra help for business sectors. I heard the member for Paterson claiming that not supporting the aluminium industry in my electorate and in the Hunter electorate was some sort of social treason. Mr Baldwin will be very pleased to know that the four Labor members of the Hunter are absolutely united in their support for the aluminium industry and for our other trade-exposed industries—the steel, cement and coal industries. We are blessed in our area not only with outstanding industry but also with outstanding opportunities for energy generation and energy production. And we do not just have the blessing of resources; we also have the blessing of innovation, intellect and initiative. That has been very well supported by the Rudd government. I draw attention to the national Australian Solar Institute, the headquarters of which is in my electorate, and the national Clean Energy Innovation Centre, which is also in my electorate. We are leading the way. We have a carbon footprint that is not to be envied but we are leading the way in finding these solutions for the future. Whilst it is sad to see that there have been attempts to block initiatives such as this today, last week’s announcement by the Minister for Climate Change and Water, Senator Wong, of interim industry assistance arrangements under the RET is a safeguard against the opposition failing to pass the CPRS later this year. We know that there is a move to pass it and we hope that can be achieved. It will take very strong leadership from the opposition and, of course, that is still the missing factor.

The arrangements will set aside the link between the RET and the CPRS legislation until the CPRS has passed through the Senate. If it is not passed then these interim measures will be provided to key electricity-intensive trade-exposed industries like the aluminium industry in my electorate. I think most people would agree that this is a less than perfect way of taking up the dual aims of tackling climate change and providing assistance to industry. But, as the minister said last week, this is a necessary course of action given the opposition’s irresponsibility and its very muddle-headed approach to the climate change debate. It is up to the government to provide the certainty to the renewables sector in the face of the opposition’s failure to do the responsible thing and to pass both the CPRS and the renewable energy target legislation. This legislation will deliver more than a fourfold increase in renewable energy targets by 2020. If passed, it will lead to the largest increase in renewable energy in the country’s history. There is a potential $19 billion to $20 billion of investment out there, and that is the sort of investment we need to drive change. It is the sort of investment that will only come with certainty. The people who met with me in my office today, who will be at the Australian Industry Group dinner tonight, are looking for more guidance and more support from government to make sure they can take advantage. They want to be on the front foot in terms of renewable energy, not waiting for us to make some legislative change.

Even with the renewable energy target in place, without the CPRS it will be very difficult to give that certainty and to show the leadership that this country is quite capable of. Leadership for Copenhagen is particularly important. I can never believe it when I hear the opposition say we should be followers. We have never been followers. We have always punched above our weight. We have always led on the big issues that face this nation and the globe and that is what we intend to do. We are a government committed to positive forward thinking and we will provide the leadership that has been so sorely lacking for over 12 years. I support this bill and commend it to the House. I certainly know that the support of the public has been vocal and strong and I hope that the opposition will remember that when they face the CPRS.

Rowan Ramsey (Grey, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

It is inevitable if man is to survive on this planet that we will have to wean ourselves off fossil fuel not only because of the imperative of reducing carbon emissions but because fossil fuels are finite and the oil shortages of last year underline just how this has become of increasing importance. I make the point from the outset that this Renewable Energy (Electricity) Amendment Bill 2009 will receive my support, even though I believe there are a number of unintended consequences, and I fully support the amendments foreshadowed earlier today by the shadow minister. I will come to that later.

Investment in the renewable energy sector promises to pay dividends in the longer term. This bill is designed to support what otherwise would be unlikely investment in these industries. It is of great importance that the shifts in the emphasis of the economy like this are orderly and steady and not placing our industries at competitive disadvantage. It is of immediate concern that this legislation be passed, as the renewable energy industry has been making decisions based on the publicly stated intent of the major parties. That is why the moves of last week by the government to link the RET bill to the CPRS were reprehensible and just a shot of short-term political advantage and overturned after pressure from the opposition and the electorate at large.

South Australia—and my electorate of Grey—is almost uniquely placed to take advantage of a new low-carbon world. Vast spaces with cloud-free skies offer an abundance of opportunity for solar energy electricity generation, and I am aware of at least two companies considering projects as we speak, including the innovative solar storage project by Wizard Power at Whyalla. South Australia currently has nine wind farms operating and it is anticipated that by 2014 it will have 20 per cent of its electricity generated by wind energy. Many of these developments are in my electorate. I know the current government would like to claim credit for all these developments, but in fact all of the investment decisions of the plants currently operating were made under the Howard government and its policy framework, which included the MRET. MRET was the first step and the renewable energy target is the next. New developments are being based on current policy, which in this case are broadly endorsed by the coalition, and there is much on offer.

Some of the most exciting areas of interest involve new technologies such as wave generation, and currently Wave Rider Energy are assessing possibilities on the Western Eyre Peninsula where there is an almost unlimited resource. The Grey electorate encompasses 70 per cent of the South Australia coastline, and it should come as no surprise that I have great hopes for the establishment of this industry.

Perhaps some of the most exciting prospects are in geothermal electricity production. Last year I visited the Geodynamics site at Innaminka in the state’s far north where I was more than impressed by the prospects but, more importantly, by the vision of those who are driving the drilling and testing program and investing in this new industry, which is very close to bringing its first one-kilowatt generator on stream. Two weeks ago, I inspected Petratherm’s new drilling rig near Beverley in the northern Flinders where they are developing another hot rocks venture. It is a fascinating and exciting prospect: pumping water nearly five kilometres underground through fissures in hot granite and bringing it back to the surface at temperatures approaching 200 degrees Celsius is a technological marvel. This renewable energy represents the Holy Grail of clean energy as it is baseload. It is estimated that just one per cent of the thermal energy in Australia’s foundations could supply all of our energy needs for the next 300 years.

One of the great criticisms of renewable energy is its ability to supply baseload, that is, the wind does not blow all the time and the sun does not shine on one side of the earth all the time and even wave and tidal energy has lulls; thus, we need fallback power generation systems, which inevitably lead to higher total costs. There are a number of technologies being explored at this stage, including thermal carbon block and the ammonia battery process being developed by the Australian National University and Wizard Power at Whyalla, whom I mentioned earlier.

It is worth noting that, even though one may think from listening to the government’s rhetoric nothing had been done in Australia to stimulate investment in renewable energy before their election, in reality the previous government established the Australian Greenhouse Office and the mandatory renewable energy target, introduced solar rebates and supported numerous developments in the renewable industry. In my electorate alone, there was significant government support for both Geodynamics and Wizard Power in the development of their projects.

The legislation will help a number of these industries, but it also has some dangers in that the support may be soaked up fully by mature technologies which can quickly meet the targets when the aim should be to encourage new technologies to be able to come of age and compete in the marketplace. That is why the opposition will move an amendment stipulating that 25 per cent of the renewable energy target should be reserved for new and emerging industries, and I urge the government to support this amendment. The renewable energy credits or RECs will be most valuable at the start of the program and will deteriorate in value as 2020 and the 25 per cent target near. This 25 per cent will give protection to those industries through to that period and give the new industries the opportunity to start up and come on stream.

If we look at the possibilities of technologies such as solar or wave energy, there are likely to be quantum leaps in the efficiency or cost-competitiveness in these areas over the next 5, 10 and 20 years. It will be necessary to watch this space and make sure they do not miss out on the encouragement they need to advance their cause while the dollars run to industries which are fully mature but may be surpassed in efficiency in the longer term. It is all about balance. It is always dangerous for an economy to place all its eggs in one basket. This means we will almost certainly have to revisit the incentives to ensure we are developing balanced industries. It will be a threat to the competitive generation system, which must supply our industries and homes, if we have investment in too few of those industries.

This bill is about supporting and hastening that change. It should be remembered by all that this will come at a cost. After all, there would be no need for a renewable energy target if this were not the case. Certainly, the policy will make electricity more expensive in the short to medium term. However, the greater good should be served by providing a more favourable environment for new technologies to come on stream. Steady, predictable policy is good government. The recent move to, once again, make a sudden attack on the $8,000 solar rebate program, resulting in its premature termination despite its making a commitment to a seamless transition, was not good government by the government.

Its earlier attack, which introduced a means test, caused problems which took time to adjust to. Things had just settled down and business was brisk, only for the government to reintroduce chaos by cutting the program before the new renewable energy target could be introduced, despite its commitment. While it was true that there was a backlog in installation of panels, this unpredictable policy has created a complete stop in the sales system, leaving staff sitting around with very little to do.

In closing, I say renewable energies offer great opportunities for Australia and the world, and more will have to be done to support these fledgling industries. But the renewable energy target is a good piece of legislation, and I offer it my support.

Jodie Campbell (Bass, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise today to add my voice to those in this House who actually believe in climate change and who acknowledge that we must act and act now. The Renewable Energy (Electricity) Amendment Bill 2009 and cognate bill form part of a raft of measures to which the Rudd government is committed in order to respond to climate change. The Minister for Climate Change and Water, the Hon. Penny Wong, made the point as she addressed the National Press Club recently that as a government we are asking much of this generation. We are being asked to repair the damage of generations past, doing so largely for generations to come. This is not an easy task, and in some sectors it is not popular. With that said, it is necessary.

I made an election commitment to the people of Bass and to the communities of Northern Tasmania. That commitment was that, as a government, Labor was staunch in its approach to renewable energy and that it would set a renewable energy target of 20 per cent of our electricity supply to come from renewable sources by the year 2020. It is a key measure within the government’s comprehensive approach to tackling climate change. This legislation will amend the act to implement the government’s commitment to expand its mandatory renewable energy target scheme, which includes a statutory target of 9,500 gigawatt hours in 2010, to a national renewable energy target scheme, which includes a target of 45,000 gigawatt hours in 2020. The expanded scheme will deliver the government’s commitment that the equivalent of at least 20 per cent of Australia’s electricity will come from renewable sources by 2020.

This legislation and the intent underpinning it will have dramatic effects in my electorate of Bass and across Tasmania. Hydro Tasmania is the country’s largest generator of renewable energy. With almost 30 hydro power stations across the state, worth close to $5 billion, it is clearly a major player in the renewable energy sector. Indeed, Roaring 40s, a Hydro Tasmania joint company, is well advanced towards the Musselroe Wind Farm. This farm is located in the north-east of Tasmania, around 100 kilometres from Launceston. It is anticipated that the project will comprise around 60 wind turbines, with a potential to generate almost 140 megawatts. Roaring 40s also says that its project will include the construction of a transmission line to connect the wind farm site to the Tasmanian electricity grid at Derby. This project will have both long-term and short-term benefits to the community and also to the environment. The employment created through the construction phase will have significant and positive effects in Northern Tasmania. Once operational, there will be ongoing employment opportunities. That is to say nothing of the obvious environmental benefit. According to Roaring 40s’ own figures, the Musselroe Wind Farm will meet the electricity needs of up to 55,000 Australian homes and reduce greenhouse gas emissions by around 300,000 tonnes a year.

Australians understand that climate change is the biggest threat to our prosperity and our way of life. Australia is one of the nations most vulnerable to climate change. In my home state of Tasmania, the impact threatens to be profound. Tasmania is expected to become warmer, with more hot days and fewer cold nights. Growth in peak summer energy demand is anticipated due to air-conditioning use, which may increase the risk of blackouts. By 2030, the average annual number of days over 35 degrees in Hobart could almost double, while in Launceston the average annual number of cold days below zero degrees could fall from 35 to 16. Warmer temperatures and population growth are likely to cause a rise in heat-related illness and death for those over 65, increasing in the state’s capital from the current five annual deaths to eight by 2020 and to between 10 and 14 by 2050. Warmer conditions may also help spread vector-borne, waterborne and food-borne disease further south. These health issues could increase pressure on medical and hospital services. Urban water security may be threatened by increases in demand and climate-driven reductions in water supply. An increase in annual rainfall, combined with higher evaporation, may lead to uncertain effects on run-off into rivers by 2030. By 2020, a 10 to 40 per cent reduction in snow cover is likely, with potentially significant consequences for alpine tourism and ecosystems. By 2020, the average number of days with very high or extreme fire danger in Launceston could increase. Increases in extreme storm events are expected to cause more flash flooding, affecting industry and infrastructure—including water, sewerage and stormwater, transport and communications—and may challenge emergency services. In low-lying coastal areas, infrastructure is vulnerable to sea level rise and inundation.

The effects of doing nothing are frightening, yet there are some among those opposite who in their hearts continue to deny the existence of climate change and who argue against the reality of global warming. These are attitudes I find, frankly, quite alarming, and I will say it again: doing nothing is not an option. In fact, those opposite cannot even get their facts right as they attempt to attack the government over this necessary response to climate change. It was with some amusement that I read on the website of Nationals Senator Ron Boswell that both the member for Hunter and the member for Corio will be joining me, the member for Bass, in facing what Senator Boswell called a ‘day of reckoning’ over Bell Bay jobs. For Senator Boswell’s future reference, Bell Bay is indeed in Bass, and I have no qualms about supporting legislation which is preparing Australia for the low-pollution future by tackling the challenge of climate change. If only those opposite were prepared to do likewise! I commend these bills to the House, optimistic about a future where action is taken in response to climate change.

Nola Marino (Forrest, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise to speak on the Renewable Energy (Electricity) Amendment Bill 2009 and the Renewable Energy (Electricity) (Charge) Amendment Bill 2009. As we know, the coalition is committed to clean, renewable energies and strongly supports a 20 per cent renewable energy target. There is a raft of clean energy options, from the commercial-ready algal proposal through to emerging energy concepts and industry growth options in tidal, wave, solar, geothermal resources, bioenergy and others.

The coalition offers provisional support for the legislation, subject to key amendments. The coalition will seek four key amendments in the Senate. The first is the decoupling of the RET from the flawed CPRS, and I know the shadow minister has already been in discussion with the government today on this issue. Renewables and clean energy options are widely acknowledged as current and future commercial and employment opportunities.

