Senate debates

Monday, 11 November 2019

Bills

Treasury Laws Amendment (Prohibiting Energy Market Misconduct) Bill 2019; Second Reading

9:40 pm

Photo of Tim AyresTim Ayres (NSW, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

I think you should just let him go; he's got to get it all out! After changing prime ministers, the Liberal government had another go at energy policy.

Senator Rennick interjecting—

You've been at the heart of this too. You've been at the heart of this disaster. In 2017 Malcolm Turnbull proposed the National Energy Guarantee, targeting emissions and reliability. He didn't have the support of his own party and he didn't last for much longer. We recently heard from the former Prime Minister that the energy crisis will continue under the Morrison government. He said that the Liberals are simply incapable of delivering policy that takes carbon emissions into account. If they were serious about ending the energy crisis, the government would come back to the table on the National Energy Guarantee.

Instead of getting serious and making real, lasting attempts to fix the mess, this is what we've had from the government in the last few months. We've got an inquiry into nuclear power, as if an expensive and dangerous nuclear power plant that won't be operational for 20 years is supposed to solve a crisis that we're experiencing here and now. We have attempts to keep increasingly unreliable and economically unviable ageing coal plants open, rather than policy to support their replacement with clean, cheap alternatives. I've been to the Liddell Power Station. I've worked with people who've worked on Liddell Power Station. Everybody knows it's a power station that's running out of time. Lastly we've got this bill—the 'big stick' energy legislation—which is not going to go anywhere near solving the crisis that's in front of the country.

In short, all the government has achieved is a confusing jumble of policies, with no vision, no guiding principle and no policy coherence. The coalition is beholden to climate change deniers and pro-coal lobbyists. Anyone who believes in the need to take urgent action on climate change and invest in renewable energy is barely visible in the government, and they are frightened to speak up. Anybody who has any trouble understanding how much trouble the Morrison government is in on energy policy should tune in and listen to the Senate tonight and listen to Senator Rennick's brilliant interview on Sky television, and that will tell you exactly how bad it is over there.

Since 2015 under this government, we've seen gas prices triple and wholesale power prices across the National Electricity Market skyrocket by 158 per cent. Millions of Australians haven't had a wage increase in that time, and this has put an unacceptable strain on household budgets. The lack of energy policy from the government has been cited by the Finkel report, AEMO, the Energy Security Board, industry and Infrastructure Australia as driving up energy costs for all Australians.

It's not only skyrocketing energy prices that have brought us to this crisis point. The Australian Energy Market Operator warns that Australians are at increased risk of power shortages this summer, with more than a million homes expected to suffer power shortages of up to five hours. New South Wales will become particularly vulnerable. EnergyAustralia has warned that blackouts in some areas could last for weeks. These dangers are exacerbated because Australia's energy grid is highly interconnected and increasingly fragile, putting all Australians at risk. Putting aside the direct impacts of power outages on the lives of individual Australian households and the impact of rising electricity prices on Australian households, the Australian economy risks becoming uncompetitive because of the drastic and unsustainable rise in energy prices. This year, BlueScope Steel invested a billion dollars in a steel plant in Ohio instead of in Australia and what they directly said—

Debated interrupted.

Comments

No comments