Larissa Waters (Queensland, Australian Greens) Share this | Hansard source

I move:

That the Industry Research and Development (Bankable Feasibility Study on High-Efficiency Low-Emissions Coal Plant in Collinsville Program) Instrument 2020, made under the Industry Research and Development Act 1986, be disallowed [F2020L00772].

I spoke previously on a previous motion to disallow this ridiculous waste of taxpayers' money, a feasibility study into a coal-fired power station in Queensland. Spoiler alert—it is not feasible. Renewables are cleaner, cheaper and create more jobs. I don't intend to repeat everything I said last time, but I do want to set out again why the Greens remain strongly opposed to this project. I'm seeking to disallow this grant of $3.3 million of taxpayers' money being allocated to a private company, Shine Energy, that has no relevant experience in order to support a coal-fired power station that we don't need in the middle of a climate crisis.

The funding was a government pre-election promise from a slush fund designed to shore up Liberal and National Party support particularly in Queensland. It was the sop to the Nationals, who love coal and who have abandoned farmers. As two farmers from a National Party-held electorate in my office earlier today themselves offered up and as I sadly had to assure them was, in fact, the case.

When Shine's thought bubble project couldn't get any funding from existing programs, the government created an entirely new grants fund: the so-called Supporting Reliable Energy Infrastructure Fund. Then it designed the terms of reference to match Shine's project. Minister Taylor announced that Shine would receive up to $4 million of taxpayer money from the fund for a feasibility study for a so-called high-efficiency, low-emissions coal plant. That was two days before Shine were even invited to apply for the money. They won the thing before they had even applied. No other tenders were sought.

We learned in estimates that the grant was announced by the minister before the department had evaluated a commissioned prefeasibility study into new power plants. I regret to inform the chamber that there has also been little oversight of grant money that has already been paid out to Shine Energy. Reports are that such money has been frittered on vehicles. There's no deadline set for completing this so-called feasibility study.

The entire process stinks. It's currently the subject of an ANAO inquiry, which is due to report next month. It is, sadly, yet another example of why we need a strong independent integrity commission and why we need more funding for the ANAO, rather than the 20 per cent capacity cut that they're going to have to cop because this government hasn't given them additional funds in the budget process—possibly because they do such a good job and would end up embarrassing the government for their own profligate and inappropriate decisions. It's also why we need an enforceable ministerial code of conduct that would prevent misuse of public money.

Even ignoring the integrity questions, as the government would be happy to do, this project is unsupportable. The government says: 'It's only a feasibility study. It may not get built.' Newsflash: new coal-fired power stations are not feasible. While the Nationals persist with their irresponsible calls for new coal-fired power plants, the Morrison government's own energy policies make it clear that new coal power is dead.

The 2020 GenCost report by CSIRO and the Australian Energy Market Operator compares the cost of building and running various electricity generation technologies. It found that coal-fired power costs—wait for it—three times as much as big solar farms or twice as much as wind. For the policy wonks out there: they cost new coal at $4,450 per kilowatt to build, they cost large-scale solar at $1,408 per kilowatt to build and they cost wind power at $1,951 per kilowatt hour to build. Analysis by the Queensland government last year found that, to be viable, a new coal-fired power station would require a wholesale price of $120 a megawatt hour. That's double the current average wholesale price in Queensland, so, unless you want Queensland power prices to double, your own coal-fired power plant proposal is not economically viable.

GenCost, CSIRO's report, says renewables are cheaper than the cost of new coal and gas-fired electricity generation, even though they require investment to expand the transmission network to link solar and wind to the grid and to build up battery storage. Even with those additional capital inputs it is still cheaper than coal, and that's not even to mention the climate impacts. It doesn't account for the benefit of avoided emissions and the damage that that will do, the public health benefits in avoiding those emissions, the jobs saved on the Great Barrier Reef, the jobs created in the renewable energy sector, and the human and proprietorial harm avoided by not making natural disasters even worse.

When asked about the Collinsville project prior to the state election, the Queensland LNP said Queensland had plenty of power and, 'The LNP is not proposing for any government investment into a new coal-fired power station.' Perhaps someone could tell former Minister Canavan that. Given that he's in the chamber, he might like to take note that his own Queensland party is not in fact proposing the very project that he has been hounding the feds for public money to support.

Somewhat surprisingly, last week the Western Australian Liberals also saw the writing on the wall and they pledged to close all publicly owned coal-fired power stations by 2025 as part of 'the biggest jobs, renewable energy and export project in the nation'. It's very interesting to see Liberal state parties accepting the economics of renewable energy. Maybe they don't accept the climate science yet, but they certainly seem to be accepting the economics of it. One hopes that the federal folk here are in contact with their state counterparts. As Frank Jotzo, who's the Director of the Centre for Climate and Energy Policy at ANU said:

… there is no prospect at all for a commercially built new coal-fired power plant in Australia. It really is an open-shut case now. Australia's electricity future is in renewables, bolstered by storage in batteries and pumped hydro.

All of that makes throwing public money at the Collinsville folly extremely negligent. This chamber could stop that criminal waste of public money today. We could disallow this funding instrument. We could do our job and refuse to waste $3.3 million of taxpayer money on a climate-destroying coal-fired power station run by a company with no experience in energy.

Regional Queensland, along with the rest of Australia, doesn't need a white elephant coal project. Those communities need real, sustainable jobs powered by renewable, clean energy. They need a government that acts with integrity and they need a government that takes the climate crisis seriously and cares about their future. I look forward to seeing whether or not sanity will prevail on this obscene waste of public money for a feasibility study into a climate disaster when the grids are already oversupplied and we have cheaper, clean alternatives. I look forward to seeing how the vote goes on this.