My electorate of Forrest encompasses a number of dairy farms. The chairman of the Australian Dairy Industry Council, Allan Burgess, said as part of his inquiry submission:

The industry understands the need for increased development of renewable energy sources. However we have significant concerns that the double burden of both the Carbon Pollution Reduction Scheme (CPRS) and the Renewal Energy Target (RET) will place significant further cost increases on the dairy farming families with little environmental benefit.

              …              …              …

The cumulative increase has the potential to seriously impact the industry.

The coalition’s second amendment is the inclusion of renewable gas, or waste coalmine gas, as a recognised zero-emissions source of energy as in New South Wales, the US and Germany. This amendment is vital for sustaining hundreds of rural and regional jobs, such as those in my electorate of Forrest. These jobs potentially face the axe, and this is fundamental not only for rural economies but also because the process itself will save 90 million tonnes of CO2 between now and 2020. I note that the World Wildlife Fund anticipates that, if unamended, the loss of rural and regional jobs will b greater under the government’s CPRS than under the Frontier Energy proposal. The expanded RET requires approximately 10,000 megawatt hours of new power generation to fully satisfy the 20 per cent target by 2020. The coalition believes that this target will be very difficult to achieve without the inclusion of waste coalmine gases.

The third amendment is the 90 per cent coverage of the aluminium sector for both its existing mandatory RET and expanded RET liabilities. The Australian Aluminium Council has said:

If unamended, this Bill will have significant economic consequences for the aluminium industry, its employees and the communities in which they live—

such as in my electorate. The Australian Aluminium Council estimates that the bill in its current form will cost the industry an additional $700 million over the first decade of this scheme and will force most smelters to reduce their workforces and to wind back capital expenditure. The council has called for a true 90 per cent exemption from the RET for industries that are both electricity intensive and emissions intensive, not the current exemption figure for aluminium smelting, which is estimated to actually be 55 per cent.

The coalition’s fourth amendment is to ensure that food processing is categorised for assistance under the RET. Rural communities are seeking a 90 per cent coverage of the food-processing sector, particularly the dairy industry. On that note, an article in the Australian on 17 August stated:

It’s going to be a high cost to the consumer—the food manufacturer gets an ETS charge, then there’s delivery, and the retailers use refrigeration and lighting and the cost of that is all going to be handed on.

The article, like this government, actually made no mention of the increased cost to farmers and growers, who will bear this additional cost to produce Australia’s food from day 1. How will Australian farmers recover these additional costs when they are often absolute price takers? And how will they compete with imported products that do not have the additional costs of a CPRS?

I note the Australian Financial Review highlighted food processors’ issues on 17 August, saying:

Australia exports 65 per cent of farm produce. Our food producers are exposed to global competition, which has critical implications for jobs, export markets, food supplies and net global emissions.

The food processing sector, like the growers, will be forced to compete against cheaper imported food because agriculture is excluded from emission trading schemes around the world. David Crombie from the National Farmers Federation recently reinforced the fact that Australian farmers already contribute to reducing greenhouse emissions and that primary industries have slashed emissions by 40 per cent since 1990.

The final amendment the coalition is proposing is to help build the clean and renewable energy sector in Australia. In my electorate there is the Pinetec facility, situated next to the Muja power station in Collie, where sawmilling residue is converted to electricity. In the process, this displaces some 45,000 tonnes of coal each year, saving approximately 90,000 tonnes of greenhouse gas emissions each year.

Perdaman Industries is another company investing in innovative and clean coal gasification technology in my electorate. They are implementing a US$2.5 billion plant that will transform sub-bituminous coal via gasification into urea. The coal to urea plant will produce lower emissions than an equivalently sized coal-fired power plant. A further example is the Shire of Nannup and Verve Energy, who are currently investigating the potential for building a wind farm in the south-west of WA. The planned farm will entail 30 wind turbines, with a combined capacity of up to 55 megawatts. It is anticipated that the output of the wind farm would be enough to supply about 26,000 households and will reduce the amount of greenhouse gas emissions by about 160,000 tonnes per year.

The south-west of WA is considered a reasonable wind resource, meaning there is huge potential for further wind plants to be located in the Forrest electorate. A recent article in the Australian Financial Review summed up the common-sense approach that there should be public support for research and development of all promising technologies, and ultimately the renewable energy technologies will have to compete on their own merits.

The coalition strongly supports clean and renewable energies and the concept of a 20 per cent RET and wants this legislation to pass subject to the coalition amendments.

Belinda Neal (Robertson, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise in the House today to speak in support of the Renewable Energy (Electricity) Amendment Bill 2009. The bill will expand and enhance the current mandatory renewable energy target scheme. The Australian people have shown the government that they expect bold action on climate change, and this bill demonstrates that the government is delivering on this expectation.

The revised renewable energy target scheme will implement the government’s commitment to a renewable energy target of 20 per cent of our electricity supply to come from renewable sources by the year 2020. This represents a fourfold expansion of the nation’s renewable energy sector. The current target of 9,500 gigawatt hours of electricity to be provided from renewable sources will be expanded to require that 45,000 gigawatt hours—or some 20 per cent of Australia’s electricity—be produced from renewable sources by the year 2020.

Electricity generation currently accounts for more than one-third of Australia’s greenhouse gas emissions. That is why it is vital that Australia move towards higher targets for renewable electricity production. These expanded targets will accelerate the development and deployment of a range of renewable energy technologies, such as wind, solar, biomass and geothermal power. The new scheme will create a guaranteed market for additional renewable energy deployment through the use of tradeable renewable energy certificates. These measures will in turn attract additional investment and create additional jobs within the expanded renewable energy sector.

It is estimated through Treasury modelling that by 2050 the renewable electricity sector will be 30 times larger than it is today. The expanded RET scheme will accelerate green jobs and, together with the Carbon Pollution Reduction Scheme, will drive around $19 billion in investment in the renewable energy sector in the period to 2020. The RET scheme will assist Australian households with the up-front costs of installing small-scale renewable energy systems such as solar, wind, micro-hydro and solar photovoltaic systems. This ‘solar credits’ mechanism will allow owners of small-scale renewable energy systems to earn multiple renewable energy certificates for their microgeneration systems.

A new element of the renewable energy trading scheme is an increase in the penalties for those liable parties who do not meet their obligations to purchase renewable energy certificates. In a related bill, the Renewable Energy (Electricity) (Charge) Amendment Bill 2009, this shortfall charge will increase from $40 per megawatt hour to $65 per megawatt hour. The bill also provides for partial exemptions from liability under the expanded renewable energy target. These partial exemptions will apply to those activities that are classified as emissions-intensive trade-exposed activities under the Carbon Pollution Reduction Scheme.

These exemptions recognise that renewable energy obligations will have an impact on emissions-intensive trade-exposed industries. The exemptions take into account not only the impact of the current global financial crisis on Australian industries but the cumulative effect on industry of this legislation and the obligations required from industry under the Carbon Pollution Reduction Scheme. A comprehensive review of the renewable energy target scheme will be undertaken in 2014 to coincide with a planned strategic review of the Carbon Pollution Reduction Scheme. This government has made great efforts towards positioning Australia to meet the challenges of climate change.

The bill before us today represents a significant opportunity to reduce Australia’s energy sector emissions while driving $19 billion of investment and creating significant numbers of green jobs as part of an estimated 30-fold increase in the renewable electricity sector by 2050. In facing this future, Australia must employ a range of responses. Our nation must, however, always find cleaner and more efficient ways to produce energy. The Rudd Labor government has shown its credentials in moving towards a low pollution future for Australia. I commend the bill to the House.

Luke Simpkins (Cowan, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I welcome the chance to make a contribution to this debate regarding renewable energy and, in particular, these bills regarding mandatory renewable energy targets, the 20 per cent by 2020 target and the shortfall charge issue. Before I speak to the Renewable Energy (Electricity) Amendment Bill 2009 and the cognate bill, I would say that it is great news that the government have at last agreed to the decoupling of the ETS legislation from the renewables legislation. The government’s original plan showed that their interest was not in achieving what was best for Australia but rather in trying to force all the non-Labor Party representatives into an agreement with the original legislation. Now is the time for negotiation, but it is a pity that the government’s intransigence has caused these delays to date. Yet it is time to move on constructively, and I will now address the bill in this debate.

Prior to speaking on the detail, however, I say that the overall point of this bill is to ensure that by 2020 all electricity wholesalers have 20 per cent of their electricity attributed to renewable production. If they do not then they will be liable for a shortfall charge of $65 per megawatt hour. It is also worthwhile to note that, despite the Rudd Labor government’s strident statements that the former government did nothing for 12 years, the fact that this bill that we are discussing today is an amendment suggests that the government is once again wrong with its rhetoric. The facts are that there are two pieces of legislation and one set of regulations on this matter alone that prove this government wrong. Clearly, from the year 2000, legislation was raised, being the Renewable Energy (Electricity) Act 2000, the Renewable Energy (Electricity) Charge Act 2000 and the Renewable Energy (Electricity) Regulations 2001.

With specific regard to this bill, it is intended to increase annual targets for renewable energy from 2010 and includes a 45,000 gigawatt hour target in 2020; a solar credits mechanism based on energy certificates; multipliers for solar photovoltaic, wind and micro-hydro systems; a review of the operation of the legislation in 2014; and provision for partial exemptions from liability for electricity-intensive trade-exposed activities and the transition of state schemes into the federal framework. Specifically, the bills provide for a new solar rebate scheme based on RECs, or renewable energy certificates, generated, so to say, from the existence of the solar photovoltaic systems. With regard to those systems, the $8,000 rebate the coalition created is to be replaced with a solar credit scheme, where renewable energy credits are issued to the installers of solar photovoltaic systems of less than 1.5 kilowatts. Those credits, for a common one-kilowatt system, are expected to be tradeable for between $4,000 and $4,500.

The legislation maps out the progressive increase in the mandatory renewable energy target from 9,500 gigawatt hours to the 45,000 gigawatt hours I mentioned before. The bottom line is that electricity wholesalers will have to ensure they have 20 per cent of their energy produced by renewable sources. They can achieve that by obtaining electricity produced by solar, wind, geothermal or other options. If they cannot then they have to buy RECs. If they still cannot reach the target then they have to pay the shortfall charge of $65 per megawatt hour. That is what this legislation is meant to do and we offer our support for it, subject to some amendments that are being negotiated at this time.

It is certainly the coalition’s position to pursue a clean energy economy and with no equivocation we support the 20 per cent target. I will make the point again that the target set by the coalition of 9,500 gigawatt hours represents some 10 per cent of electricity production, and I am keen to see that figure advance to 20 per cent. I question, however, how the government have assisted the sector to achieve these targets when they have moved the goalposts so rapidly in the past. The great examples came from the solar industry: firstly, the surprise means-testing of our $8,000 rebate, and then the no notice close-down of the scheme 21 days early on 9 June this year. With such a track record, it is hard to have confidence in the government setting the rules and then not changing them—and you can add to that list the no notice abolition of the coalition’s Remote Renewable Power Generation Program on 22 June.

It is clear that the government have struggled to maintain any consistency on solar policy, and it should be noted that the renewables sector as a whole did not appreciate being bound up in the ETS legislation when they knew that there was significant bipartisan support for renewables legislation if it stood alone. The point is obvious that the Labor Party used solar for politicking before the election and used renewables for politicking regarding the ETS but, through the dual faults of political opportunism and ineptitude, they have not taken the opportunity to support and add certainty across the renewables sector.

Again, renewable energy was one of the issues that the Rudd Labor government highlighted as something we had supposedly not acted upon when we were in government. That was clearly false; however, it worked for them in the political environment. When faced with the opportunity to act, to achieve and to work on the high expectations they had created, there has been nothing but vacillation on existing measures we had created and delay until now, when something of substance has been introduced to the parliament. Sadly, the Rudd government have been about smoke and mirrors, and no more so than in using the renewable energy sector for political gain and abusing the sector for the last two years.

With regard to the amendments sought, first and foremost we have the expectation that renewable energy targets are a separate issue and divorced from the ETS. Beyond that, we have made our position clear with regard to zero emission sources of energy such as renewable gas and waste coalmine gas. I understand that they are recognised as zero emission in both the US and certain parts of Europe.

In speaking of recognition of emerging and alternative renewable energy production, it is important that we be careful regarding renewables that already exist. It is my view that renewables must be constant and not dependent on weather fluctuations. A point well made by an earlier speaker was that a renewable source of energy that requires a redundancy or a backup to be constantly running is not an effective energy source. The member for O’Connor also raised the point that the Premier of South Australia is looking for 30 per cent of his state’s electricity production to be generated by wind power. Yet coming with that goal is the inherent risk of having to shut down turbines in hot weather. The potential loss of 30 per cent of the state’s power in extremely hot conditions is a major problem and a risk that should not be readily accepted.

The point I am making is that all that glitters is not gold. While many people may feel better having wind power as a major element of renewable targets, the reality is that renewables must be virtually certain of 24 hour a day, 365 day a year production and supply of baseload power. It is therefore far better to pursue technology that has such capacities, and we should look to those options.

It is not my intention to speak very much longer, because there are still plenty of people waiting to speak on this legislation. Again, we should not limit ourselves to the pursuit of renewable options that are high profile but with limitations that are yet to be resolved. This is about real action and options that will see sustainable and viable renewable energies, not about ticking boxes and feeling good about having done something that is green. I look forward to these bills being amended for the better and passed quickly, allowing progress towards a 20 per cent target via viable and reliable energy production sources.

