Tony Smith (Speaker) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I have received a letter from the honourable member for Port Adelaide proposing that a definite matter of public importance be submitted to the House for discussion, namely:

The Government's complete failure on energy policy.

I call upon those members who approve of the proposed discussion to rise in their places.

More than the number of members required by the standing orders having risen in their places—

Mark Butler (Port Adelaide, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for Environment, Climate Change and Water) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

This week, on the fourth anniversary of this government, under two prime ministers, two reports were received from the Energy Market Operator, both of which have laid bare four years of stunning failure on energy policy—stunning, devastating failure on energy policy, on every possible indicator. In four years, wholesale power prices under this government have doubled, causing power bills to skyrocket for households.

Just in the last couple of months in New South Wales, power bills went up by 20 per cent for households, adding to other power bill increases that they've experienced under Prime Minister Abbott and Prime Minister Turnbull. Businesses have been walking through Parliament House this week talking to members of parliament—I'm sure on both sides—about the deep energy crisis that has emerged under this government. And, contrary to what the Prime Minister would like to tell this House, they are seriously hurting on power bills and on gas. They're not experiencing 20 per cent rises; they're talking to us about 70 per cent, 80 per cent, even 100 per cent increases in their power bills as they come to renegotiate new contracts.

AEMO has also warned that two-thirds of Australia is at risk of blackout over coming summers without action and a proper policy. Pollution is on the rise. Gas prices are skyrocketing. The Prime Minister tried to tell people a number of times this week that everything's fine in the gas market and that gas prices are coming down, while talking about spot prices in the spot market for gas. Well, only about 10 per cent of the gas market is traded on the spot market. Manufacturers across the economy have been in this building this week still talking about $15 to $20 a gigajoule quotes being received by them, prices which simply make their businesses potentially unviable, jeopardising tens of thousands of workers in manufacturing sectors across the country. And in the renewable energy industry, after jobs tripled under our government for six years, the ABS reported that, under this government and this minister, one in three renewable energy jobs—thousands and thousands of jobs—have been lost while they've soared around the rest of the world.

Every Australian now understands, when they open their skyrocketing power bills, when they consider the risk of blackouts across two-thirds of our country, who created this absolute mess—this Prime Minister, Prime Minister Abbott and this minister. And it's no mystery how we got into this deep mess over the last four years. As in so many policy areas, in 2013, the Liberal Party had a great plan to dismantle stuff, to destroy stuff, to wreck policy, and they did that. They completely dismantled Australia's energy policy, but they put nothing in its place. For four long years, this country has had no energy policy to guide investment decisions to ensure that there is new generation plant being built to enter the market in coming years to provide reliable supply. And it's not a mystery. It's not hard to work out what that energy policy framework should be, because the government received the blueprint from the Chief Scientist months ago; it's a clean energy target.

The Chief Scientist framed a recommendation for a clean energy target as 'there being an urgent need for a clear and early decision on this matter', a point that was reinforced by the Energy Market Operator only this week in its two reports. And it is urgent because generators that are ageing, which were built in the 1960s and '70s, are closing. This is inevitable. Members opposite might wish it were otherwise, might wish that these generators could just keep generating forever and a day, but it is inevitable. As Matthew Warren, the head of the Energy Council, said in the Australian Financial Review today, 'The problem isn't old power stations closing. It's that we don't have a plan to replace them.' And we haven't had a plan for four years under this government.

The Labor Party have said time and again that they're willing to sit down with the government and agree on a bipartisan framework to get that investment flowing, to ensure that when the generators inevitably close because they're too old that they're replaced by generation that provides reliable and affordable supply. We know why there's been no action opposite. We know that for over four years the government have been utterly paralysed on this question because their party room refuses to admit that there is an irreversible, inevitable transition happening in electricity systems across the world, not just here in Australia, and it will happen in Australia whether or not those in the coalition like it. That transition is partly driven by the imperative to reduce carbon pollution, and that's so important in a country that produces twice as much pollution from its electricity sector on average as the United States or the OECD more broadly, but it's also heavily driven by price. The other side might deny this, but it's now utterly clear that renewable energy has won the race to produce the cheapest possible form of new-build electricity generation across the world and in a country with unparalleled renewable energy sources like wind and solar, particularly here in Australia.

Of course, that transition must happen under a plan that ensures it happens in an orderly way. The transition must be a just transition for workers and communities that are affected, particularly directly. The nation must ensure that power is still dispatchable, reliable and affordable. AEMO, the Energy Market Operator, is working on a plan in spite of the government—not with the government, but in spite of the government. The South Australian energy plan was roundly endorsed by the Energy Market Operator's report this week, because it understands that the South Australian energy plan is providing the sorts of security mechanisms that the rest of the country needs. It may well be that Snowy Hydro 2.0, after we receive a feasibility plan, plays a part in that transition as well, but it won't play that part until the mid-2020s at the earliest.

