Ross Cadell (NSW, National Party, Shadow Minister for Water) Share this | Hansard source

I move:

That the Senate take note of the answer given by the Minister representing the Treasurer (Senator Gallagher) to a question without notice asked by Senator McKenzie today relating to energy policy.

Here we are, talking about numbers. Last week's CPI figures confirmed electricity costs have risen annually by 23.6 per cent—almost a quarter in just one year. What we're seeing is the effect of that. We're seeing the effect of Labor's energy policy in both directions. We're seeing things like the Tomago aluminium smelter saying they can no longer get an energy contract to remain viable beyond 2028, and so 1,400 direct jobs and up to 5,000 indirect jobs are on the line. The only reason that is making news, rather than all the small ones, is that it is so big. What we're seeing is that energy-intensive industries right across the employment sector, including the smaller ones that you won't see, who have five, 10 or 20 employees; engineering firms; bakeries; and things that require gas, are all under the same pressure. In whole, it would be as many jobs as Tomago, but small enough individually to sit under the radar.

On the other side of that, we see Rainforest Reserves Australia coming out and talking about the amount of land these large-scale renewables projects are using and the environmental damage they are causing. They are starting to see the wind towers inserted on the Great Dividing Range, the solar panels across agricultural lands and all of these things being a massive detriment to the environment, the economy and the country.

We have environmental damage creeping up on one side. We have their policy and the consequences to the economy on the other side. They are closing in, with a pincer movement, on just how bad Labor's policy has been. In the middle, the centrepiece of this, is their emissions reduction strategy, which has gone nowhere for four years. This year, Australians will spend $9 billion in subsidies. Mums and dads, people out there and businesses will pay over a thousand dollars extra on their power bills—23 per cent just in the last year alone—for what? For a flatlining result. For nothing. For nada. If you go back to 2022, we were at a very similar level of emissions to where we are now.

Let's go through without the spin or the hype of Labor's energy policy. Let's go through the facts. Power bills are up; people are paying more. Subsidies are up by $9 billion, and that's not counting all the ones for businesses, like the $2 billion clean energy fund. That's just on emissions stuff. We have environmental people coming out and saying that this policy isn't working. We have no change in the emissions. Forget the talking points. We always come here and talk about the talking points. Let's get down to tintacks. The policy that this government has is wrong and the settings are wrong, but someone is so invested in being right that they can't admit it.

It wouldn't take a lot to change a few things. It wouldn't take a lot to go back to an absolute emissions reduction fund that would pay people who want to abate and who can abate to get involved and do it. If you take just the sheer numbers, which are, again, $9 billion, on their numbers, and you take the current Australian carbon credit unit value, of about $30 per tonne, and apply it to the numbers we heard today in the answer—that we wanted to reduce by, say, five million tonnes; let's up it a bit and say $50 for a carbon credit unit, for a tonne—you're talking about no more than $250 million. That is, essentially, what it would cost, in carbon credit units, to abate the amount that this government say they want to abate.

But what do we spend? We spend $9 billion to get $250 million worth of benefits. Where is the common sense? Rainforest Reserves are out there saying it will cost $1.3 trillion to achieve the energy transition. According to Net Zero Australia, the cost to the economy comes out at $7 trillion to $9 trillion. That's $250,000 per person. I'm counting $7 million worth of people in the galleries, but that's a rough guess. That is what we're talking about as the cost to the economy. So what part of this policy is working? If we were going through all this pain and reducing emissions, I might see something. If we were taking this pain and industry was taking off, I'd see something. If we were actually spending money on making our environment better, I would see something. This policy is not working in any area, and we will get up and we will hear 'cleaner, cheaper, cleaner, cheaper', but it is not. That is just a smokescreen to cover for a failed policy, and we need to do better. That's why we on this side are looking for ways to do things in a way that's cheaper, better and fairer for our country so that we can all thrive.