Janelle Saffin (Page, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I speak in support of the Renewable Energy (Electricity) Amendment Bill 2009 and the Renewable Energy (Electricity) (Charge) Amendment Bill 2009. Climate change is a fact, global warming is a fact and major catastrophic weather events are becoming more common and more intense. Floods and droughts are more frequent, more catastrophic and more intense. Over the last couple of years in the seat of Page, we have experienced the worst frost in 27 years and the worst hailstorm on record, which was followed by a flood that year’s end, then another flood and, a few months ago, major flooding. Farmers notice it. They know something is up. They know something is different. Farmers are pretty good watchers and knowers of the land, the seasons and how things work.

The community expects the government to take decisive but considered action. That is what the government is doing. We know we are moving to a carbon constrained world and we have to be prepared to meet the challenges. We know that we are moving to a lower greenhouse gas emission world and we have to be prepared to meet those challenges. The government’s Carbon Pollution Reduction Scheme, which is the whole policy framework and the legislative framework to deal with this, does just that. The CPRS legislation that was introduced in May was the first key plank. When that passes the Senate it will do a lot to move us to lower greenhouse gas emissions. But the amending bills that I speak to today are the second plank of the government’s salient institutional set of changes in environmental and economic policy, and the two have to go hand in hand as we move to combat climate change. The government’s commitment to a renewable energy target whereby 20 per cent of our electricity supply is drawn from renewable sources by the year 2020 is a major action of the government’s comprehensive 10-point plan to tackle climate change.

There are some people who want us to go to 100 per cent almost immediately. We know that we cannot do that, but this is a wonderful start. It means that by 2020 20 per cent of our energy supply will be renewable, particularly in the area of electricity. The government taking the lead by setting the legislative target of 20 per cent is the key measure that helps set us on the path to a lower pollution future. We live in the land of plenty when it comes to renewables, but not when it comes to the non-renewables, and we have used the non-renewables at an unsustainable rate.

The renewable energy target scheme does another key thing: it brings a mandatory renewable target and current proposed state and territory schemes into one scheme—a national scheme—and it will facilitate the Victorian scheme which is already established. We know that electricity generation makes up more than a third of Australia’s greenhouse gas emissions. This scheme means, then, that one-fifth of the biggest greenhouse gas emissions must be gone by 2020—indeed a good start. That has been one of the points about this whole debate. We have to get it started. We cannot wait any longer.

I want to say some general things about these amending bills within the framework of the Carbon Pollution Reduction Scheme in which they are located. Firstly, I want to say thank you to the minister in this place, the Minister Assisting the Minister for Climate Change and Water, for his excellent work in this area and the discussions that I have been able to have with him on issues arising in this area, such as on how to assist households and how to have household actions brought into the overall Carbon Pollution Reduction Scheme. We have discussed the science and the work of people like James Hansen and other scientists who are all part of this debate, the various books that we have read in the area—some of which have been given to me, such as Climate Code Red and Scorcherand a whole range of other things.

I get exposed, as we all do, to views that run right across the spectrum from deniers to sceptics to the almost fundamentalism at the other end that says that, if we do not do something tonight, things will drastically change forever. But it is really the incredible science—and the science that exists in Australia comes out of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change—that is driving this debate. That is the science that the government’s policy and plans are based on and that forms the basis of the legislative and policy approach that the government has taken. With those comments, I commend the bills to this House.

Luke Hartsuyker (Cowper, National Party, Deputy Manager of Opposition Business in the House) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I welcome the opportunity to talk on the very important issue of renewable energy. It is certainly a form of energy supply which should be encouraged. Increasing the amount of electricity that we generate from renewable sources is something that is going to benefit our nation in the long term and benefit the environment. The measures that are contained within the Renewable Energy (Electricity) Amendment Bill 2009 and the Renewable Energy (Electricity) (Charge) Amendment Bill 2009 build on the measures that were first implemented by the Howard government—a very visionary proposal to increase the amount of electricity sourced from renewable supplies.

I certainly commend the target that has been set of 20 per cent of Australia’s electricity supply being provided by renewable sources by the year 2020. The desirability of increasing the size of our renewable energy sector is often lost in the heat of the climate change debate, because there are many other reasons for maximising the output from this sector apart from the obvious climate change ramifications. That is why I deplore the government’s insistence on linking these measures to its flawed Carbon Pollution Reduction Scheme and welcome its apparent change of heart. Whatever the arguments over climate change, one of the very good ways of reducing our carbon emissions is through renewables and also through energy efficiency.

The vast majority of our current energy needs are met through the burning of fossil fuels, and the total production of energy from renewable sources in Australia is currently in the order of 8½ per cent, which leaves some 91½ per cent of our energy coming from those fossil fuels. Our way of life and our use of cars, computers and domestic appliances have built a great dependence in this country on the use of coal and on the burning of oil. One day those supplies will run out. As we approach that day, we will see prices for those fuels increase rapidly. We will see the need for increased international competition for the remaining reserves. We will see our way of life threatened to an extent that we have never seen before.

Consumers rightly complain about petrol prices. Certainly, the Rudd government made great promises to the electorate during the 2007 election campaign that they were going to put downward pressure on petrol prices. We have seen very little happening by way of concrete measures in that regard except for the failed Fuelwatch scheme. They rightly claim that, when pump prices fail to follow the falls in the price of crude oil, they expect someone in that supply chain is lining their pockets. However, what tends to be forgotten in the fuel debate is that oils and fossil fuels are a very finite resource. They are a resource we should be attempting to conserve, and the use of renewables in all their forms is a very good way of doing that. We can look at a range of measures in transport such as hybrid cars that allow us to conserve resources but, certainly, in the field of electricity generation there are many opportunities to use alternative types of generation of electricity, be it geothermal power, solar or wind.

The use of alternatives is certainly tailor-made to a stationary type of operation such as power generation. Electricity prices in Australia are among the cheapest in the world. One of the challenges we face as a nation where we derive our competitive advantage from relatively cheap energy as opposed to other competitive advantages, such as cheap labour in other countries around the world, is: how do we maintain that competitive advantage against a backdrop of increasing our use of renewable energy? In virtually every case renewable energy comes at a significant cost penalty as compared to coal-fired power stations, which can provide large amounts of baseload power at very reasonable prices. Look at electric cars, for instance. We see them as a solution to pollution and a way of reducing our dependence on fossil fuels. But where does the electricity come from? Electric cars are usually plugged into a socket, so once again we go back to dependence on fossil fuels and coal-generated baseload power.

For a society that is so heavily dependent on the finite resources of fossil fuels, it is only proper that we double our efforts to increase our use of renewable energy. In my electorate of Cowper, we have a range of businesses that use and specialise in renewable energy. But we certainly have a lot more work to do in that regard. China and India are often criticised for their carbon emissions. They produce 14.2 per cent and 30.1 per cent respectively of their total primary energy supply from renewable energy sources, as compared to a much lower level in Australia. We need a fundamental shift in our thinking as to how we source our energy needs, and this legislation goes a considerable way to moving down that path. I certainly commend the increased use of renewables in Australia. It is very important that we move down that path. We must reduce our dependence on fossil fuels and increase our use of renewable energy. I commend this legislation to the House.

James Bidgood (Dawson, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise to speak in strong support of the Renewable Energy (Electricity) Amendment Bill 2009 and the Renewable Energy (Electricity) (Charge) Amendment Bill 2009. This legislation implements the expanded national renewable energy target scheme to deliver on the government’s commitment to ensure that 20 per cent of Australia’s electricity is supplied from renewable sources by 2020. The RET legislation package implements a key climate change election commitment, and we in the Rudd Labor government are in the business of delivering on election commitments. The Rudd Labor government is delivering for Dawson, and RETs will deliver jobs and investment to the seat and allow the building of electricity-generating infrastructure that is good for the environment.

The passage of this legislation is essential to prosperity and jobs in my electorate of Dawson. The passage of this legislation is sought to provide renewable energy investors with legislative certainty—and we are delivering. One such investor is Mackay Sugar, who operate the Racecourse Sugar Mill in my electorate. Mackay Sugar have my full support for their proposed co-generation and ethanol plant. Mackay Sugar are ready, willing and able to commence construction of a 36 megawatt renewable biomass co-generation plant in Mackay. This cannot occur without certainty around the 20 per cent RET legislation. This is an innovative, clean energy project that will deliver important benefits for North Queensland, the entire sugar industry and the environment.

Mackay Sugar have indicated that, on the passage of this important piece of legislation, they will be ready to commence construction of their co-generation plant in Mackay. This represents real investment by business as a result of this legislation. Australia’s largest sugar refinery is at the Mackay Sugar Racecourse Mill site. Sugar cane has a significant energy value and is well placed as a renewable energy source, as electricity is produced from a by-product of the sugar production process. Mackay Sugar’s co-gen plant will only be the beginning for other co-generation plants in sugar mills throughout Queensland and New South Wales, if successful.

Mackay Sugar produce around two million tonnes of bagasse each year, a by-product of the sugar-milling process. This has an energy value equivalent to 700,000 tonnes of coal. The difference is that bagasse is 100 per cent renewable biomass fuel. The bagasse will also eventually generate steam and electricity for a 60-megalitre green ethanol plant at the Racecourse Mill. This is exciting and it is great news for the region. This $112 million project will directly generate 270 construction jobs and, importantly, it will diversify the sugar industry for the future—an industry which peaks and troughs through world sugar prices, fluctuating exchange rates and fierce international competition.

The Racecourse plant alone will power 33 per cent of Mackay’s power requirements. Environmentally, emissions will be reduced by 200,000 tonnes of carbon dioxide per year. Mackay Sugar have indicated to me that engineering, finance, relevant approvals and capital costs have all been basically finalised. This expansion will not only benefit Mackay Sugar’s 950 canegrower shareholders, 540 permanent employees and 340 seasonal employees; it will also mean jobs, jobs, jobs and growth, growth, growth for the entire community.

The industry has projected that co-generation will supply up to 70 per cent of Far North Queensland households by 2016. In the north, around the Burdekin, Herbert and Townsville, they are talking about supplying greater capacity than is required for household consumption by 2016. The industry is even looking at supplying about 80 per cent of the estimated number of households around the Whitsunday and hinterland area and Mackay. This long-term projection can only be possible with the investment certainty this legislation provides. This large co-generation plant is ready for construction, ready to go. The Labor government is ready to go too. While the Leader of the Opposition and the Liberal and National parties are divided and still debating whether climate change even exists, the government stands ready to act for the economy, for the environment and for jobs.

In conclusion, we are talking about real employment security for North Queensland. This legislation is about supporting the existing jobs in the sugar industry and generating new employment during project construction. More money in the sugar industry will have a flow-on effect for regional communities which are dependent on their local sugar industry. Millers, growers, harvesters, suppliers and contractors will all put money back into regional economies as a result of this. On behalf of people of Dawson, I wholeheartedly commend this legislation to the House.

Mark Coulton (Parkes, National Party, Shadow Parliamentary Secretary for Water Resources and Conservation) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

In reference to the previous speaker, I suspect that the people of Dawson are also waiting with bated breath to see how the emissions trading scheme legislation goes in a couple of months time and where their representatives are going to vote on that and the negative impact that it is going to have on regional Australia. I feel a little uncomfortable in here debating the Renewable Energy (Electricity) Amendment Bill 2009 and the Renewable Energy (Electricity) (Charge) Amendment Bill 2009 while at the same time negotiations on amendments are taking place outside this room, so I will keep my comments to general terms because as of yet we have not seen the final shape of what agreement or otherwise may be made before we vote on the legislation.

Under this scheme high energy users will be disadvantaged and energy will become very expensive, and I am hoping that, in discussions that are taking place on this legislation, they are looking at the effect on high electricity and high energy users. Aluminium is the standout industry that will be severely disadvantaged. In my electorate I have a town called Kandos and it is well known for cement. The people of Kandos will proudly tell you that the pylons of the Sydney Harbour Bridge are made of cement from Kandos. Cement is a high energy use and a high emitting industry, and one of the concerns I have if cement is not adequately taken into account is that that plant will close. In this place we speak about adjustments to employment and slight negative downturns or to things in quite clinical terms, but for the people of Kandos, if that plant closes, it is the major employer in town. It is not like Australia is going to be using any less cement; it is not like we are not going to be building roads, buildings or anything else that we use cement for. It just means that we have exported the jobs from Kandos to a country somewhere else that does not have restrictive legislation and higher charges. Just out of interest, Madam Deputy Speaker, in the proposed redistribution of electoral boundaries in New South Wales the Electoral Commission is putting the town of Kandos into the seat of Hunter. I think it would be very important for the member for Hunter, if he is intending to represent that area, to indicate to the people of Kandos whether he supports legislation that could lead to the closure of their plant.

I do not want to be entirely negative in this. My electorate has great potential for alternative energy. Indeed, the western part of my electorate has been identified as being as good as anywhere in Australia for solar energy production. I know there are a couple of proposals in their early stages where communities are looking at putting a solar power station adjacent to the town, hopefully to become self-sufficient in electricity generation and even have a little surplus to put back into the grid. The town of Moree is even looking at solar powered desalination to clean up the water that goes through the mineral baths. They would use a combination of solar powered desalination and algae to clean up the water to enable it to be reused and not go into the Mehi River in its current form.

As we are rushing headlong into a lot of this legislation, I believe there is great potential in something we have barely scratched the surface of. One of the things that I think is extremely exciting is algae. As I speak, there are three prototype plants going into the three largest power stations in Queensland, New South Wales and Victoria. The beauty of algae is that they are great sequesters of carbon. If you feed the emissions from a power station through algae and water, the algae thrive on the carbon dioxide, which despite being described in this place as a pollutant is actually the major building block of life. Algae grow at a rate of 20 per cent a day, doubling their mass every five days, so 20 per cent can be harvested every day and put through a centrifuge to get algae oil, which is essentially fish oil—that is what fish live on—which can then be further processed into biodiesel and can go into all sorts of power generation or motor vehicle fuel. What is left, the biomass, is a very high protein stockfeed. It could be used in human food consumption or even, if it is co-located with a power station, put back into the power station to provide fuel.