The coalition is absolutely stuck on the fantasy that there is growth in coal in the future, that we can build new coal-fired power stations. The Prime Minister kicked this off in January, and it has been roundly rejected by all companies in the electricity industry—by the banks, by the lenders, by the experts who recognise that the days of building new coal-fired generation are simply over.

We know that the reason the coalition commissioned the AEMO report that was released this week was that they were crossing their fingers, hoping that AEMO would come and say: 'The solution to our challenges is to build new coal-fired power stations.' But of course AEMO didn't say that, because no-one is saying it anywhere in the world. There is no prospect of new unabated coal-fired power stations being built in this country. It's simply too risky. It's not cheap, as the Treasurer at least was courageous enough to say after bringing that lump of coal in here and fondling it in a very creepy fashion. People understand this, if they give it the most casual piece of analysis. We just need a Prime Minister who's willing to be honest about it. We just need a Prime Minister who is willing to go into that coalition party room and have an honest, logical discussion with his colleagues and say that this is not the future.

The transition in the electricity sector is inevitable, but there are two pathways. It can be an orderly transition that delivers reliable and affordable power with a proper investment framework agreed by both parties, or we can have a nation bedevilled by blackouts and skyrocketing power prices, which is exactly what the Energy Market Operator warned is the future under this minister and this Prime Minister if they continue to ignore the reality of what is happening in electricity systems across the world.

The Labor Party will continue to be honest with the Australian people and with regional communities that this transition is inevitable, that it can be managed in a way that is either positive for Australia or it can be resisted. You can pull the cardigans over your heads and pretend that there's another path, but the only alternative path is the path of unreliability, of blackouts in coming summers and of continuing skyrocketing power prices. If that is the path that this minister and this Prime Minister continue to choose, because they don't have the courage to have logical, rational explanations in their coalition party room, I tell you what: the Australian people will hold them to account.

Josh Frydenberg (Kooyong, Liberal Party, Minister for the Environment and Energy) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The member for Port Adelaide is entitled to his own opinions, but he's not entitled to his own facts. In his state of South Australia, they were the only state in the history of the Commonwealth to have a statewide blackout. In his state of South Australia, people were stuck in elevators. Tuna fishermen lost their catch. The member for Grey knows what happened at the Port Pirie smelter. He knows what happened for BHP at Olympic Dam. He knows what happened for Arrium at Whyalla. He knows what happened to the pensioners in Adelaide, and he knows what happened to the small businesses in Stirling and Bridgewater. He knows what happened to Adelaide Brighton, in the member for Port Adelaide's own electorate—that is, they lost their power because of the ideology and idiocy of the Weatherill government, a Labor government that has been in power for nearly 16 years, longer than Caesar ruled Rome.

The Labor Party want to blame someone else for their own mistakes. The member for Port Adelaide called the blackout in South Australia, worth upwards of half a billion dollars plus much, much more, 'merely a hiccup', because the member for Port Adelaide doesn't take it seriously. Now Jay Weatherill goes out there and says, 'We're on the right track.' Is it on the right track to spend hundreds of millions of dollars of taxpayers' money in his own state to build a new gas-fired generator? Is it good policy for the Labor Party in South Australia to spend $110 million buying diesel generators that use 80,000 litres of diesel an hour?

Mr Husic interjecting—

Ms Flint interjecting—

Mark Coulton (Parkes, Deputy-Speaker) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The member for Chifley and the member for Boothby will be quiet.

Josh Frydenberg (Kooyong, Liberal Party, Minister for the Environment and Energy) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Is it good policy for the Labor Party in South Australia, with its 50 per cent renewable energy target, to now be taking more brown coal-fired power than ever over the Heywood interconnector from the Latrobe Valley in Victoria into South Australia? That is what bad policy looks like. That is now the policy that the Labor Party, federally, wants to take nationally after seeing it happen in the state of South Australia.

We know that the member for Port Adelaide has stayed silent when his Labor brethren in Victoria and the Northern Territory have refused to develop decades worth of gas reserves and resources—not just unconventional gas but also onshore conventional gas, which we know, if it was developed, would reduce the power prices substantially for Australian households and businesses.

The Labor Party, when in government, were warned about the big exports from the east coast to markets in Japan and elsewhere. They were warned about the impact on both prices and supply. Those warnings came not only from the Australian energy market operator but also from their own energy white paper. But, in the face of those warnings, they did nothing. And now, after denying the reality and the evidence, the member for Port Adelaide has admitted that it was Labor policies, Labor ignorance and Labor's foolery that led to higher prices today.

Their record on coal is just as bad as their record on gas. In the state of South Australia, they oversaw policies which saw the closure of the coal-fired Northern Power Station. In the state of Victoria, they know that their Labor brethren, who they have refused to criticise, hiked the royalties for coal players in the Latrobe Valley by 300 per cent. Those policies contributed to the hastened closure of Hazelwood Power Station. Together Northern and Hazelwood's closures have led to the problems and the challenges we face.

