Christine Milne (Tasmania, Australian Greens) Share this | Hansard source

I also asked the minister: how are we trade exposed when these other countries have a renewable energy target? But I will just put that to one side for a moment and go back to something else she said. As she rightly pointed out, the wholesale price plus the RET gives you the retail price. If you are not paying the RET because you are exempted, and your wholesale price goes down, you are making a windfall gain. That is the reality and that is the point that I am making here: if the wholesale price goes down by the same or more than the RET cost, they are making a windfall gain. I am really horrified to learn that the Commonwealth just does not know which of these big energy users is already being protected from the MRET obligations by state governments. What we effectively now have is cost shifting from the states to the Commonwealth, because currently the states are picking up the obligation and not passing it on. So the aluminium sector is already protected in Victoria—they just press on, and the taxpayers in Victoria do that.

The issue then becomes: if the Commonwealth now steps up and says, ‘We will exempt them from the RET,’ then what is happening here is that the states will not have to keep on paying that obligation into the future when those contracts are renewed. In fact, what the Commonwealth has done is shifted the decision of the states to sandbags those industries across to the consumers of Australia. When people go to the supermarket they will have less money to spend because they are paying more for their electricity bills so that the aluminium sector does not have to pay it and state governments do not have to pay it. So it is a nice little cost shift from state governments to the consumers via the Commonwealth because of what is happening here.

Senator Abetz made quite a big statement about all those countries that I mentioned. I talked about California, the European Union, the UK, Japan, Canada and China all having renewable energy targets. I would like Senator Abetz or the minister if she can, since Senator Abetz seems to be the expert on this, to tell me which countries shield their energy-intensive industries from their renewable energy target and to what extent. It is a wild claim by Senator Abetz. He may have the Waxman-Markey bill, but let him stand up here and explain to the Senate exactly what he is talking about. I know the minister is going to respond to me in the moment.

On the issue of windfall gain, the minister’s explanation was just to say, ‘Oh, well, the RET is on top of the wholesale price, and therefore the retail price blah, blah.’ I want to know about that connection between the two. She talked about transparency, and I think the community deserves to know which of the energy-intensive industries around Australia is already paying the mandatory renewable energy target. It seems to me that none of them are, even though they are not exempted. They are being paid for by the taxpayers of Australia, no doubt through state taxes, to offset the costs that the state governments are shielding them from. What we have here is a scream from the aluminium sector, who are not paying for any obligation as it currently stands. I think that is most unfortunate.

None of them are talking about leaving the country. They all admit the benefits they have by working in Australia. They all talk about the fact that they like a stable political scenario. They want reliable baseload power. They want a skilled workforce. They have got all of those things in Australia and they are not packing up and going anywhere very soon. They do not even threaten to their shareholders that they are. You would think if this was a major problem for them they might actually put it in their annual reports, but they do not. The renewable energy target is not the problem that they contend it to be. I really cannot see the government’s problem with saying that they agree that there ought not to be windfall gains, and acting accordingly. Otherwise we are basically saying that the people who should help to transform the economy to a low-carbon or zero-carbon future, the people who should be paying to create the jobs in the renewable energy sector and in rural and regional Australia, should be everybody except the industry sectors we are talking about here—that, for some reason, we all should pay so they can benefit. I have made the point that they are energy intensive and so in the future they need renewable energy. They need it because they will pay higher prices for coal fired power unless they can get it, and we are facilitating that outcome.

While I am on that subject, I was interested to hear earlier from the National Party about rural and regional Australia and jobs and so on. I note that the National Party did not support the Greens amendment last night to take the 1.5 kilowatt hour cap off off-grid solar in particular. That affects every community, particularly Indigenous communities, but the Northern Territory cattlemen, for example, were very keen to have that supported because they recognise that this is going to kill off-grid renewable energy around Australia. This is going to seriously undermine any further rollout, and yet we had the National Party opposing it. The government opposed it as well, although I concede that the minister has said she will look at it. I am glad about that because I absolutely want to see the roll out of renewables and I hope that there can be some agreement. I regard COAG as the lowest denominator outcome for anything, but I also appreciate that the minister has said they will try to expedite consideration of that matter. That is another matter entirely, but I would be interested to hear from Senator Abetz about those countries that do shield their energy-intensive industries from their renewable energy target and to what extent; if the minister can provide it, well and good.