George Brandis (Queensland, Liberal Party, Attorney-General) Share this | Hansard source

Senator Di Natale, what we are concerned to do and what we will invest in is having the best mix of technologies, which includes clean coal, to ensure that we keep the lights on and ensure that the electricity that is delivered to the households of Australia is delivered at an affordable rate.

Australia has some of the most abundant and least expensive coal in the world, and it is a fantasy—it is a 'fairies at the bottom of the garden' fantasy—to imagine that Australian can have an acceptable level of electricity pricing if we have a renewables-only electricity power base or, as the Australian Labor Party would wish to have, a 50 per cent renewable energy base. We have to have a judicious mix of all the different technologies in order to take advantage of our natural assets, and that includes coal.