Now, after their time in office that gave us the cash for clunkers, the citizens assembly, the pink batts and the dreaded carbon tax, what do we get from the Labor Party? We now get a commitment to a 50 per cent renewable energy target and a ridiculously reckless 45 per cent emissions reduction target, a target which the Business Council of Australia has called 'reckless and unnecessary'. That's what the Business Council of Australia has called the Labor Party's own 45 per cent emissions reduction target: risky and unnecessary. The Labor Party do not know the true impact that would have on both the cost and the stability of the system. With the Australian Energy Market Operator making it very clear that there will be supply shortfalls going forward, and particularly with the closure of Liddell in 2022, we now need to take corrective action. That is why the Prime Minister has reached out to the owner of Liddell, AGL. They're coming to discussions in Canberra on Monday.

Mr Fitzgibbon interjecting—

We hear an interjection from the member for Hunter, 'No Coal Joel'. He should know better, because hundreds of workers in his own electorate rely on coal-fired power. But he's out there waving the white flag even though the federal government wants to help them stay in a job. Not only that, the federal government is concerned about the stability of the system, and sought, from AEMO, this report into the dispatchability of the system.

In Queensland, we saw a state Labor government under Premier Palaszczuk, with its own coal-fired generators that control 65 per cent of the market, put in place uncompetitive bidding practices that saw the state of Queensland have the highest wholesale electricity prices in the National Electricity Market for the first five months of this year. The members for Queensland on this side of the House know that policy, overseen by a Labor state government, meant higher prices for the people of Queensland. It was only because the federal government called out those uncompetitive bidding practices that the Labor government saw fit to give a direction to the Stanwell operator in Queensland. We have seen the forward curve come down substantially since then. So, it's their record on coal, their record in office, their record on gas, their record on renewable energy targets, their record in Victoria, their record in Queensland and their record in South Australia that have given us the challenges we face today.

Under Prime Minister Turnbull, we have taken drastic action, which includes abolishing the limited merits review process, which, if the Labor Party had done it, would have saved consumers $6½ billion. Now the member for Port Adelaide, who said, 'Thank goodness the coalition is now abolishing the limited merits review,' is delaying the passage of that legislation in the Senate by referring it to committee so that his mates in the union movement can have their say. Well, if he were so concerned about driving power prices down, he would pass that legislation in the Senate. What did the Labor Party do during their six years in office to get a better deal from the retailers for consumers? What did they do to get plain-English contracts? What did they do to get the discounts offered in dollar terms, not in percentages? What did they do to get people who are on standing offers to be offered something that was a better deal? What did they do to get the retailers to notify consumers when they came off a market offer onto a more standing offer? The Labor Party did nothing: nothing on networks, nothing on retailers, nothing on gas and nothing on coal—only higher renewable energy targets, higher emissions reduction targets and higher electricity prices. The Labor Party's condemned by their own actions and their own record. The electricity prices on their watch went up more than 100 per cent. Only the coalition will drive down energy prices and create a more stable energy system.

Joel Fitzgibbon (Hunter, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for Agriculture) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Unlike those on his own backbench, I listened very carefully to what the minister had to say. I don't know whether they were trying to dissociate themselves from what he was saying, whether they were embarrassed by what he was saying or whether they were just bored and almost asleep, but there was no support there. In fact, for a while I didn't know if the minister was going to make the 10 minutes. He seemed to be running out of material. Why would he be running out of material? That would be because, in four years, his government has done nothing in terms of energy policy. That's why he spent 99 per cent of his speech attacking the party that has been in opposition for four years.

We are confronting an energy crisis in this country. Of that there can be no doubt. If we face a hot summer this year, the lights will almost certainly go out. The minister suggested we didn't have a blackout in New South Wales on their watch. That is true.

Ms Swanson interjecting—

I hear the member for Paterson, who represents the workers of Tomago. We had to close down the smelter in her electorate. That's why we didn't have a blackout in New South Wales. The minister has so mismanaged the energy sector that we had to shut down the Tomago aluminium smelter so the lights in New South Wales wouldn't go out. The member for Paterson's constituents were the victims, as were all the residents of the Hunter Valley.

For all the complexities of our energy system, the issues we face are pretty simple. It is economics 101. Demand is outstripping supply in the energy sector. And why is that so? It is because of four years of mismanagement from those who sit opposite. I'm going to slightly correct the member for Port Adelaide. He said that we'd had this problem for four years. I would suggest that it's five years. He's correct: they have been governing for four years. But this investment drought began five years ago when the member for Warringah started promising all and sundry that if he was elected he would unravel the carbon architecture—the carbon price—the former Labor government put in place. It's from that date five years ago that investors in this country started wondering what the rules were going to look like in the future. It's from that date five years ago that investments started drying up in the generation sector.

