Renee Coffey (Griffith, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

My question is to the Minister for Climate Change and Energy. How is the Albanese Labor government modernising our energy grid? Why is this important after a decade of mismanagement, and what are the risks?

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

The honourable member for Griffith will be particularly pleased to know, given we launched the cheaper home batteries policy in her now electorate—it wasn't her electorate at the time but it now is—in April that, as of today, 230,890 Australian households have installed a cheaper home battery, reducing their bills by up to 90 per cent and, in many cases, getting a rebate instead of a bill. Those figures are not included in the 7.7 gigawatts of dispatchable energy that we have added to the grid.

To go to the honourable member's question about progress, we saw a sign of that progress in the last quarter of last year when we hit 51 per cent renewables for the first time. It was also a quarter of record electricity use. There was more electricity use than ever in Australian history, but the grid coped very well. We saw emissions hit an all-time low as use hit an all-time high, and we also saw wholesale prices fall by 44 per cent to $50 a megawatt.

The honourable member asks me why this is important after a decade of neglect and what the risks are. I have to say that the 50 per cent figure which we've just hit was not unpredicted. In fact, in 2018, the Labor Party indicated we would like to get to 50 per cent renewables. At the time the then energy minister was asked, 'What will that mean for wholesale prices if we get to 50 per cent renewables?' On the day he was asked, when he was the minister, wholesale prices were $92 a megawatt. The member for Hume was asked, 'What will happen to wholesale prices if we get to 50 per cent renewable energy?' He said: 'It will certainly have a huge impact on wholesale market. It will probably double the wholesale market.' In fact, prices have halved since then. Double, half—it's all the same!

This is good news for the member for Farrer, because numbers aren't the strong point of the member for Hume. When he when he's not getting them wrong, he's hiding them by changing the law or making them up, like he did when it came to the travel bill for the lord mayor of the City of Sydney, and then blaming his staff for it. The only thing that the member for Hume has more trouble with than numbers is working out what Facebook account he's logged into at any particular time. It's very confusing sometimes. It's very hard work.

The trouble is there is very little cost to be paid for that sort of mistake, but Australians are paying the price of the member for Hume's mismanagement. Those four gigawatts left the grid and only one gigawatt came on. We're still paying the price. Australian industry is paying the price. Australian households are paying the price. Australian households know that we need to get on with the job of the energy transition after a decade of denial and delay. That's what they asked us to do in May. That's what we'll keep doing while those opposite are focused on themselves.