We should be careful that we do not tax our industries to such an extent that they do not have the ability to invest in and look at a lot of these alternatives. Some months ago I travelled to Townsville and went to James Cook University and met with Professor Rocky de Nys, who started working with algae and looking at algae as a fish food. The more algae is studied, the more the potential it has for biofuel production has been realised. As a country, as we look at our responsibility to feed the world—we feed not only the 20 million people who live in Australia but also 70 million people around the world—and as we have to balance up agricultural production, biofuel production and renewable energy, algae is going to have a major part to play in our future.

Although I think we need to be encouraging renewable energy, we need to recognise that we have only taken baby steps so far. The potential in a range of things is enormous, but we are only just at the beginning of this journey. I will support this bill, for what we know about it. I think this is highly irregular and I would like to place on record that I believe—and I know that these decisions are made by people who have been here longer than I—it is highly irregular to be debating a bill when the amendments and agreements between the two major sides of the House are still under negotiation. With that caveat I support this bill.

Darren Cheeseman (Corangamite, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise today to speak primarily on the Renewable Energy (Electricity) Amendment Bill 2009 and cognate bill. I believe this is a historic moment and a great opportunity for my region and for south-west Victoria. My electorate of Corangamite and south-west Victoria are uniquely placed. Running right through the middle of my electorate and south-west Victoria is an extremely well understood wind corridor. Flanked by the Otway Ranges to the south and by the northern plains to the north-west, this unique geography creates a substantial wind corridor which has been measured by numerous scientists. This wind corridor also overlays a major arm of Victoria’s power grid. Because of this situation, there is around $7 billion worth of investment in wind projects right across south-west Victoria that either have received approval or are awaiting approval. Once this legislation has been passed, as I suspect it will, I believe this level of investment will grow further because of the geographic circumstances that exist and also, importantly, because of the power grid.

I will be convening a meeting of the wind sector within my electorate in the not-too-distant future to talk about the opportunities that do exist and to point out the opportunities that will exist if this legislation is passed. Right now, there is the potential for the creation of about 2,000 construction jobs and many hundreds of ongoing jobs once this legislation is passed. But, importantly, this legislation also plays a significant role in addressing the great moral challenge of our generation—that is, climate change.

I believe that the broader Geelong region and south-west Victoria can play a leading role in capturing green jobs because of our unique set of circumstances. Not only do we have a greater opportunity to play a substantial role in the generation of wind energy but also, because of our geographic setting, we have a massive opportunity to capture geothermal energy, ocean energy and a number of other renewable energy opportunities throughout the south-west of Victoria. I note that when Germany reinforced its renewable energy laws between 2004 and 2006 it was able to increase its renewable energy workforce from 160,000 to over 236,000 people.

This legislation is not just about creating jobs but also about addressing the great risk of climate change. As I have said in the past, Victoria has very high carbon emissions proportionally and this legislation will go some way to addressing those circumstances. I believe we have a very clear moral obligation to pass this legislation—to start our contribution not only to tackling climate change but also to creating an investment opportunity within our region that can create thousands of construction jobs and hundreds of ongoing jobs.

There are many places across south-west Victoria where it would be inappropriate to put wind turbines, but there are many places where there are very strong opportunities to invest in a way that will not only create jobs and reduce our carbon foot print but also provide an alternative income source to the landholders within my region. As I mentioned earlier, I will be holding a high-level forum in the not-too-distant future at which industry stakeholders, state government representatives and I will continue to explore opportunities for wind energy within my region to ensure that we are working closely to enable us to be able to deliver this investment to my region. I believe we have a moral obligation to lead. I believe this parliament will do that by passing this legislation, and I commend the bill to the House.

Patrick Secker (Barker, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I want to first back up the thoughts of the member for Parkes, who talked about algae as one of the future possibilities. In fact, I can relate a story. In my electorate there is a small village—although you could hardly call it that—called Salt Creek, and it is along the Coorong. I think that many people in this chamber would know a fair bit about the Coorong. The fact is that there was a black oily substance that they thought was oil. They put down a drill to find more of this oil and found that in fact it was algae. There is huge potential to use that resource. It has been around for a long time and I think we need to do a lot more research into it and make it a commercial possibility.

It may interest members of this chamber to know that I have been using renewable energy basically all my life. I live on a farm and we have heaps of windmills. It is just a normal part of our life. It is virtually impossible to get power out to many remote parts of the farm, so we use windmills. I may not have been fixing up windmills at three or four years of age, but I think I was climbing them—which you did as a young person on a farm. Of course, they have been supplying energy for probably centuries and they are quite a good form of power.

The coalition’s vision for a clean energy economy supports the potential of emerging technologies such as tidal, hydrogen cell, geothermal and wave, and it is a vision that I share. These technologies should have and deserve a portion of the renewable energy target reserved towards a clean energy future for Australia. It would be of concern if this legislation were to mean just more windmills or more turbines and did not include these other technologies that can produce reasonably efficient baseload power. It would be of great concern if this legislation, the Renewable Energy (Electricity) Amendment Bill 2009 and the Renewable Energy (Electricity) (Charge) Amendment Bill 2009, were to lead to increased demand for coal and wind power at the expense of gas generation, for example, which is much cleaner than coal. It seems to me that this legislation does nothing to stop that happening. In fact, it is quite unusual to be debating a bill in parliament when we actually do not know what the end results are going to be. This is the first time, apart from when we had the CPRS legislation last week, that I have been in a situation where I do not know the final outcome or the regulations, and we have just got to trust that it is all going to happen.

I know from our experience with MRET that it seemed to produce only wind power generation, which unfortunately produces only intermittent, expensive energy—albeit at some benefit to parts of my electorate. Clean energy is fundamental in reducing Australia’s net emissions and providing jobs in rural Australia, including in my electorate of Barker. Renewable clean energy is a positive step towards our goal of reducing net emissions. Renewable energy is energy generated from natural resources—such as sunlight, wind, rain, tides, wave and geothermal heat—which are renewable, meaning that they are naturally replenished.

In my electorate of Barker we have three promising projects which are working towards our vision for a clean energy economy. Of course, unlike the previous speaker, I do not claim to be having a ‘high level forum’ on the idea. These sorts of things are happening without politicians actually saying that they should happen. The projects are: an established wind farm in Millicent; a proposed site for wave power around Port MacDonnell, which is just below Mount Gambier; and a site in Penola, and also around Millicent, where drilling has commenced for geothermal energy.

Wind power is the conversion of wind energy into a useful form of energy, such as electricity, using wind turbines. Millicent, situated in the south-east of my electorate, is home to the largest wind farm development in the southern hemisphere. The site cost $92.5 million and it hosts 23 turbines capable of generating approximately 46 megawatts of electricity. This is enough electricity to provide the power needs of around 30,000 homes. Each turbine blade spans 39 metres, making them some of the largest installed in Australia. Electricity from this wind farm is produced up to 34 per cent of the time. That is the weakness of wind energy: for two-thirds of the time it will not produce energy. Thirty-four per cent is actually a high yield by global standards, but it is still not a baseload that can be relied upon for all of our needs. The wind farm created hundreds of jobs during its installation period, and it continues to provide some jobs into the future.

Geothermal technology is an emerging renewable energy technology that uses heat from the earth’s crust. This is a far more exciting area of renewable energy because it can provide a baseload that will be there for some time to come. It is designed to run continuously, which makes it a reliable source of clean energy. Geothermal is an important renewable energy resource and should be reserved as an emerging renewable energy technology by the government. Drilling has commenced for geothermal purposes 40 kilometres north of Mount Gambier in my electorate, in the Penola Trough. The Penola Trough forms part of the Otway Basin, a rift basin which was initiated during the Cretaceous period on the now southern margin of the Australian mainland. It is an exciting project that is helping our country move towards a clean energy future.

Wave energy is a renewable energy resource created by large storms hundreds of kilometres offshore. These storms generate and transmit huge amounts of energy, which travels great distances via swell and mixes with local influences in the seas to arrive at our shores. It is a genuinely renewable energy source, distinct from tidal energy—although I do support tidal energy.

The World Energy Council has estimated that approximately two terawatts—that is, two million megawatts, about double the current world electricity production—could be produced from the oceans via wave power. It is estimated that one million gigawatt hours of wave energy hits Australian shores annually. Wave technology can operate efficiently in swell in the one- to two-metre wave height range, greatly increasing the number of potential baseload sites globally. For example, much of southern Australia receives significant wave heights, in excess of one metre, 100 per cent of the time. Port MacDonnell, situated in my electorate, has been earmarked for a wave power site with a 99 per cent available wave resource at the site, the second highest percentile wave resource site in Australia. The other beauty of wave energy is that, being based in sea water, it can provide clean energy to desalinated sea water—instead of using the high powered consumption models which are now in use in Australia and planned for the future and which use power that is generated mostly by coal or gas. All three projects boost our clean energy future, and I fully support them and am proud to have them occurring in my electorate of Barker.

Hydrogen cell generation does not seem to be part of this government’s priorities but it is a useful addition to alternative fuel and its emissions are basically steam. And, of course, the government continues to keep its head in the sand on nuclear power. It is quite happy to export uranium to other countries, where they can reduce emissions; but it is not prepared to have the vision or the strength to even contemplate nuclear power in Australia, even though it has been proven to be a safe and reliable baseload power. I support our vision of a clean energy economy and encourage the inclusion of these renewable energy technologies in the Renewable Energy (Electricity) Amendment Bill 2009. And it would be nice to actually find out what is going to be there.

Steve Irons (Swan, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

It was interesting to hear the member for Barker give his contribution. I just had to check my speech, because there were a few similarities there—he and I are on the same wavelength. Today I was reading through a submission made by Ross Macmillan to the WA Greenhouse Task Force back in 2003. In that submission was the statement:

As long as our primary energy sources are fossil fuel based, all our best efforts to reduce consumption will not deliver a net reduction in greenhouse gas emissions and will have a negative economic impact.

I could not agree more with this statement. The only way we are going to seriously reduce carbon emissions is by finding alternative energy sources to coal and oil. Looking for efficiencies will only get us so far. It is in this spirit that I rise this evening to speak on the Renewable Energy (Electricity) Amendment Bill 2009 and the Renewable Energy (Electricity) (Charge) Amendment Bill 2009. I am a keen supporter of renewable energy. I believe in a clean energy economy and I want to see Western Australia as an Australian and a world renewable energy hub. I will declare from the outset that I am a shareholder in the renewable energy industry—because I believe it is the future.

The renewable energy target we are debating today comes from an excellent piece of legislation that has its origins in a speech by John Howard in 1997. It carries the support of just about every member of the House, and I look forward to it being implemented. As environmental legislation usually involves long-term targets, it is imperative that there is broad support from all sides of the chamber. I am of course pleased to see that the government is likely to decouple the bills in the Senate, after calls from every other non-Labor party and most newspapers to do so.

However, let us not look back but forward. The government is likely to decouple the legislation, and the bills are, subject to some amendments articulated by the environment minister, good bills. The legislation is, of course, designed to ensure that electricity retailers and other large electricity buyers are legally required to source a certain percentage of their electricity from renewable sources. The bills set a new renewable energy target of 20 per cent by 2020. The initial Renewable Energy (Electricity) Act 2000 legislated for 10 per cent by 2010. In other words, this legislation progressively increases the 9,500 gigawatt hour annual mandatory renewable energy target to 45,000 gigawatt hours by 2020. The scheme works through the generation of renewable energy certificates, or RECs, from renewable energy sources in excess of a 1997 baseline level. One REC equals one megawatt hour of renewable energy power.

At the excellent renewable energy forum held by the coalition environment and water committee last week, Mr Dave Holland of Solar Systems Pty Ltd spoke about how difficult it is for solar companies to get one of only a few government funding contracts. Some companies have given up because of the time and effort required with little chance of success. The solar industry does not need complicated government red tape; it simply needs a little nudge here and a nudge there to become competitive. It is disappointing that there are very few or no solar projects starting up in Australia currently yet hundreds are scheduled for the US, where there is much less red tape.

I support the amendments that the coalition is putting forward on this bill, in particular the amendment to move that a portion of the RET be banded and reserved for emerging renewable technologies such as industrial-scale solar, geothermal, wave, tidal and biomass. Western Australia is full of geothermal potential and—with respect to the member for O’Connor—I can say that I am a strong supporter of geothermal energy as the renewable source of our future power needs. Geothermal energy is the only natural renewable energy source that does not originate in the sun.

I have personally had involvement with geothermal technology since the late eighties or early nineties in my industry, which was the air-conditioning industry. The company I worked for actually tried to introduce geothermal air-conditioning in Australia back in the early nineties. But it was not seen as a competitive alternative. It was very expensive to install, the capital equipment was quite expensive and, at that stage, the costs of energy in Australia were quite low, so it was easier for companies or building owners to find ways other than looking at geothermal technology. So it is great to see that it is coming back into vogue. All we need to do is develop extraction methods that are globally applicable and we will have a virtually unlimited, continuous, reliable, emissions-free energy source available to any nation on earth.

Hot-rock energy is of particular interest to Perth, with the Perth Basin providing a significant resource. The technology works by pumping water deep into the rock for heat transfer. According to the Australian Geothermal Energy Association, approximately five to 15 per cent of the total energy achieved is used to pump this water into the rock. The submission I have been reading estimates that the energy content in one lease is equivalent to 50 billion barrels of oil, about 20 times Australia’s known oil reserves. It also estimates that there is enough thermal energy contained in hot rock at depths of less than five kilometres below the surface in Australia to meet our present energy needs for 7,000 years.