The minister at the table need not lecture me about workers in the Hunter Valley. The next coalminer he meets will be his first—and the chair of Rio Tinto doesn't count, Minister. Catching up with the chairman of Rio Tinto doesn't mean you've met a coalminer. Have you met a coalminer or power station operator? Constituents in my electorate and throughout the Hunter region are copping a double whammy. They will face the same high energy prices as all others in the consumption market. They will be hit with the high prices caused by this minister. But, in addition to that, they are missing out on their opportunity to transition to a new energy economy.

There is an opportunity for the Hunter region to remain the powerhouse of New South Wales, a title it has enjoyed for decades. The members representing the region have been saying for many years that our coal-fired power generators are coming to the end of their commercial life. In the case of Liddell, as we know, this will be within five years. We've been saying that we have an opportunity to transition to a new energy economy. How? Gas is obvious. We have the land around the existing power stations. The transmission lines are there. We have the skilled workforce that can easily transition into the gas sector. Beyond gas, we have already established significant solar networks. Wind energy offers enormous opportunities in the Hunter. We have geothermal opportunities. We have the CSIRO in Newcastle, another great Labor initiative. But, for four years now, we've not been making that transition. We can't get investors interested, because they don't know what the rules are—and they don't know what the rules are, because of this mob opposite. No-one would be happier than me if Liddell could be extended, but this minister has no plan to do so.

Nicolle Flint (Boothby, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

As we know, and as I have said so many times in this chamber, the only governments who have failed the Australian people on the affordability and reliability of power are Labor governments. This is a fact. The only members who have failed the Australian people and particularly the South Australian people, the people of my home state, are Labor members, both state and federal. We know. I've lived through it. My community in Boothby have lived through it. We've lived through Jay Weatherill's big failed experiment, the experiment the South Australian people apparently had to have.

This week we've learned from the member for Port Adelaide that they knew exactly what they were doing on gas prices and the impact that would have on electricity prices in Australia. They oversaw the price per kilojoule of gas going from $3 to a whopping $12, something that our government is fixing.

It's fascinating to see the member for Port Adelaide and his and my South Australian colleague the member for Wakefield in here for once. They don't normally turn up when we talk about power, because they're embarrassed to do so, and they should be embarrassed, because what they have done is utterly failed the people of South Australia. I will keep saying this at every opportunity in this place: it was an absolute disgrace when the member for Port Adelaide described the blackout that happened in South Australia last September as a hiccup. It could not have been further from a hiccup. It put people's lives at risk. Flinders Medical Centre in my electorate of Boothby lost all power. The backup generator failed to work—again, another failing of the state Labor government, I'm going to say. It put lives at risk. We had people travelling in peak-hour traffic with no traffic lights. We had single policemen and policewomen standing in every single major intersection in Adelaide directing peak-hour traffic in terrible weather because of the state and federal Labor governments' failings on power. This is far more than a hiccup, and the manner in which the other side has behaved on this issue is absolutely disgraceful.

Now we know that Labor in Victoria are going down this path as well. I just say to the people of Victoria and communities in Victoria that this is what you have to look forward to: the most expensive power in the world, which is what we have in South Australia, and the most unreliable power in the world. State Labor are doing things like importing diesel generators to make sure that the lights and power won't go off over summer. The generators are going to burn 80,000 litres of diesel an hour. How's that for clean, green power and a clean, green approach to electricity generation in this nation? Labor are just frantically chasing green votes, and yet they're imposing diesel power on us. It's just an absolute disgrace.

But what really concerns me is not just the unreliability and the trauma that people were put through in South Australia; it's the cost. Households—mums and dads trying to raise their kids and give back to the community—are facing the most expensive power in the world in South Australia. Elderly people—pensioners, people who cannot afford these power increases—are facing the highest prices in the world, and what's Labor doing about it? Nothing. We, on the other hand, are doing a lot about this. There are a range of things we're doing—pumped hydro. We have some great projects proposed in South Australia. There is Snowy 2.0, which will increase the generation of the scheme by 50 per cent, adding another 2,000 megawatts of renewable energy to the national market. We're getting a better deal for people from retailers. They're contacting individual customers to let them know how they can save on their power bills, and we're looking at new and better ways to communicate to consumers how they can get the best deal. We're stopping power companies from gaming the system, which is really important, and of course, as I've mentioned, we're also making sure that the Australian people get access to gas before it is exported. Labor did not do that. We also have the ACCC reviewing retail electricity prices.

I want to finish by thanking the Minister for the Environment and Energy for visiting my electorate of Boothby last week during our two weeks at home in our electorates. We met with a range of businesses, and the impact of these prices is quite terrifying. I'm very concerned. We heard concerns that jobs are at risk because of these failed Labor government policies. (Time expired)

Pat Conroy (Shortland, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

What a pathetic effort by the member for Boothby. I have news for you: this is a national energy crisis, and you've been the national government for four years. This is a national crisis because we have generators leaving the market without sufficient replacements. We've lost 5,000 megawatts of base-load thermal power over the last decade. Guess how much has occurred under their government? Seventy per cent—twice as much has gone in their time in government in half the time; 3,500 megawatts of coal-fired power has been lost under their watch because they've been in chaos for four years. They don't have a national energy plan. They've given loads of uncertainty for generators, who are unable to make their investments. The truth is that we have a very old power fleet. In New South Wales, the average age is 35 years. In Victoria, it's 44 years. The real question is not: 'Can we survive with it?' It is: 'What replaces it?' Eventually, it has to retire.

