Jenny McAllister (NSW, Australian Labor Party, Assistant Minister for Climate Change and Energy) Share this | Hansard source

Well, talk about leading with the chin! This is really quite an extraordinary choice for a matter of public importance for the opposition to propose, isn't it, if we think about their record for just the tiniest of moments. I'm surprised that somebody on their side didn't do that before they submitted this as a topic for discussion. This would be your conclusion: if you were trying—if you set out deliberately to design a scheme—to undermine Australia's electricity and energy sector, you couldn't do it better than what the Liberal-National government did during their time in office. They basically had a three-part recipe for higher electricity prices.

First: announce plan after plan after plan—22 of them—but never implement any of them so that industry has absolutely no idea what is going on and has no real way to plan for the future. Consequently, critical investments are not delivered. Second: stymie, obstruct and disable consideration of climate change by the Public Service and key regulators, and ban the use of the term 'climate change' in key organisations so that Australia's policy development can't properly respond to what every other G20 country has basically accepted to be the key factor driving energy market issues over the long term. Third, and this is the killer: mismanage every energy project that has the misfortune to cross your path, like Snowy Hydro 2.2, which, by the time they left office, was running 18 months late. This was the member for Hume's signature project, running 18 months late—not confessed, hidden, during the election period. The coalition promised a billion dollars—a billion dollars!—which they claimed was going to support 3,800 megawatts of generation over three years ago. Can anyone tell me how much of that was actually delivered? The answer, for those playing along at home, is none. Absolutely no dollars delivered at all in relation to that promise and not one kilowatt of power.

Under the previous government, four gigawatts of capacity left the system and one gigawatt was created. It is a record of failure—crippling failure—and if the coalition had any self-awareness whatsoever, any situational awareness, they would never talk about energy prices again, let alone put an MPI like this up for debate. Instead, what have they done? They've put forward the man behind this debacle, Mr Taylor, as their putative alternative Treasurer. This guy, who ran the Australian electricity system into the ground, is now being proposed as someone who ought to run the economy. The shamelessness is actually quite incredible. Fresh out of office, the coalition are looking back on the damage caused by their last nine years with wide eyes and a faux innocence saying the equivalent of, 'Who, me?'

Australians know that the coalition significantly diminished Australia's capacity to respond to changes in the energy market like the ones we've seen over the past few months as a result of international developments. We have been left vulnerable and more exposed to higher global gas and coal prices. The miracle is that there are very many good people and good institutions that survived this campaign of destruction by the former government, but it is households and businesses who have been left to pay the price.

Our government is doing what we can to clean up the mess that we have inherited from the coalition. There isn't a quick fix. There are nine years of chaos and inaction to undo, and the problems run deep. It's not just electricity but also the broader energy market. Today, the ACCC report that was released confirmed what many Australians already know: that they're paying the price for the crisis in the market that has been left by a decade of division and chaos. We are working to resolve these issues. AEMO released a notice of threat to system security, and they're working with the market. Over the medium term our government is progressing a capacity mechanism with the states and empowering AEMO to buy and store gas supplies. I welcome the announcement from the Minister for Resources that the government will extend and improve the Australian domestic gas security mechanism.

There is work to do across the entire energy system, from generation to distribution. Minister Bowen and the government have helped navigate this tailor-made energy crisis without any load-shedding or blackouts, getting agreement among the state and territory ministers on a way forward for firm renewables. But a key part in our work going forward is to take apart and to resolve the uncertainty, mismanagement, and blindness to climate change that has weakened Australia's energy system during the previous term of government. We're not wasting any time. We have already notified the United Nations of our intention to increase our emissions reduction target. As we've made clear, a 43% reduction by 2030 is the minimum that we'd hope to achieve. As we said in the documentation, our aspiration is that the commitments of our industry, states and territories, and the Australian people will yield even greater emissions reductions in the coming decade. We've scrapped Mr Taylor's dodgy regulation that directed the renewables agency to fund fossil fuels and we've also improved its ability to fund electrification and energy efficiency. We've got moving on the review of the integrity of the carbon offset system, including by appointing Professor Ian Chubb and an esteemed panel to lead that work. We've signed a net zero technology partnership with the United States which focuses on storage, green hydrogen and integrating various renewables into the grid. We've brought forward well-overdue changes to fuel quality standards from 2027 to 2024.

There is so much more to do, and it's an ongoing project, but we are determined to show leadership where our predecessors showed none. We stand by our election commitments, and our climate change and energy commitments are no exception. Our plan will create hundreds of thousands of jobs, with five out of six of those to be created in the regions. It will generate $76 billion in investment and includes modernising Australia's electricity grid through a $20 billion Rewiring the Nation plan. It includes up to $3 billion to invest in renewables, metals, renewable energy component manufacturing and renewable hydrogen electrolysers. It includes 85 solar banks and 400 community batteries across Australia, and 10,000 new energy apprenticeships. Most importantly, it will deliver 82 per cent renewable energy by 2030. That is the modelled outcome of our policies, and it is consistent with AEMO's step change scenario.

This will help drive down prices. It will put downward pressure on prices for a very simple reason, one denied by the opposition: we know that renewables are the cheaper form of energy, and getting cheaper. The CSIRO and the AEMO GenCost report for 2021-22 confirmed that wind and solar are the cheapest source of electricity generation and storage in Australia. It is worth noting that here in the ACT, which is 100 per cent renewable, power prices have actually fallen. More renewables will mean we are less exposed to changes in fossil fuel prices like the high global gas and coal prices that have affected Australian energy markets in recent months. Investing in cheaper forms of generating power, like renewables, means that power prices will be lower than they would otherwise have been.

There was an opportunity, of course, when the coalition could have talked about electricity prices, and that opportunity was before the election. But what did they do? They didn't want to have the conversation then, did they? No, in fact what they did was that they intervened to hide the increase to electricity prices, accumulated under their watch, and to hide it from the Australian people, to conceal it until after the election. The Australian Energy Regulator has been required to release its default market offer on 1 May each year, since the price safety net was introduced in July 2019. However—fancy this, what a coincidence—just days before the election was called, Mr Taylor signed a regulation that delayed when that default market offer was made public. When was the new date? The first business day after 25 May—after the election—a fig leaf of a reason to allow more consultation, as if the previous government ever, ever wanted to consult on anything.

In some parts of the country, the price increase was 19 per cent. This is what Minister Taylor wanted to hide. I wonder if he shared it with his colleagues. I wonder if he shared it with some of the senators on the other side, because that government was addicted to secrecy. (Time expired.)