Hopefully, this bill will encourage energy generators to look into this technology in more detail. With the right government investment, Australia could quickly become a world leader in this technology. At the recent coalition renewable energy forum, we heard from the Australian Geothermal Energy Association of the great possibilities of this technology but also of the great capital expense involved in establishing it. Often a proof of concept will cost up to $30 million, yet the government only has $7 million on offer, which again is difficult to get hold of. We can do better than this. In the absence of finance, the geothermal industry in Australia is working with universities. UWA have just been given the rights to start WA’s first geothermal project, which will attempt to harness the geothermal energy below Perth for modern-day energy needs. A geothermal Perth could form the cornerstone of WA’s renewable energy hub.

Geothermal is not Western Australia’s only renewable option. WA is the sunshine capital of Australia. Wind patterns are almost perfect south of Jurien Bay, and the member for O’Connor has spoken at length about the potential of the second most tidal region in the world up in Derby. There are certainly some exciting wave power developments as well, with one company in Western Australia proposing to set up the world’s first baseload wave power electricity generation and desalination plant. It is currently running a pilot program in Fremantle called CETO. Wave energy is a renewable energy resource created by large storms hundreds of kilometres offshore, which generate and transmit huge amounts of energy that travels great distances via swell and mixes with local influences, seas, to arrive at our shores. It is a genuine renewable energy source and distinct from tidal energy. Wave energy is generally considered to be the most concentrated and least variable form of renewable energy. The high power density of wave energy suggests that it has the capacity to become the lowest cost renewable energy source. The World Energy Council has estimated that approximately two terawatts, two million megawatts, which is about double the current world electricity production, could be produced from the oceans via wave power. It is estimated that one million gigawatt hours of wave energy hit Australian shores annually and that 25 per cent of the UK’s current power usage could be supplied by harvesting its wave resource.

In conclusion, I support a 20 per cent renewable energy target by 2020. This is a positive statement by the whole parliament of a commitment to renewable energy, which would be our focus, and it is certainly mine. I support Western Australia as an Australian and a world renewable energy hub. If our focus as a nation were more towards renewable energy, maybe we would not have to worry about an ETS.

Dennis Jensen (Tangney, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise to support the Renewable Energy (Electricity) Amendment Bill 2009 and related bill, albeit with some small misgivings, which I will get on to a little bit later. Clearly, it is advisable to reduce our dependence on fossil fuels, not only due to the fact that they are non-renewable but also due to emissions of all sorts. This House will know that I am not particularly concerned about the carbon dioxide aspect; however, I am very concerned about sulphur dioxide, nitrous oxide and particulates, which are significant emissions from fossil fuel power stations and fossil fuels more generally. They clearly have significant adverse health effects.

My concern with this bill is that the way that renewables are viewed is fairly prescriptive and tight and that, in particular, issues such as substitution are inadequately addressed. For example, the member for Barker was talking about the potential for using wave power to directly desalinate water. This is a substitution for electricity but it is actually not included in the ‘20 per cent renewable’ which is put forward in this bill. Additionally, we need to realise that there are problems associated with many, if not most, forms of renewable energy at present. For example, if significant portions of the electricity grid have wind generated power then you have grid instability. In fact, in 2006 all of Europe went down for half an hour. The half-hour blackout was the result of problems with a wind farm in Germany which, due to the total instability in the system, propagated through the system. Additionally, you cannot generate solar power when the sun does not shine. Proponents of these forms of electricity generation will argue that not only are these forms of generation capable of providing baseload power but they are capable of providing it economically, yet when you speak to many of these proponents privately they will acknowledge that they are not capable at present of providing baseload power and, in terms of the power supply more generally, in order to be economically viable they are reliant on government legislation which benefits their industry.

As well, one of my concerns is the issue of increased costs associated with the proportion of 20 per cent renewable for our electricity. It would be a very good idea to put an increased amount of research and development money into renewable energy. We need to be very careful about betting on winners, however. Historically, we have seen so many times with scientific advances that the winners are not where we perceive them to be. Indeed, in the 1950s there was a chance for Australia to get to the forefront of the solid-state electronics industry; however, the assessment in Australia at the time was that newfangled transistors and so on did not have a future and the world was going to be reliant on valves. You do not see too many valves made these days.

What about other generation methods? The current reality in the Australian context—and here I will ignore hydro because for both environmental and resource reasons more hydro in Australia is highly unlikely—is that the only methods at present that can generate baseload power are coal and gas. My question to members opposite is: an awful lot is being bet on geosequestration; what if geosequestration does not work as advertised? It has not been completely proved in terms of the entire system anywhere in the world, and all we need is something like a Lake Nyos situation with a burp of carbon dioxide killing multiple people. That sort of situation would very quickly put the geosequestration argument to bed. Can we be sure how stable that resource would be, given that we have drilled in there and formed a plug, if, for instance, you had an earthquake?

Given that, the only other low-carbon or no-carbon technology you have that is capable of generating baseload power is nuclear power. It is rather interesting that one of the methods of generating renewable power that is being considered and potentially could generate baseload power is hot-rock technology. The interesting point is that hot-rock technology is, in fact, nuclear technology; the reason those rocks are hot is the radioactive decay of uranium in those ores. It is interesting that the government will not consider nuclear power at all, particularly given their statement that this is the great moral and ethical imperative of our age. If it is such a great imperative, you would think that everything would be considered to reduce carbon dioxide emissions. But nuclear is not to be considered. If nuclear is so terrible and so dangerous, why are we exporting uranium? Isn’t that gravely irresponsible?

Another thing we should be talking about is putting money into research and development. We need to look at putting money into generation IV reactors, which have significant advantages over conventional reactors because not only, in many cases, can those reactors use the uranium resource for 50 to 60 times longer than conventional reactors but they can also use depleted fuel from conventional reactors as the fuel for these reactors, and the waste form that you are left with is literally safe to handle with your hands in a period of 300 years.

Another technology that we should invest in—and this would even be for people who are somewhat paranoid about fission power—is nuclear fusion. At present there is a great international program called ITER—it stands for International Thermonuclear Experimental Reactor—in France. It is one of the largest scientific projects in the world. In effect, it is a preproduction fusion prototype. This is a very clean energy resource, and I think it is foolhardy for Australia not to be involved at the ground level. If we are not one of the major program partners we should certainly be one of the subpartners in the project, because Australia is one of the world’s energy superpowers in terms of nuclear energy, be it fission or fusion. You talk about uranium; you can talk about thorium and, indeed, about lithium. Western Australia has one of the largest resources of lithium in the world. We should be looking at becoming more energy independent, and getting involved in these sorts of areas would certainly make us more energy independent.

I will leave this debate by saying that if the government believes in the moral and ethical imperative that is reducing carbon emissions, they really should be considering nuclear energy. Certainly they should be investing in fusion energy even if they do not believe in fission energy. Having said that, I support this bill, albeit with the reservations that I have mentioned.

Bruce Scott (Maranoa, National Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise this evening to speak on the Renewable Energy (Electricity) Amendment Bill 2009 and the Renewable Energy (Electricity) (Charge) Amendment Bill 2009. I welcome the government’s commitment, firstly to decouple this bill from the flawed emissions trading scheme legislation and, secondly, to a renewable energy target of 20 per cent of electricity supply by 2020. Of course, it is a long time coming. The Rudd government promised this legislation back in 2007 and now, more than 18 months later, we are finally debating it in this House.

Clean energy can create jobs in rural Australia, and this is no more obvious than in my own electorate of Maranoa. Maranoa has the potential to become one of the nation’s powerhouses for renewable energy. My vast electorate spans an area from Poeppel Corner in the west to about an hour and a half’s drive from Noosa on the Sunshine Coast of Queensland in the east. We are witnessing exciting developments in solar, wind and algal technology in the electorate, and the fledgling but fast and furious development of the Surat coal basin has provided many opportunities for resource companies to implement planet-friendly measures to decrease their carbon footprint. One such exciting opportunity for the resource companies based in Maranoa is the utilisation of algal energy. On the eastern edge of my electorate, at a major coal-fired power station, a leading energy company will be establishing a test plant to convert carbon to energy by using algae. This incredible process involves the capturing of carbon emissions at the base of the emissions chimney before they can be sent out into the atmosphere. The CO2 gases are then transferred to an algal farm, and through the process of photosynthesis the algae will consume the carbon. Amazingly, the algae have the capacity to consume twice their weight in carbon in just 24 hours. At the end of this process, two products are created. One is algal oil, which can be used for plastics, biodiesel or fuel such as jet fuel. The other product is an edible algal product or meal, which can be used as feedstock, fertiliser or biomass for electricity production and bioplastics. I support the money that has gone into research, particularly at James Cook University, into the further development of this technology.

Nearby that soon-to-be-built test plant in my electorate there are plans by another company to build a wind farm—the Coopers Gap wind farm. This wind farm will see 252 turbines built and have the capacity to power approximately 320,000 homes. At the other end of my electorate in Windorah, which has a population of just 150, that community in the Barcoo Shire can boast its very own solar farm. In fact, it is the solar farm that the Prime Minister visited with the Premier of Queensland a few months ago to talk about the renewable energy target. The five solar dishes there are expected to save 300 tonnes of greenhouse gas emissions by reducing the town’s reliance on diesel power. The project, which is funded and driven by Ergon Energy, has been wholeheartedly welcomed by the town. In the outback of my electorate and in many parts of outback Australia there is an abundance of sunshine and there is no concern about the sun not shining most days. In fact, there is not enough rain. The challenge of course of putting solar farms in the outback is the transmission of that power to the market. I will talk a little more about that later.

Just outside my electorate of Maranoa off the Birdsville Track is Innamincka, in South Australia’s north. It is home to a hot rocks energy project, established by the company Geodynamics, which had support from the Howard government for their research and development of hot rocks power generation. Aside from the world’s volcanic region, the Cooper Basin, which stretches from South Australia and back into my electorate of Maranoa, has the hottest rocks in the world. But the potential for hot rocks energy is not exclusive to the Cooper Basin. There are other areas across rural Australia, in South Australia and the Flinders Ranges, and near my own hometown of Roma, which offer the same potential and favourable conditions for the generation of power from hot rocks.

The harvesting of energy from these hot rocks, which lie about three kilometres below the surface, is quite simple. The heat is trapped between the age-old rocks and by circulating water through them the heat can be extracted which can then be converted into electricity. Hot rocks are a truly renewable, zero emission, baseload energy source. They do not rely on the sun, the wind or the tides. They are a renewable, baseload energy source that is able to provide huge amounts of power. Hot rocks technology has the capacity to fully replace fossil fuels and the potential to meet all of Australia’s electricity requirements for centuries to come. According to Geodynamics, one cubic kilometre of hot granite at 250 degrees centigrade has the stored energy equivalent of 40 million barrels of oil. The potential for geothermal energy is vast and, according to Geodynamics, could be used for concrete curing, milk pasteurisation, wool processing and the preheating of water for coal-fired power stations.

The challenge, of course, is that these energy sources are located a long way from the large consumer markets in our capital cities. I think one of the technologies that we will see more of in the near future is high-voltage, direct current, HVDC powerlines, both underground and above ground. They have the capacity to bring this power from the remote parts of Australia to the larger consumer markets with a limited loss of energy. That is another thing that we must talk about in the future if we are to truly realise the potential of solar and, in particular, in this case, hot rocks producing electricity for the clean, green energy market across Australia.

For those living in rural Australia, there is nothing new about harnessing the energy from the earth’s natural heat. Geothermal energy is the same resource responsible for warm artesian baths and warm artesian bore water. Birdsville, in my electorate, is home to a geothermal power station that harnesses the energy from the hot water taken from the Great Artesian Basin. It is doing it tonight as we speak in this House. The power station provides approximately 30 per cent of the town’s electricity needs, reduces diesel consumption by about 130,000 litres per year and abates 390 tonnes of greenhouse gas emissions per year. This is just another example of the role rural and remote Australia is cast to play in Australia’s renewable energy future. Madam Deputy Speaker Saffin, I am sure you will appreciate that the only thing Maranoa will not be able to offer is tidal energy—perhaps in your electorate that will be possible. Maranoa is landlocked, so it will not happen there. I know the member for Bowman, who is in the chamber, would understand that.

While this bill is about renewable energy, I just want to put on the record some exciting developments in clean coal technology in my electorate of Maranoa. Whilst coal is of course not renewable, this technology provides enormous potential to reduce our carbon footprint and implement various new technologies. That is why I particularly support the opposition’s amendments, and the one in particular which calls for the inclusion of renewable gas or waste coalmine gas as a recognised zero emissions source of energy. The Liberal-National coalition introduced the nation’s first mandatory renewable energy target. When in government, we also committed to a 15 per cent clean energy target and former Prime Minister John Howard indicated support for a 20 per cent target.

We must continue to hold some healthy scepticism about the Labor government’s alleged green credentials. This Labor government promised that they would not means-test the $8,000 solar rebate, which the coalition introduced. But on budget day last year, what did they do? They introduced a means test. Then this year in June, without any warning, they prematurely abolished it, leaving many people in my electorate furious at the Rudd government. When they were still getting their paperwork done and getting contractors together, they were told they had just eight hours to lodge their application.

The Rudd government also abolished without warning the Renewable Remote Power Generation Program. This program allowed families, businesses and not-for-profit organisations that relied on diesel electricity to install solar or wind units. In June this year, just weeks after scrapping the $8,000 solar rebate without notice, they abolished this program, leaving many rural families and solar businesses in the lurch. Of course, we cannot be surprised about the actions of the Rudd Labor government—all spin and no substance. They have also linked this legislation to the flawed ETS. That was a callous move and what they were trying to do when they did that was to make the opposition look unfriendly about doing something about renewable energy. However, the amendments that we are putting forward are reasonable and responsible, and recognise some of the areas that this Labor government have failed to look at. It is shoddy legislation. We want these amendments put forward. Our shadow minister has addressed the amendments, and I fully support those particular four amendments.