The members on the other side are obsessed with South Australia. I've got news for them. Not a single wind farm in South Australia would have been built without the bipartisan Renewable Energy Target. That is the only reason they're built. If there's any issue with wind, they own it! But the truth is that we have an ageing power fleet which is causing curtailment all over the place. On the 47 degree day in February in New South Wales, we didn't lose a couple of hundred megawatts like South Australia; we lost 1,000 megawatts of thermal base-load power—old power stations that were unable to perform. What happened? They were forced to curtail Tomago Aluminium smelter in the member for Paterson's great electorate, imperilling the jobs of over a 1,000 direct employees. They had no choice. If they didn't turn off Tomago, they would have had to load-shed 400,000 homes—four times what occurred in South Australia—because old base-load power couldn't deliver.

So the debate here is about how we replace it. AEMO has belled the cat. If people had bothered to read the AEMO report released yesterday—

Andrew Giles (Scullin, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Or had it read to them!

Pat Conroy (Shortland, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

or had it read to them—thank you, member for Scullin—they would realise it is condemning this government's chaos. Let me read from it:

Feedback from market participants and investors is that it is more financially secure to invest in renewable resources and that they are seeking greater market and policy certainty to be able to make investments in new dispatchable generation.

That is code that investors can't invest in new dispatchable power because this mob don't have a policy they can invest on. We've had four years of uncertainty. The Energy Council, which is made up of the generators, not hippie-dippies or Greens, have said that their uncertainty is the equivalent of a $50-a-tonne carbon price. If we're serious about solving this energy crisis, we need a clean energy target and bipartisan consensus to drive investment—not for the next two years but for the next four decades. But we won't get it under this government because they are hopelessly divided. They're weak. The Prime Minister's in search of a backbone, and he won't find it. All he'll find is opposition from the member for Hughes, the member for Warringah and Senator Abetz, who are the real masters of that party room.

The great tragedy of this is that the workers and communities in my area suffer the most. It's my workers and communities that suffer. I have the poorest town in all of New South Wales in my electorate: Windale. They're being hit with 20 to 30 per cent power rises. They're in the gun right now. It's my power station workers—just like the power station workers in the member for Hunter's electorate—who are being offered all this false hope, but it's all talk because the government have no plan. The easiest thing a politician can do is lie—is to agree with whoever they are talking to—but we owe them our honesty. We need to say that change is coming and we will work with them. We have a plan, just as the members for Hunter and Port Adelaide talked about previously.

I will not be lectured to about supporting coal workers from this government. I will not be lectured to by them. My neighbours are coalminers. My mates at footy games are coalminers. The blow-ins on the other side have never met a coalminer. They don't care about solving this crisis. They just care about getting through the next week in this place. (Time expired)

Ted O'Brien (Fairfax, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I think the Labor Party have lost the plot, I really do. I think they've gone a bit cuckoo over this one—seriously. Think of the MPI topic they have chosen today:

The government’s complete failure on energy policy.

Honourable Members:

Honourable members interjecting—

Ted O'Brien (Fairfax, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I agree! They've gone completely cuckoo. It made me wonder for a moment which government they're talking about. They didn't clarify that. Maybe they're not talking about the federal government. Maybe they're talking about Victorian Labor government, which, of course, is responsible for the closure of Hazelwood and continues to have a moratorium on gas exploration. But I might be wrong.

An honourable member: You are wrong!

I am wrong, they say. Maybe I'm talking about—I don't know—the South Australian government, another Labor government with a 50 per cent renewable target. The state that has lived in blackouts because of traditional, typical, quintessential Labor policy.

Mr Wallace interjecting—

There is indeed a connection, Member for Fisher, and I'll get to that shortly. The South Australian government is over-reliant on wind, and clearly never had the thought that, quite possibly, at some point, the wind may not blow. And then what happens? There are blackouts, and the best they can do is plug the extension cord into Victoria and suck as much back as they can.

But, again, I could be wrong. They might be talking about a different government. How about the Queensland state Labor government? It is another Labor government that has a 50 per cent renewable target. This is the Palaszczuk Labor government, which continues to price gouge consumers so that it can rip out dividends from the power generating companies, which are government owned, to cover its own fiscal mess. In 2014-15, the Palaszczuk government hit government owned enterprises with a bill of $10 billion. That's how bad the Queensland Labor government is. Do members know how much it hit up Powerlink in that same year? Powerlink, of course, is a power transmitter. In that year, Powerlink earned a net profit of $220 million. Guess how much the Queensland state Labor government took as a dividend? Every single cent of it. And guess what it did then? By ministerial instruction, it directed Powerlink to pay an extra $1.2 billion. This is the problem with our power sector. This is a typical Labor government that, exactly like Victoria and exactly like South Australia, will rip out any money it can to cover its own fiscal mess. That's what's happened in Queensland.

