Dan Repacholi (Hunter, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

It's the end of an era for our region in the Hunter, with the closure of the Liddell Power Station. Liddell was built in 1971 and served our region and our state for well over 52 years. It provided much of New South Wales with reliable, affordable power and provided our region with well-paid, secure jobs.

We knew this day would eventually come. The closure was first announced in 2015, and, in the period since then, Liddell had two extensions to its life. But it is still a sad time for those in the Upper Hunter who have grown so used to seeing the smokestacks of Liddell just outside of Muswellbrook. It's part of the Upper Hunter, and it's hard to imagine what it will be like driving up along the New England Highway when we'll no longer be seeing it, in just over 18 months, when demolition has been completed.

Throughout its lifetime, Liddell generated over 430,000 gigawatt hours of power. At its peak, it ran 24 hours a day, seven days a week, and generated enough output to power 750,000 average Australian family homes. The grand old lady, or old girl, as it's known in my electorate, truly was a workhorse. And the grand old lady had a good run, with only one per cent of power stations operating for more than half a century like she did.

You don't find many workplaces where people love their jobs, but people who worked at Liddell were some of the few who did say they loved where they worked and what they did. Some worked on the site for their whole working lives, and the power station gave employment to several generations of families. In its prime, Liddell employed over 700 people. When it closed, it employed 180. As the local member, I'm very proud to say that not a single one of these workers was left unemployed from this closure. Around half went across the road to the Bayswater Power Station, one-third retired and one in 10 are trying something new. There are also 20 employees staying at the site to decommission it over the next 18 months.

Liddell had well and truly done its service to us, but the time had come for the aged power station to close. It had reached the end of its economic and physical life. As it aged, it became less reliable for our energy grid, more expensive to operate and more unsafe for those who worked there. This is why it was time for it to close.

Liddell was a baseload power station. Its job was to run 24 hours a day, seven days a week, making sure our state had reliable power when it was needed. But because of its age, we could not depend on Liddell to supply us with reliable power like it once did. In recent years, the station was operating under capacity. This is why there is no need to fear about our energy supply or price hikes, now that it has closed. This has also been confirmed by the Australian Energy Market Operator, who has told us that there will be no threat to supply from the closure.

Now, I know there will be some who will jump up and down, saying that Liddell should have stayed open and Labor should have stepped in and forced this to happen. But those people—mostly found sitting opposite—aren't basing their argument on logic or even economics. They're basing their arguments purely on politics.

And to the people in my electorate: some will try and tell you that a 52-year-old power station which required constant maintenance and was no longer a reliable source of power generation, and was putting workers at risk, should have stayed open. But the truth is: these people don't care about what's in your best interests. They only care about scoring political points.

I'm proud that the Hunter has been a powerhouse of New South Wales for over half a century, and I will spend every day that I work in this job fighting to make sure that we continue to be the region that keeps the lights on in New South Wales for the next 50 years as well. While the closure of Liddell is the end of an era, it is also the start of a new one, filled with new opportunities and good, secure, high-paying jobs in our area.

Thank you to everyone who has worked at Liddell over the years. The Hunter and the whole of New South Wales is grateful for the important work that you did to keep us warm in the winter and cool in the summer.

Goodbye, old girl. We will miss you every day. I miss you.