I certainly want to make sure that this Prime Minister and this Labor government take a much smarter approach, and by taking a smarter approach it will be a bipartisan approach. However, from this side of the House, we support renewable energy targets and we want to make sure, with these amendments, we have a much smarter approach to reducing our carbon footprint. We did not support the ETS because it was not a smart approach. The Prime Minister and his Minister for Climate Change and Water should be breathing a sigh of relief that the non-government senators, after we were unable to stop it in this House because we do not have the numbers—have given them a chance to go back to the drawing board. I support our amendments. I support this bill and I look forward to the government support for our amendments in the passage of this legislation.

Andrew Laming (Bowman, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

What a refreshing debate we have enjoyed today by effectively decoupling the Renewable Energy (Electricity) (Charge) Amendment Bill 2009 and cognate bill from the ETS. To my National Party colleague from Maranoa, it is wonderful to hear the support that we have from Queensland’s largest seat for this legislation. Coming from a relatively tiny outer metropolitan seat, I would wish to echo his views. Some have said that Bowman is the only seat in Australia that doubles in size at low tide. You are quite right: we have a deep and abiding passion for the potential for tidal and also ocean current technology. That is all ahead of us, and it is an exciting future. I congratulate the government for finally taking that important step of decoupling this legislation. The government has also effectively revealed the enthusiasm for renewable energy on both sides of this House. Our country can only benefit from that.

I do not think that now is the appropriate time to go through the history of the struggles we have had with the ETS legislation, except to say it is probably also a good time now to move on from the 2007 notion that you are either a denier or a believer, that either you are a sceptic that needs to be shunned or you are evangelical about some sort of greater issue than any on the planet, that of emissions trading. It is a part of planning for the future of Australia and we are far better to be pulling together the diverse and disparate views in Australia. We know they exist all around the world, and I would be concerned about a political party that did not have those diverse views within it. We are effectively debating the key issues that will determine the success of our tradeable goods, the success of Australia as an economy and our ability as Australians to preserve the quality of life we enjoy now. The emissions trading system can potentially impact that.

This small piece of legislation that has been decoupled today is very important because industry have been telling us that this is where they want to go. They need such a target to have the certainty to invest, and I think that is why you have seen the support from both sides of the House being so strong. So often in the Westminster parliamentary system you try to protect the government from its own pigheadedness. We have seen a little bit of that today where there was a reluctance to consider very constructive amendments that were put forward by our shadow minister. I am pleased to say that there has been some ground given and, particularly and certainly for the member for Maranoa who may or may not have realised it, that the waste coalmine gas issue being recognised as a zero emission source of power really had to be included in this legislation. I am very glad that that has occurred.

What has been potentially a bridge too far has been the issue of banding. In a recent policy discussion of renewable energy producers the clear message was that is an important move forward to ensure the future of renewable technology. This bill needs to recognise that banding can play a very important role in protecting about a quarter of those gigawatt hours for emerging technologies that are not yet ready to take advantage of this legislation. There is a range of those, from geothermal right across to large solar plants, that may not be quite ready yet to take advantage of this legislation.

What we have, though, right now is a very murky and somewhat unhappy triad of stumbles by this government around solar energy that prefaces the debate that we are having tonight. We do not need to trawl through the history of budget night when there were decisions and announcements made that effectively betrayed industry. On 9 June, it effectively summarily cut off the opportunity for those renewable incentives for solar providers. Then we saw it again with the remote renewable program on 22 June. These three hits to the sector, I think it is worth mentioning, have somewhat shaken the solar sector’s confidence in the government to be able to make the long-term decisions that provide some certainty. I am not going to stand here and convince everyone that the old economic incentives stacked up, nor that it was necessarily something that could have been ignored but what we really needed to do was give business more certainty than the government provided.

All I can say to the Minister Assisting the Minister for Climate Change is that he should take some lesson from the economic stability that was provided by this side of the House when in government and learn from that that by giving business certainty we can allow them to plan ahead, they can look forward and they can make the decisions that in the end are going to be right for the consumer. Please do not use small business—in fact, do not use business in general—as something that can be kicked around when rules change and the carpet pulled from under them simply because you can. We know the government can, but try to find a way to give as much certainty as possible to some of these very, very small providers who have faith and who have placed their trust in government that the decisions they make will be there for some time. If government does have to change policy—obviously decisions do and policies have to change—give small business some chance to react rather than what occurred in my electorate and in many others on this side of the House. We had people who had effectively placed deposits and ordered solar equipment ready for installation but had not necessarily got to the point where they could be guaranteed of getting the rebate. That was tragic. Families were running around trying to contact the father who was off at work and who could not sign on the dotted line with solar companies which had all of these bonds and deposits collected yet were unable to fulfil contracts. That was an ugly piece of federal government undermining of the work of small businesses right around this country—businesses which in the end were only responding to government incentives to implement renewable energy. That was an act of faith that I think was somewhat betrayed by this government.

I am glad to see that there has been some concession, again following the decoupling, with the waste coalmine gas, but I would urge the government once again to consider this very important banding issue so a quarter of those gigawatt hours can be protected for the renewable technologies we know are only years away but cannot yet benefit. I would urge the government to give this issue further consideration.

But, nonetheless, let us not forget that today has been, after months and months of somewhat disappointing polarisation around the issue of the ETS, a small moment where there has been relative agreement on this vital transition. We are seeing the move where technology may well find us the solutions to this very important area of global emissions. Australia is playing its role—in fact, more than that. Australia is gifted geopolitically, with our location, our weather, our coastline, our tides and our rivers, not only to make a massive contribution but to be able to provide and deliver renewable and clean power at potentially a fraction of the cost at which other continents can do so. That can set Australia up, but what we will need to get there is not only this legislation but, I think, a full consideration of emissions trading, not a dogmatic, pig-headed approach that no idea can be improved. We need a government that will be responsive and that can work cooperatively not only with the whole country but particularly with those who are working in the sector who are coming forward with great technology—to name one, the Better Place initiative, which has just recently signed the electric car agreement with the ACT government, the third jurisdiction that will be considering plug-in options for electric vehicles worldwide.

An organisation and an initiative like Better Place relies on certainty, stability and predictability, not a policy that shifts and changes with political fortunes or the immediacies of daily political life, where suddenly a program is changed and business has to pay the price. We need to be encouraging the world to see Australia as a stable platform for renewable technology. The first step, I believe, will be taken tonight. It is great to see support on both sides of the chamber, and I look forward to the next step: finding a solution to global emissions that also has the support of both sides of this chamber, that works to protect Australian interests, that prevents the export of jobs and the leakage of carbon—a solution that finds Australia as a member of the lead pack of global economies which crafts and delivers a solution to this most pressing of global challenges.

Mrs Bronwyn Bishop (Mackellar, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The word ‘coupling’ applied to bills—the RET bill and the CPRS Bill—has become the jargon of the day. What did the coupling really mean? How was it done? Basically, it is in the legislation that the RET bill will become law only when the CPRS Bill is passed. So, in order to allow the RET bill—the Renewable Energy (Electricity) Amendment Bill 2009to stand alone, it is probably necessary to have an amendment that says that the bill will become law upon assent.

But what does that, in effect, do? It still means that the provisions that are in the CPRS Bill—the so-called carbon pollution reduction bill—that give relief to electricity-intensive trade-exposed industries are contained in the second bill. So it is perfectly open to us to argue, in fact, that the bills are not truly decoupled—they are only partially decoupled—because the impact on those industries will be that they will be obliged to pay for 20 per cent of their electricity from renewable sources at the higher rate.

Those of you who receive your electricity bill now will probably find—certainly in New South Wales—that there is an option for you to pay 10 per cent more for your electricity on the basis that that is coming from renewable sources. The effect of the bill will be to turn that voluntary payment of additional money for your electricity into a compulsory payment for your electricity. For industry, it means that they too will be paying an increased amount of money for their electricity, because that part of the plan to give them relief from that increased cost is contained in the other bill.

So the question is: will we see amendments come forth from the government which say that they will take that part of the CPRS Bill that contains the relief for the electricity-intensive trade-exposed industries and place it in the RET bill, thereby making it a stand-alone package, or will they continue with the fiction that they have decoupled the bills wholly when all they are doing is changing the date on which they shall become law? I think we are entitled to know that, and I think we are entitled to know it as this debate is progressing, but all we have at the moment is the statement that we have decoupled the bills.

The people who are really hurting and who come to people like me as their local members—they have done so in quite considerable numbers—are the people who plead for the passage of this bill and for it to become law because it also contains the provisions that will pay the subsidy for the installation of solar panels. Under the previous government, the Howard government, we had put in place a scheme where you got an $8,000 subsidy, and John Howard said that that scheme would be uncapped—in other words, it would go on indefinitely. So individuals who wanted to use solar panels and source their electricity from an alternative renewable source could do so. But virtually overnight that scheme was cut off, the reason being that it was just too successful; more people were taking it up and the amount of money that had been allocated for that program had been used. So, instead of allowing it to be an uncapped scheme as we had said, this government, which says it is all in favour of alternative and renewable energy sources, cut off the program, and it said, ‘But don’t worry about that; we’ve got another “you beaut” scheme coming in, and you’ll get, basically, $4,000 a time.’ Well, the poor installation people have been waiting and waiting. They have been paying the staff, their individual employees. They have been trying to keep their businesses together. There have been virtually no solar panel installations sold into this market for months, and they are at breaking point.

When one reads a letter from a constituent that says, ‘Please let this bill have passage so that we can start our business operating again,’ one feels an enormous amount for these small business people. They are being punished by a piece of politicising by the government, which is trying to say, ‘If you want these people to have the subsidy paid for them and their businesses to continue and the people they employ to have jobs then you have to also pass the hugely flawed CPRS Bill.’ It of course brings in the new green tax, or whatever other name you like to call it, and makes Australia uncompetitive in so many areas.

I hear a lot said about the term ‘certainty’—‘We have to have these bills because business wants certainty.’ I thought agriculture was a business too. There is absolutely no certainty for them because in that CPRS Bill it says, ‘Agriculture will come into the scheme in 2013 and we will know all about it by 2015.’ If that is certainty then I think we must be using a different dictionary from the one used by the government. What about those people who, again in the name of certainty, look at the future trade in derivatives that come from carbon trading and see that they can make a fortune. It will be the next big thing—out with credit default swaps and CDOs and in with derivatives from carbon trading. Perhaps certainty for them is something that is not deserved. Perhaps certainty for people like farmers and small business owners is what is indeed required.

We are very keen to see the RET bill passed because we want certainty for those small businesses that are currently being forced to the extent that they may well have to fold. We want their businesses to be able to continue. We want the people they employ to have jobs. So I would simply put it to the government that we need some certainty too. We want to see what the nature of the proposed amendments of the government are. We want to see whether not the provisions that are contained within the CPRS Bill are going to be translated into the RET bill so that we can see that the aluminium industry, the cement industry and so on are being granted the exemptions they need.

There is an interesting quote in an excellent article written by John Kerin and Adrian Rollins in the Financial Review today. It said:

Australian Aluminium Council executive director Miles Prosser said Ms Wong’s less generous interim assistance arrangements only made it more certain that aluminium producers would face higher costs than overseas competitors. He said the RET scheme as proposed by the government would impose costs of $700 million over the next decade on smelters in Gladstone, the Hunter Valley, Portland, Geelong and Bell Bay, while the CPRS as currently proposed would add another $3.3 billion.

I think this debate has a long, long way to go. Whereas I hear a lot of people say that we must give the benefit of the doubt to the planet, I say we have to give the benefit of the doubt to the Australian people. What we have to do in this place is find out what is in the interests of the Australian people and make sure the laws that we pass do not in fact push wages down, push the cost of living up and push the standard of living down as well, all in the name of trying to reduce our emissions, which contribute just over one per cent of the world’s emissions.

I think we should look at ways in which we could help the people in China and India, where it has been shown by people who associate themselves with the IPCC that it is the emissions from stoves in those countries which account for 18 per cent of global warming. We could have a human face and actually improve their health and their way of life. We could be doing something constructive to better human life and also meet the requirement to lessen emissions in a really humane and meaningful way.

I repeat my comments from right at the beginning. We need to decouple the RET bill from the CPRS Bill. It needs to be total and not partial. The provisions in the CPRS Bill which provide relief for trade-exposed industries who use large amounts of electricity need to be completely taken out of that bill and put into the RET bill.

Sharman Stone (Murray, Liberal Party, Shadow Minister for Immigration and Citizenship) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise to speak on the Renewable Energy (Electricity) Amendment Bill 2009 and the Renewable Energy (Electricity) (Charge) Amendment Bill 2009. These bills will set a renewable energy target of 20 per cent to be met by the year 2020. Of course the coalition strongly supports the concept of the 20 per cent renewable energy target. After all, it was our government, the John Howard led government, which first introduced into Australian legislation some very serious attempts to make our economy more responsive to renewable energy sources which we knew would not only lower harmful greenhouse gas emissions but also be better for the Australian economy, giving us an alternative to being captured by a complete dependency on fossil fuels.

We in our government understood that stimulating the renewable energy sector and a whole range of new research and development into interesting and unusual new technologies had to be in the context of making sure that that new development always took into consideration job prospects, not beggaring one part of the economy at the expense of another. That is because we are a very vulnerable economy when it comes to our trading partners, such as the European Union and the United States of America, who are more likely to reach for subsidies to support an industry in trouble than to let free competitive forces reign.

I refer in particular to agriculture. We are a nation with an export dependent agricultural sector. Where and if we can reduce our costs by using more efficient energy inputs, fertiliser inputs or any other inputs necessary for good agricultural development and production then we will, and we will do that with great vigour. The difficulty for us is that, even if we reduce our costs, when we go and compete in international markets we face competition from others who are subsidised—and we have no hope of competing with those industries despite having world’s best practice.