Earlier, my friend and colleague the member for Fisher asked, 'Do these governments have something in common?' Yes, they do. They're all cuckoo Labor. That's what it is: they're all Labor governments. If you think the only problems lies with the states, look at the Gillard government. Look at the last federal Labor government, which gave us the pink batts.

Honourable members interjecting—

'It was four years ago, so let's forget about it,' they say. They are full of excuses. They gave us the pink batts and they gave us the carbon tax. The member for Hunter today wanted to recreate it, but instead of calling it the carbon tax it was—what did he call it?—the carbon architecture, and he blamed the coalition. The abolition of the so-called carbon architecture has apparently driven up power prices. They are completely deluded. In the face of such cuckoo Labor governments, all I can say is: thank God we have at the federal level a coalition government in control, because if we didn't they would bring back the carbon tax. They would make sure they only looked at renewables. They've made it very clear they want to close all the coal-fired power stations—typical Labor. Thank God we have the coalition in government.

Nick Champion (Wakefield, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

It's quite the trifecta, isn't it? Doubled wholesale prices, reliability falling and carbon pollution up. It's quite the trifecta! Only a divided government could produce such a result. While the industry is crying out for certainty, while consumers are crying out for certainty, while they want bipartisanship, while they want rational policy making, what do we get out of this government? We got two prime ministers and now we have the member for Warringah acting, essentially, as an opposition leader within the government, contradicting himself in his approach to the RET. He renewed it when he was in office; he's now opposed to it while in opposition—opposition within the government. And we don't hear those interjecting from across the aisle. Why don't we hear them? Because they know I'm talking the truth. Suddenly, there's silence as they think: 'Oh, that's what's happening. That's the trouble. Oh, yes, Nick's right. We are divided. We do have two prime ministers. We have caused a lack of certainty in power.' It takes an incredible amount of chutzpah when you're running this divided, disorganised rabble, producing uncertainty not just in power area but in just about every industry—in the car industry, in the steel industry. In a whole range of areas across public life, we now find uncertainty, unpredictability and a lack of investment. Why? Because we have a government with a prime minister and an opposition leader in it.

When we have those opposite get up and talk like they're living in some sort of Shangri-la at the moment—the speaker before me, so excited about things in South Australia and Queensland and all the rest of it—the truth is: your government got a report called the Finkel report. You ordered it. You asked the Chief Scientist to go out and do it. The report came in. It had 50 recommendations. You then adopted 49 of them, and the one you didn't adopt was the most important—the Clean Energy Target. There's only one reason why you would operate in such a fashion, and that's because you're divided on it, and we all know it.

The member for Port Adelaide has offered, I think, very graciously, some measure of bipartisanship in this area in order to fix this crisis—which we all knew was happening. I talked about gas prices in this parliament in 2013. Yes, I did. You might want to go back and look at the Hansard. All of the problems the Prime Minister talks about today, you could have talked about then. I did, and the member for Throsby did. Manufacturing Australia was doing the rounds in this parliament at that time.

Guess what? You guys got into government in 2013, so it's your responsibility to do something about it. What did you do? You sat on your hands. You've sat on your hands for four years. And now suddenly the Prime Minister wakes up one morning, gets out of bed and says, 'There's a crisis; I'm acting.' What does that acting involve? It involves bringing in the energy companies. Rather than treat them in a respectful fashion, he brings them in for this pantomime. He invites the cameras in and wags his fingers at these CEOs. You wonder why we've got a crisis when the participants are treated in that way and when the best thing that comes out of it is a letter to consumers. I mean, give me a break! And you're going to come in here and brag about that, and go out to your electorates and brag about that—a letter to consumers. 'Oh, aren't we tough!' No-one's going to believe it. They know you're divided. They know you can't provide certainty. They know you're not looking to the future. They know that you're selling snake oil. Every time you go around the place saying you're going to keep these ageing coal-fired power stations open longer than their natural life, people don't believe you. You can keep barking up this avenue and you can keep running crazily towards an ever-receding goal line, or you can actually plan for the future or you can embrace bipartisanship. Or you can embrace the report that you ordered—the Finkel report. Why don't you do that? Why don't you, just for once, engage in rational policymaking in this area rather than running silly scare campaigns?

Kevin Hogan (Page, National Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

This issue goes back, I suppose, to a bigger issue or discussion about global warming. Can I say that from the amount of hot air that's come out of the mouths opposite—there has not been much else—global warming has been done a lot of harm today. We are talking about energy. We talk about renewable energy, and carbon emissions are part of that discussion. Renewable energy targets are part of that discussion. There's been a very healthy debate in this country about both of those.

