Eric Abetz (Tasmania, Liberal Party, Minister for Fisheries, Forestry and Conservation) Share this | Hansard source

To sum up, I will be as brief as I possibly can. I will indicate that concerns have been raised by sections of the renewable energy industry that the gaming provision in the bill may unintentionally penalise or discourage, for example, sugar mills and refineries from optimising or expanding their core operations or improving their electricity generation and efficiency. This is not the government’s intent, as indicated in the explanatory memorandum. To clarify this situation, the Renewable Energy (Electricity) Amendment Bill 2006 will allow regulations to be made which will specify certain matters that the regulator must take into account when making his or her decision.

Amendments have been moved by the Australian Greens and the Australian Democrats to increase MRETs. However, increasing the MRET would impose significant economic costs through higher electricity prices in Australia. Targets of five per cent and above could increase the cumulative economic costs of MRET by $10 billion. It is suggested from time to time that that would only be the cost of a cup of coffee per month—or, to be more politically correct, possibly a cup of soy latte per month. That is all very well for those who live in a household, but when you multiply that impact on energy consuming industries—and in my home state of Tasmania and yours as well, Acting Deputy President Barnett, we could think of some, such as Comalco at Georgetown in the seat of Bass, Port Latta in the seat of Braddon, Cement Australia in the seat of Lyons or Xenofex in the seat of Denison—the cumulative cost of the increased power supply to those companies would clearly see masses of jobs being shed and we as a government do not want to preside over such an occurrence, having now gotten the unemployment rate down to below five per cent.

It will not surprise anyone that we oppose the Labor Party amendment. We do not believe that the Kyoto protocol is the appropriate way to go. We believe it is now quite established that it is quite a discredited framework and not effective, because it does not include some of the more important countries. It will simply export jobs out of countries like Australia to China and India, and they would then be undertaking the pollution for no net benefit to the global environment.

In relation to other measures to improve energy efficiency, they would be a good idea but for the mentioning of an effective five-star building code. I am not sure what is meant by that, but I know that a five-star building code is going to come into force in the ACT on 1 July. That is something which has been repudiated—thank goodness—by the state Labor governments of Tasmania and even the Deputy President’s state of Queensland because the code does not take into account the whole carbon dimension of its recommendations.

Unfortunately, this code seems to recommend against wooden floors. Of course, the alternative is a concrete floor, and when you take into account the energy consumption in making the cement and the concrete, it is in fact environmentally more damaging to have a concrete floor than a wooden floor. Nevertheless, that is what this building code requires. If I can use Senator Milne’s terminology about whether we want quarries or brains, this building code that is being suggested will in fact ensure the ongoing quarrying of limestone, gravel and other things for the making of concrete, as opposed to what our brains tell us—that a renewable source, namely timber, is environmentally better. Whereas concrete and those products are congealed electricity, trees and wood products are in fact congealed solar power. I thank honourable senators for their contributions and recommend the bill.

Question negatived.

Original question agreed to.

Bill read a second time.