I grew up at a time when you could hear the clanking of the windmills, and as you looked around the great northern Victorian plains you saw windmills on every horizon. We took them for granted as a part of the energy options. If you wanted to pump water out of your dam, you did not have a diesel pump and you did not have a solar panel; you had a windmill. That iconic image of the windmill standing out on the plains has been adopted by many as a symbol of agriculture across the country. Australians are no strangers to alternative energy sources. A lot of us also grew up with wood being burned in stoves to generate heat and hot water. We grew up too with alternative means of transport that did not depend on the consumption of fossil fuels.

But here we are in this House with the government of the day trying to put across the idea that they are the first to imagine or think about renewable energy. And so they have tried to wed this particular set of bills to their CPRS. Their emissions trading scheme is a flawed policy and one which would leave the country devastated in terms of pushing it too far, too fast ahead of international developments. Of course we must address greenhouse emissions problems. Of course we have climate change affecting our country—no more so than in my electorate, which is facing its seventh year of drought and some of the hottest and driest conditions on record. But why would you, except for political mischief and attempts to wedge, link this set of bills, the Renewable Energy (Electricity) Amendment Bill 2009 and the Renewable Energy (Electricity) (Charge) Amendment Bill 2009, with the deeply flawed CPRS, which is generally spurned by industry. We have of course requested that the two bills be decoupled.

I think the Rudd Labor government are now realising, through the conversations and debates in the media and around the barbecues of the nation, that they have been too smart by half. These two bills need to stand alone so that they can be properly considered, so that the different sets of issues can be properly understood and debated and so resources can be appropriately allocated without any attempt to simply play political games at the expense of the country’s future.

When I was in the environment portfolio—I was parliamentary secretary for some five years—I had the privilege of working with Minister Robert Hill, Minister for the Environment and Heritage. He was an international leader in introducing the business of vegetation consideration into the Kyoto discussions. He chaired what was called the ‘umbrella group’ of other like-minded developed nations, who understood the significance of burning forests and of clearing forests, especially in the Southern Hemisphere, in Indonesia and in South America, and how the devastation of huge forests was leading not only to enormous biodiversity degradation but also to emissions, which were going to mean that we would have more and more difficulty in the future sustaining life as we know it. Robert Hill was a champion internationally, and when he helped introduce the MRET of our Howard government he was one of the first to do that globally.

Let me also say that while I was responsible for the Australian Antarctic Division I had the full support of the John Howard government in introducing wind turbines to the Antarctic. We knew it was a cost but we also understood that if we could replace the diesel-powered generators in our Antarctic stations then we would be making an enormous contribution, both symbolically and in practical terms, with a renewable source of energy that was going to reduce emissions in that sensitive part of the world. We were hugely successful. The world’s biggest wind turbines were installed at our Antarctic bases. We were able to reduce the use of diesel by over 90 per cent almost immediately.

It was under our government too that we tried and succeeded in stimulating the infant wind farm sector across Australia. One of our problems of course, and I face this particularly in my electorate, is that while there are places for wind farms which have been selected, there are locals more than keen to rent out their land and there are local governments anxious to see those wind farms established, we have a huge constraint on the capacity of the power grid to take that additional energy. Therefore it is a policy-setting problem. It is not a mindset problem in terms of rural and regional Australians wanting to have alternative sources of energy in their landscape and generating alternative and renewable energy.

I have to say that the Victorian government in particular must hang its head in shame as it sets about introducing yet another use of fossil fuel derived electricity for a white elephant—the north-south pipeline. We know that that pipeline will not have the water to take across the Great Dividing Range to the toilets, gardens and dog-washing clinics of Melbourne and Geelong. The water is to be taken out of the drought-stressed and near-empty Eildon Dam and the Goulburn River system. It is to be pumped over the Great Dividing Range using electricity generated through the burning of coal. It is estimated that 103,680 megawatt hours of power will have to be used in the first year of operation of the north-south pipeline alone to pump the 75 billion litres to be stolen from the Goulburn River—water that is going to be absolutely necessary for food production not only next year but in the years following. This will also take the environmental reserve out of the Eildon Dam. Pumping this, using electricity, across the Great Dividing Range is going to deprive the Goulburn River of its environmental reserve, which was for use in trying to overcome any blue-green algal bloom, which invariably comes when rivers get so low.

I have to say that the north-south pipeline is a white elephant. This pipeline will deplete the Murray-Darling Basin of the last of its precious water in northern Victoria. When we heard that on top of that environmental assault the water was to be pumped over the great divide using 103,680 megawatt hours a year, we were doubly appalled. What environmental vandalism! Minister Garrett, in this government, has made this whole business of the north-south pipeline a controlled action under the Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Act. He has not said a word in this place about the taking of water that does not exist from the Murray-Darling Basin. Water does not exist beyond what is finally left in the dam, but there has been not a word, despite the controlled actions which he has in writing, sitting somewhere in his archives. He has not complained that the Victorian government is moving forward ahead of schedule despite his controlled action conditions, which include making sure there is no further environmental degradation. Using fossil fuel at such a rate to pump the last of this water out of the Murray-Darling Basin from northern Victoria to Melbourne and Geelong, leaving this huge carbon footprint, surely is further environmental degradation. I call on Minister Garrett to stand up in this place and condemn the Victorian Labor government for that environmental vandalism.

Our own shadow minister for the environment has done his best to make the Victorian government, much less this federal government, see reason, but we have an election coming up in the state of Victoria next year and all Mr Brumby wants to do is stand up in this pipeline—a pipe so big that he can stand up in it—and refer to the wonders he has performed, rather than have Melbourne recycle its water, harvest stormwater or even use his desalination plant or perhaps build another dam in Gippsland. So we have this double obscenity: taking water that does not exist from food producers using energy generated through burning fossil fuels that should not be used for such a purpose.

Of course, what happens when you beggar the food producers in northern Victoria is that you render inefficient and virtually obsolete a gravity fed irrigation system which does not depend on fossil fuels to push the water around. It is a completely gravity fed system, which requires no energy and which was producing food through what was called the food bowl of Australia. It is an absolutely appalling situation when agriculture in our country is under threat not just from drought caused by climate change but because of policy settings that this government has put in place with absolutely no consideration of the costs which its CPRS legislation will impose and without giving agriculture any chance to use offsets to try and mitigate those additional costs.

We know the food-manufacturing sector is going to face extraordinary hardship if it is not given some special carbon emissions considerations in terms of how it manages the reduction of greenhouse gas emissions into the future. The food-manufacturing sector of Australia is extraordinary in its quality and in its world’s best practice. It has hugely reduced its consumption of energy over time but it is going to be facing, for example, competition from New Zealand, the United States and the EU, where the agribusiness sectors have been given special consideration. They have been given incentives, not simply a hit over the head with a blunt instrument. So we are seeing agriculture facing the onslaught of climate change in the shape of floods, fires and drought but being given no policy settings which will help it continue to feed the country.

I think we need our consumers, Australian men and women who go shopping, to start to ask themselves: do you really want to scan the shelves in the fresh food market section or the processed food section and find nothing that has been home grown? Today we met with representatives of the horticulture industry. They are in despair. They have tried to meet with the Minister for Employment and Workplace Relations, Minister Julia Gillard, to explain that the new conditions that they are supposed to work under with workforce agreements or the new settings for penalty rates, weekend rates and so on are going to double their costs for employing labour. People from the food manufacturing sector have also been trying to meet Senator Penny Wong, the Minister for Climate Change and Water, to say, ‘Please, will you understand the impacts of not giving us certainty about our policy settings, not taking into consideration our export exposure and our energy intensive characteristics? Give us a chance to survive in the new world.’

As the dairy-manufacturing sector in particular reel under the impacts of prices below the cost of production brought about by global economic circumstances, and while they try to deal with the seventh year of drought in northern Victoria, it is just obscene to think that they cannot get time with the minister, Senator Penny Wong, to get her to focus on food manufacturing as needing special consideration and understanding. Food manufacturers need to be able to adopt alternative energy strategies. They need to be included in the future thinking and the short-term thinking about how they manage their emissions, but instead they are being told, ‘Wait around—by 2015 we might have come up with a good idea.’ That is not good enough. Let me tell you that the dairy industry alone employs 40,000 people and it is worth some $4 billion a year. How is it that the retail sector, the automotive sector and the textile and footwear sectors get a hearing? They can knock on the door and be admitted to the ministerial suites, but not agribusiness.

I find it quite extraordinary that people are so cynical about rural and regional populations. Today for the first time Minister Julia Gillard agreed to see face-to-face young rural people who have a serious problem with the independent youth allowance. They are the same people who are tomorrow’s food producers. They are the ones who will have to deal with the climate impacts of more heat in the north of Australia, more storms and more fires throughout Australia and they are being treated with contempt.

When we were in government, we in the coalition understood very well that there is not one renewable energy solution. We knew about solar and wind; they are fairly commonplace understandings. But we were also most keen to stimulate other, less common ways to generate alternative energy. They include things like tidal and geothermal energy and potentially some use of biofuels and algae. There are a whole range of these technologies and some of them are well advanced in our country. But the legislation that is being proposed by the Rudd Labor government does not have the breadth and intellectual rigour behind it that would stimulate a whole range of responses to our need to have different types of renewable energy in the future.

We have seen the debacle where some people thought that they were going to have some solar powered energy relief. In my electorate in particular they put up their hands. They thought they were all going to get grants to help them to get new solar panels installed. They wrote up their applications and went to their accountants. They were committed to solar energy. Then they were left in the lurch because they trusted the cut-off date for the applications that the government gave them. They thought they had so many days or weeks to get their applications in, but this government simply closed the date of application for the solar energy grants without warning. That has left a lot of people very cynical about this government’s real intentions. The axing of the solar rebate of $8,000 before the due date of 30 June has been a huge loss for individuals, as it had the potential to replace their fossil fuel derived energy costs. It has also enormously damaged this government’s reputation. They are not now taken seriously in the community because the community has been bitten too often. The solar panel industry itself has been caught out too often in trusting this government and imagining that it actually was credible—that it had some integrity when it came to using taxpayer funds to try and stimulate a particular type of technology response.

So I repeat: we, the coalition in government, understood renewables. We have grown up with them. We have grown up with windmills and with gravity fed irrigation systems that produce the food of the world and can keep on doing that. We know what to do. We are deeply concerned that in trying to couple this bill with the CPRS, political games are being played. But we do support an MRET. We particularly strongly support the concept of a 20 per cent renewable energy target. We will therefore continue to do our best to get an outcome which helps save this country and which ultimately contributes to the global response to reducing carbon emissions. We can do it if we work together. We just ask that you take this problem seriously, not as a political game.

Jill Hall (Shortland, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise to support the Renewable Energy (Electricity) Amendment Bill 2009 and related bill. I will go into some detail in a moment as to why I support it, highlighting some of the aspects of this legislation. But first I must say I listened with great interest to the previous speaker’s contribution to this debate. I was interested to hear her say that those on the other side of this House understand renewables and that they know what to do. For a party—or parties—that know and understand renewables, their record is pretty damn deplorable. Renewables went backwards—note that: they went backwards—when they were in government. If they were serious, they would have done something in government. But they are the ones that understand renewables. They understand them so well that they actually went backwards under them when they were in government. ABARE figures show that renewables contributed 10.5 per cent of our electricity supply in 1997 compared to 9.95 per cent in 2007. There are the figures that demonstrate just how committed the opposition are to renewable energy. They give lip service. They are the sceptics on that side of the House and they are actually working to see that we do not have a strong renewable energy industry. It is interesting to note that in 2003 the Howard government’s own review recommended an increase in mandatory renewable energy targets above five per cent to ensure investment was not stifled. This was rejected time and time again.

The interim arrangements will set aside the link between a RET and CPRS legislation. We have decided that we will agree with the decoupling, and this will sever the link between the two pieces of legislation. Now that this link has been severed, I would expect the opposition to wholeheartedly support this legislation. I pointed out some of the flaws in the opposition’s approach to renewable energy—how their so-called commitment and knowledge of the renewable industry had benefited Australia to the extent that there had been a decline in the renewable energy sector. If you compare that to the Rudd government’s record of support for renewable energy, you will find that in 18 months this government has done more to support renewable energy and associated jobs than those in opposition did in 12 years.

Greg Hunt (Flinders, Liberal Party, Shadow Minister for Climate Change, Environment and Water) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Provocation! Don’t provoke me. I’m a time bomb. I will go off.

Jill Hall (Shortland, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I know that the shadow minister for climate change, environment and water would be exceptionally disappointed by that because I think in his heart he is not one of the sceptics. He is one of the ones who would like to see his leader be a little bit stronger and support more of the legislation that we put through on this side of the parliament.

A 2009 Climate Institute study showed that $31 billion worth of clean energy projects are already underway or planned in response to the government’s climate change policies. One of those is in the region that I come from, the Hunter, and up there we know just how important that is. These projects will generate around 26,000 new jobs, mostly in regional areas like the area I represent in this parliament.

There are more solar panels going onto Australian roofs under the Rudd government than at any previous time. This government has funded more than 80,000 solar rebates since we came to government. How many do you think were funded during the coalition’s 12 years? They had around 10,500 installations of panels. That is 80,000 in 18 months versus 10,500 in 12 years. I think that demonstrates just how much those on the other side of this House understand renewables and just how committed they are to renewable energy and the renewable energy industry.

I also noticed that the previous speaker talked about the breadth and intellectual rigour that the opposition apply to looking at legislation. Well, I think that the Australian public and we in this parliament have seen how that intellectual rigour and that breadth operates, with slanging matches between members of the opposition—and it is not all in the party room; it takes to the airwaves and shows that there is much division. It also shows that the members of the opposition are more interested in arguing with each other about renewable energy and the CPRS than they are about formulating good, sound policy that is going to address the issue of climate change. And that is what this legislation does.