I want to start by saying that as a government we have international obligations set way back, with the Kyoto targets that we set, I think, back in 2005 with carbon reductions emissions. We as a country will meet that international obligation. We also have a Renewable Energy Target that was set by this country a few years ago, for 2020. Both those targets we're going to meet. We're going to meet the international obligations that we've made about carbon emissions reductions, and we've made a new target in Paris as well for 2030. We are committed to those reductions and, as I said, we'll meet the renewable energy targets we would have. Those opposite said we weren't committed to either of those.

But there's a really integral issue here when we're talking about energy, and that is that, at the moment, there is an issue with renewable energy. There is a bit of a cost with some forms, but there is certainly an issue with reliability. I'm sure all the Labor MPs get very brave when they go into their inner city leftie forums and say, 'We're going to meet higher new renewable energy targets,' but the thing that they don't answer, the thing that no-one over there has said—they'll talk in their slogans, but none of them have said this—is how they're going to guarantee supply. How are they going to guarantee supply from renewable energy targets given the technology that's available? In Finkel's report they talked about it as well. There is at most a four-hour storage capability within big solar projects. We have also seen this with wind. Dare I say that South Australia is the canary in the coalmine—excuse the pun. South Australia is the canary in the proverbial coalmine, and it died. It died because, with the high Renewable Energy Target they have of 40 per cent or 50 per cent or whatever it is, they proved that right now it is not reliable. It might change tomorrow, and sweet hallelujah! If someone comes up with a brainstorm tonight and solves the storage issues with renewable energy and the cost of renewable energy, the debate will be over. If it's cheap and it's reliable, it will be happening, but right now it is not reliable, and what South Australia did was prove that. Their reliance on renewable energy proved that it is not right now a reliable source of energy.

So, as a country, we have to be very careful and very considered about this. This isn't some ideological beating of your chest about renewable energy. This is a very important debate about transitioning to a source of energy that will become in the future, I'm sure, a very important part of our mix but, in that transition, making sure that our energy is cheap, because we compete, and, very importantly, making sure that our energy sources are reliable. On that front, unfortunately, South Australia has been the very unfortunate guinea pig and has shown that is not the case.

So we as a government are committed. As I said, we will be meeting our renewable energy targets that we've set by 2020. We will be meeting our global emissions targets that we set back in Kyoto in 2005 as well. While we're meeting those targets, we're not beating our chests and running around all the inner city leftie forums saying we're going to a renewable energy target of 40 or 50 per cent by 2030. That may happen if there are changes in technology. If there are technological advances in battery storage, that may happen before 2030, but right now that technology is not there. To be planning and doing that without that technology, without being able to guarantee that supply, is very dangerous. Again I reiterate that South Australia have proved that. Until the technology to go to that space is there, it's foolhardy. We can go there when the technology's there to make sure that renewable is a reliable source of power. Thank you.

Meryl Swanson (Paterson, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

It beggars belief that Australia's energy future is so close to the cliff that here, in this chamber today, the two main planks of this government's solution—the two pages, excuse the pun, Member for Page—could well have been ripped from a 1950's history book. We are arguing against the continuation of a 45-year-old power station as opposed to something that some very ingenious people came up with in the Snowy Mountains over 55 years ago. Is that all you've got? We are on the precipice of a true energy crisis in this country, and you mob—you entitled pack of geniuses—can come up with nothing. You failed to innovate and, more importantly, you cannot legislate. You are not only ineligible, in some cases, but you are also totally ineffectual—and herein lies the rub. That is the problem.

In my electorate there are very important Australian industries operating. For them to continue to thrive and survive, they need reliable and continuous energy. In the neighbouring seats of my colleagues, the member for Hunter and the member for Shortland, there are important electricity generators, but they are ageing. We have learnt that the lack of forward planning by this government may necessitate the continuation of Liddell, a coal-fired power station. In some sort of fantasy universe, these guys opposite think that that's a long-term solution. I'm personally, actually, not against the continuation of Liddell, but I know it's not a reality. I know that it is not what we should be putting forward for the people of our regions and for Australia. In this final, desperate measure that is being grasped at by this government, they have failed to plan. You know who you've failed? You've failed the decent people of Australia, who get their electricity bills and think, 'How am I going to pay this?' You've failed the people who go to work every day, the people who farm and need electricity to pump water and the people who are trying to make things. Those are the people you have failed. Now we have no option but to go back to the future to prevent us all from being in the dark—literally!

Never forget that energy is the oxygen of our economy and our communities. It's the health, transport and lifeblood of industry. It's incredibly frustrating that I cannot tell the CEO of Tomago Aluminium, Matt Howell, what the country's long-term energy solution is. In fact, I have a sneaking suspicion that Matt's been trying to give the Prime Minister a few little tips on how to keep the country humming, but the Prime Minister is a bit slow on the uptake. Tomago uses 11 per cent of New South Wales electricity. That's the equivalent of one million households. Basically, it had to be used as a back-up generator last summer. On 11 February, the power company went, 'Just switch it off for a minute, Matt, while we keep the air conditioners going; okay?' That is totally unacceptable. If it loses electricity for more than a few hours, it could be shut down, and that will cause a great deal of pain across our manufacturing sector. There are thousands of employees, directly and indirectly, who rely on it.

