Penny Wong (SA, Australian Labor Party, Minister for Climate Change and Water) Share this | Hansard source

I am sorry. We in the government have consistently said that what we are doing here is setting up a market. Renewable technologies can compete within that market. We recognise that there are some technologies which are more advanced and can come to market immediately or more quickly than others. I think the policy question is: how do you deal with the difference between technologies like wind or solar and technologies which are at a different stage of coming to market, such as geothermal? What I have said is I do not think you do that by simply loading up a market mechanism that is subsidised through electricity prices. You do what the government is doing, which is to put a very significant amount of assistance on budget into different technologies. 17:01:40

I, like you, Senator Xenophon, hope that we will see geothermal and other new technologies being able to compete in the renewable energy market. I think that some of the amendments that we have passed already here will hopefully enable the legislation to be flexible in the future to enable additional eligibility—for example, the amendment moved by Senator Milne in terms of the biennial review. We in the government have already put a very substantial amount of investment into other technologies. These are emerging renewable generation technologies. An example is the Solar Flagships program, which is $1½ billion, and we have committed more than $200 million to accelerate geothermal energy technology development, demonstration and deployment in Australia. We think that is a more sensible way of giving support to this sector, and particularly to emerging technologies, rather than trying to do so through a legislative mechanism.

Question negatived.

by leave—I move government amendments (1) and (2) on sheet CA251:

(1)    Schedule 1, item 124, page 66 (before line 3), before subsection (2), insert:

Adjustment of targets according to number of valid certificates as at the end of 2010

     (1A)    If, as at the end of the year 2010, the total value, in GWh, of valid renewable energy certificates exceeds 34,500, the table in subsection (1) has effect in accordance with the following paragraphs:

             (a)    the number of GWh specified in the table for each of the following years is taken to be increased by half of the excess:

                   (i)    the year 2012;

                  (ii)    the year 2013;

             (b)    the number of GWh specified in the table for each of the following years is taken to be reduced by one quarter of the excess:

                   (i)    the year 2016;

                  (ii)    the year 2017;

                 (iii)    the year 2018;

                 (iv)    the year 2019.

      (1B)    As soon as practicable after the end of the year 2010, the Regulator must publish on its website the total value referred to in subsection (1A).

Adjustment of targets if there is a WCMG start day

(2)    Schedule 1, item 124, page 66 (line 5), omit “has effect as”, substitute “has effect (after first taking account of subsection (1A))”.

This is an aspect of the policy position I think we made reference to earlier, which deals with the banked certificates issue that has been raised with us by industry and by others, including the opposition. In the event that the stock of banked RECs is substantially in excess of what we anticipate, as I think I outlined in an earlier part of the debate, these amendments would enable an adjustment of the target to take that into account. I suppose the best way to describe it is to say that it is a contingent power in the sense that it is a power to alter the targets but only in the circumstances that were previously outlined and that I think are outlined in the supplementary memoranda. I commend the amendments to the chamber.