These bills will amend the legislation underpinning the current mandatory renewable energy target scheme to implement a design developed through the Council of Australian Governments for a national renewable energy target scheme that expands on the current scheme and includes a legislated target of 45,000 gigawatt hours in 2020. That is really significant. That is making a real impact. It is showing that the Rudd government is committed to renewable energy. It is showing that we take climate change seriously and we are about acting now. Since the Rudd government has come to power, our record in relation to climate change and renewable energy has been second to none.

The Renewable Energy (Electricity) Amendment Bill 2009 includes in it the clarification of the objects of the scheme; increased annual targets for renewable energy generation from 2010, including a target, as I have already mentioned, of 45,000 gigawatt hours in 2020, to be maintained until 2030; the implementation of a solar credit mechanism based on a renewable energy certificate multiplier for small-scale renewable energy, including solar photovoltaic, wind and microhydro systems; and a mandated review of the operation of the legislation and regulation underpinning the RET scheme in 2014. So it is not only about implementing the scheme; it is about reviewing it and ensuring that the scheme is working. It will provide for a partial legislative exemption from liability under the scheme in respect of emissions-intensive trade-exposed activities, and for the transition of existing and proposed state renewable energy target schemes. This scheme has been designed in cooperation with the states and territories through COAG, and it brings the renewable energy targets, and existing and proposed state schemes, into a single national scheme.

Once again, I see this as a contrast between the Rudd government and the Howard government. I think it shows why this legislation has been able to be developed, because the Rudd government has worked with the states to develop legislation for the whole of Australia whereas the Howard government worked against the states. It did not consult with the states. It tried to bully them into submission and blamed them if anything was not working.

What both ministers and the parliamentary secretary—and the minister at the table, Minister Combet, when he was Parliamentary Secretary for Climate Change had a very influential role in the development of it and has continued in that role now that he is Minister Assisting the Minister for Climate Change—have developed here is world-class legislation. It is legislation that can be a model for the rest of the world—legislation that we in Australia can be proud of.

I commend the legislation to the House, and encourage the opposition to move their mindset, not even into the future—into 2009. I encourage them to accept the fact that climate change exists and accept the fact that we need to act now. They should accept the facts that this legislation is outstanding legislation and that under their administration nothing was done—all they had to contribute was to have the renewable energy sector going backwards—and acknowledge that under the Rudd government the renewable energy sector has thrived and this legislation will place Australia well into this century.

Greg Combet (Charlton, Australian Labor Party, Minister Assisting the Minister for Climate Change) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

in reply—Firstly, I thank all members of this House for their contributions and their efforts in contributing to the debate on the Renewable Energy (Electricity) Amendment Bill 2009 and the Renewable Energy (Electricity) (Charge) Amendment Bill 2009. The Rudd Labor government is pursuing through this legislation a number of important changes as part of its efforts to combat the challenge of climate change. Principal amongst them is the establishment of a renewable energy target, such that 20 per cent of Australia’s electricity supply should be provided by renewable energy generation sources by the year 2020. That represents a fourfold increase in the renewable energy target and is expected to unlock, in partnership with the Carbon Pollution Reduction Scheme, up to $19 billion worth of investment in renewable energy.

The renewable energy scheme target which the government is establishing in the current legislative arrangements is based on a statutory target of 9,500 gigawatt hours to be achieved in 2010. The government is significantly expanding that target and establishing a target of 45,000 gigawatt hours from renewable energy sources by the year 2020. The expanded scheme will deliver on the government’s commitment that I outlined a moment ago, and that is to have 20 per cent of Australia’s electricity supply coming from renewable sources by 2020. As I said when I introduced the Renewable Energy (Electricity) Amendment Bill 2009 to the House some time ago, the bill will clarify the objectives of the renewable energy target scheme. It will increase annual targets for renewable energy generation from 2010 on a yearly basis, including the 45,000-gigawatt-hour target I mentioned a moment ago, which will be maintained from the year 2020 when it is achieved through to the year 2030.

The bill also implements a solar credits mechanism based on a renewable energy certificate multiplier for small-scale renewable energy including solar photovoltaic, wind and hydro systems. The bill also mandates a review of the operation of the legislation and the regulations underpinning the renewable energy target scheme in 2014. The bill also, importantly, provides for partial legislative exemptions from liability under the scheme in respect of some electricity-intensive activities. There is an amendment dealing with that issue that I will speak to in due course. The bill also provides for the transition of existing and proposed state renewable energy target schemes. On that front, the renewable energy target scheme has been designed in cooperation with the states and territories through the Council of Australian Governments and brings the mandatory renewable energy target and existing and proposed state schemes into a single national scheme. The legislation underpinning the current mandatory renewable energy target scheme comprises the Renewable Energy (Electricity) Act 2000, the Renewable Energy (Electricity) (Charge) Act 2000 and the Renewable Energy (Electricity) Regulations 2001.

Under the principal act, wholesale purchasers of electricity are required to meet a share of the renewable energy target in proportion to their share of national wholesale electricity markets. The act provides for the creation of renewable energy certificates by generators of renewable energy. One renewable energy certificate represents one megawatt hour of electricity from eligible renewable energy sources. Installations of solar hot-water heaters and small generation units are able to generate renewable energy certificates under deeming arrangements prescribed in the regulations. Once registered, the RECs, as they are called, are able to be generally traded and sold to liable parties, who may surrender them to the renewable energy regulator to demonstrate their compliance under the scheme and avoid paying what is called the shortfall charge.

The Renewable Energy (Electricity) (Charge) Act 2000 sets the level of the shortfall charge for noncompliance. In relation to the charge act there is, of course, a related bill, to which I will also speak in summing up the debate, and that is the Renewable Energy (Electricity) (Charge) Amendment Bill 2009. That amendment bill increases the level of the shortfall charge under the renewable energy target scheme from $40 per megawatt hour to $65 per megawatt hour. The shortfall charge in effect encourages compliance with the renewable energy target scheme, as liable entities who do not meet their obligations to purchase renewable energy certificates will need to pay this charge. Increasing the shortfall charge to this level will act as an incentive for investment in renewable energy in order to meet the government’s significantly increased renewable energy targets. That presents something of the context concerning these bills and the work that is done by them.

I would like to briefly address a number of the specific comments and propositions that have been raised, in particular by those in the opposition, during the course of the debate. I will turn first to the renewable energy target and the interim arrangements that the government has announced in relation to the operation of the target and its relationship with the Carbon Pollution Reduction Scheme. Yesterday the Minister for Climate Change and Water announced interim arrangements that will provide interim assistance under the renewable energy target until such time as the Carbon Pollution Reduction Scheme passes the Senate. This is about providing certainty to the renewables sector in the face of the opposition’s failure to do what the government regards as the responsible thing, and that is to pass both the CPRS and the RET legislation. The RET interim arrangements represent a less than perfect way, in our construction of it, of tackling climate change and delivering assistance to industry. But it is a very necessary course of action, given the coalition’s opposition to the CPRS legislation and their decision to vote against it in the Senate.

The government decided—by way of providing some context to this issue—and the Council of Australian Governments agreed on 30 April this year to provide assistance under the RET to activities that are emissions intensive and trade exposed under the CPRS legislation. This was in recognition of the cumulative cost impact of the RET and the carbon price to be delivered by the Carbon Pollution Reduction Scheme. However, the COAG agreement was made in the context of the CPRS legislation coming into force. The cost impact of the RET alone is small for most industries. But, in the absence of legislation implementing the CPRS, the scope and basis for assistance under the RET has had to be reconsidered by the government. The government, therefore, is proposing an amendment, which I will speak to, to allow for RET assistance to be provided to highly electricity- and emissions-intensive trade-exposed activities in the period before the CPRS legislation is in force. The government remains committed to providing assistance to all emissions-intensive trade-exposed areas to help manage the cumulative costs of the CPRS and the RET once both pieces of legislation pass the Senate.

A number of comments have also been made in relation to the aluminium industry. Those opposite have raised concerns about the impact of the renewable energy target on the aluminium industry and have suggested that the sector should receive more assistance by our providing a 90 per cent exemption for both the existing and the new renewable energy target obligations. The government does not intend to provide exemptions from the existing mandatory renewable energy target scheme, which has after all been in place since 2001—and under which all aluminium entities, like other sectors, have been bearing their share of the MRET liability. As assistance under the new renewable energy target only applies to the expanded portion of the target, all industry will continue to make a contribution to supporting the deployment of renewable energy. Having said that, the government is mindful of the position put forward by the aluminium industry and which is represented, I guess, by the coalition amendment; however, the government is unmoved by that and we adhere to the position advanced in the bill.

Thirdly, there have been a number of contributions in relation to waste coalmine gas. There were some foreshadowed amendments that I think are now not necessarily prosecuted by the opposition in relation to this issue—and it is an important issue. The government is also introducing an amendment today which recognises that the cessation of the New South Wales Greenhouse Gas Reduction Scheme, known as GGAS, once the CPRS commences to operate may impose a significant cost under the new arrangements on existing electricity generators using waste coalmine gas. Recognition of these existing generators in the legislation as proposed by the government is intended as a transitional measure to underpin the continued viability of projects that have already been committed and which are operating under GGAS. Over time, the Carbon Pollution Reduction Scheme will provide an increasing incentive in favour of low-emissions generation such as waste coalmine gas. To target this transitional support appropriately, eligibility is restricted to existing waste coalmine gas projects. It is time limited to the year 2020 and it includes caps on the amount of eligible generation for each year.

The government’s amendment clearly differentiates between waste coalmine gas and renewable energy sources and includes higher targets to ensure that no renewable energy is displaced—that is, that the energy from waste coalmine gas generation is additional to the renewable energy target. This will ensure that the 20 per cent target of renewable energy in Australia’s electricity mix is maintained and does have integrity. The amendment will also help meet the need to smooth the transition from GGAS to the CPRS for the waste coalmine gas sector. It is something about which there has been much interaction between the government and the generators in that area.

Issues have also been raised by the opposition in relation to the food-processing industry. What I can say in relation to that is that the government does not intend to provide a 90 per cent exemption for food processing. There is currently no emissions-intensive trade-exposed category of food processing. Indeed, food processing is a diverse range of activities with, of course, significantly different levels of exposure to electricity prices. The impact of the renewable energy target on entities carrying out food-processing activities such as dairy processing is expected to be modest, and it would be inappropriate, therefore, in the government’s view, for the renewable energy target assistance arrangements to be provided to businesses in the food-processing sector when there are other activities markedly more exposed or more sensitive to movements in electricity prices. Food-processing businesses may qualify for transitional assistance. I can add as an aside, though, that under the Climate Change Action Fund to implement new low-emission technologies and upon passage of the CPRS, which the government keenly anticipates, I would encourage such businesses to investigate those opportunities.

The next issue that has been raised by those opposite during the course of debate of these matters relates to what could be described as banding of the renewable energy target. It has been suggested that the renewable energy target should be banded to ensure the deployment of less-mature renewable technologies. The renewable energy target scheme encourages, however, the deployment of renewable energy, without picking winners, within the target range—that is, the mandated portion of electricity supply to come from renewable energy sources. The government has this view—that banding is undesirable within the overall target—because the expanded renewable energy target is in fact very large. It increases the current mandatory renewable energy target scheme, as I said, by over four times, from 9,500 gigawatt hours to 45,000 gigawatt hours by the year 2020, and it is held at that level until the year 2030. Modelling indicates that, due to the large size of the target, the renewable energy target will pull through a range of technologies, including wind, biomass, solar and geothermal energy. Part of the argument that has been advanced is that, because wind power is perhaps a more mature technology than something such as geothermal, wind power would crowd out the opportunities for investment in geothermal energy. The government, of course, will closely watch the operation of the renewable energy target, but we are not of the view that the situation demands that we should adopt a proposition to provide for specific bands for particular types of technologies within the overall RET target.

Over time, the Carbon Pollution Reduction Scheme will be the primary driver of renewable energy and will provide significant support over the next two decades in addition to the RET. The RET is complemented too by significant direct support for the development, commercialisation and deployment of emerging renewable technologies. For example, the government’s $4.5 billion Clean Energy Initiative announced as part of the 2009-10 budget includes $1.6 billion to support research and development of solar technologies as well as $465 million to establish the Australian Centre for Renewable Energy. In combination with the support under the RET, these policies will promote a diverse portfolio of renewable energy technologies.

Finally, issues have been raised in the debate about heat pumps. Heat pump water heaters draw renewable thermal energy from the atmosphere and so decrease consumption of fossil-fuel sourced energy. They are an eligible energy source under the mandatory renewable energy target. At its meeting of 30 April, the Council of Australian Governments agreed to examine further by the end of this year some of the eligibility provisions of the renewable energy target for heat pumps and new small-scale technologies that are not currently eligible under the renewable energy target. The government considers this the best process to consider the eligibility of heat pumps and new small-scale technologies.

I will conclude by making some further brief comments. The renewable energy target scheme is part of the government’s economically responsible approach to tackling climate change and moving towards a low-pollution future. It will drive significant investment, accelerating the deployment of a broad range of renewable energy technologies like wind, solar and geothermal power. Through a single national scheme for the first time, the renewable energy target will transform the electricity sector over time and it will ensure that 20 per cent of our electricity supply comes from renewable sources by the year 2020. It is an extremely important institutional change.

There are several things that the government is prosecuting in an endeavour to act firmly in dealing with the challenge of climate change. The Carbon Pollution Reduction Scheme is critical. It is the key mechanism by which we will go about reducing greenhouse gas emissions, by ensuring that a carbon price is imported into the economy. It will shift investment and it will work in close cooperation with the second major institutional change, which is represented in the bills before the House—that is, the establishment of the renewable energy target. The third set of components that the government is prosecuting is energy efficiency measures. We are investing a significant amount of funding in a whole host of energy efficient measures—for example, almost $4 million in the installation of household insulation. These measures are extremely important for Australia as a nation, and I commend this component of the government’s steps to the House.

Question agreed to.

Bill read a second time.

Message from the Governor-General recommending appropriation announced.