How is our nation in a situation where we cannot generate enough electricity to maintain essential industry? It is because there is no national policy. Don't stand over there and bang on to us about pink batts to us. What have you been doing for four years? You've been doing seven-eighths of stuff all! I cannot believe that, in the year 2017, the best option that you can come up with is reinvigorating a 60-year-old hydro scheme. Where is the innovation? Where's the forward thinking? Where is the futureproofing?

Globally, there is a 21st century investment in renewable jobs around the globe, and we are currently coming last, because you are so caught up in looking at the rear-view mirror—so caught up in your conservative ways—that you can't bear to think ahead. You can't bear to do some planning and some legislating for the people of Australia. We've lost one in three renewable jobs in Australia while globally—

Honourable Members:

Honourable members interjecting—

Meryl Swanson (Paterson, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

No, hang on a minute! Globally, they're up 45 per cent. Jobs in renewables are up 45 per cent across the globe, and yet we have lost one-third. It's a shameful indictment and indicator of the road that you have led us down. Meanwhile, our power prices go up and people are lashing out. Let me tell you: they will sharpen their pencils at the ballot box next time. So gird your loins, boys, because you're on the way down!

Jason Falinski (Mackellar, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I'm not sure if I can still stand after that withering attack, but I'll do my best. I've got to say thanks for the comedy show of the last 30 minutes. It's been just wonderful! We've now had doublespeak worthy of George Orwell: it's not a carbon price, it's not a carbon tax, it's carbon architecture. Coming to you in 2019, people of Australia: carbon architecture—just look forward to it. That'll solve all your problems. Then it was: 'The problem is privatisation. If we hadn't privatised stuff, it would all have been fine.' I must have been dreaming in New South Wales between 2003 and 2011, when prices shot up over 250 per cent when it was government-owned. Who owned it, again? That's right—Eddie Obeid, Bob Carr, Joe Tripodi, Ian Macdonald. The list just keeps going on. We will make sure you wear those names for as long as the Labor Party gets elected to any parliament in Australia. Joe Tripodi, Bob Carr, Ian Macdonald—we don't need anything more!

We have just listened to five minutes of 'we need a plan'. When the member asked—

Dr Aly interjecting—

Mark Coulton (Parkes, Deputy-Speaker) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The member for Cowan!

Jason Falinski (Mackellar, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Oh, no, it was enjoyable; please don't stop. We had five minutes of 'no plan, no ideas.' Those on that side remind me of the arsonist who torches energy policy and then comes in here and accuses us of not putting out quickly enough the fire they started. My favourite bit was: 'Oh, no, it's got nothing to do with the moratorium the Labor states have put on gas exploration. No, that's just a coincidence.' Apparently they haven't done it.

Opposition members interjecting—

So what's Pilliga? Is the Pilliga not a gas field all of a sudden? We could go back to Eddie Obeid and Bob Carr, my favourite friends. What did they do in New South Wales? Everyone got a gas exploration certificate. I think there was a gas exploration certificate over the Harbour Bridge at one stage! When the government identifies that 50 per cent of Australians are potentially paying $1,500 a year more than they need to on electricity prices, when it identifies there's an asymmetric market failure and does something about it, what is the member for Shortland's response? Mockery. The truth is that when anyone comes up with solutions to the problems that you create, all you can do is mock. That's the only answer the Labor Party has. The 280,000 Australians who have gone to the website to check what better deal they can get from their electricity provider and retailer are not laughing. They're clapping, because they're getting a better deal.

Every time we give energy policy to the Labor Party—whether it's in New South Wales or whether it's in Queensland, where the Palaszczuk government is using its wholly owned corporations to hold up its awful budgetary position—three things happen: prices go up, reliability goes down and uncertainty runs wild. That is what we have come to expect from the Labor Party.

What have we done over here? We have created Snowy Hydro 2.0. They laugh at that, but the fact of the matter is that Snowy Hydro 2.0 will add 2,000 megawatts of renewable energy to the Australian energy grid. That is enough to supply 500,000 homes. We're told that all we're doing is trying to make things that already work, keep working and work better. Apparently for the Labor Party that's something to have a problem with. Trying to make things work better without having to spend a lot more money is something they don't like. We saw that in New South Wales, with the electricity grid. They gold plated it for no good reason whatsoever. When we finally came, in New South Wales, to lease the electricity grid, the ETU was opposing it while its own superannuation fund was investing in privatised electricity assets in China and a privatised water asset in the UK. That's what you expect from the Labor Party. No answers, all complaints and the problems never end.

Mark Coulton (Parkes, Deputy-Speaker) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The time for the discussion is concluded.