Lisa Singh (Tasmania, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Parliamentary Secretary to the Shadow Attorney General) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise to speak of the importance of a strong and robust renewable energy industry in this country. In 2013 Australia was one of four most attractive countries in which to invest in renewable energy. Prior to the 2013 election, the renewable energy target was a bipartisan agreement between the coalition and Labor, and had been so for over a decade. Before Prime Minister Abbott shifted the burden of paying for pollution from the polluters to the taxpayer, before the election he and Minister Hunt promised that the renewable energy target was a bipartisan target and would be left alone. That was a promise, like too many promises, that he and Minister Hunt would not keep. By breaking its promise on over a decade of bipartisan certainty on the renewable energy target, the Abbott government has successfully undermined a key plank of the then Howard government's environmental and energy program and, in doing so, has undermined the renewable energy industry.

In the meantime, the rest of the world is investing in renewable energy and preparing for a clean energy future—investing more and investing quicker. Since 2013, the world has been adding more capacity for renewable energy each year than for coal, natural gas and oil combined. Costa Rica powered itself entirely with renewable energy for the first 75 days of this year, and China, the biggest investor in renewable energy, has announced policies to build a clean energy system the size of the entire US electricity network in 15 years. The Chinese National Energy Administration has stated it has connected over five gigawatts of solar power to the grid for the first quarter of 2015. China now has 33 gigawatts of solar power supply and aims to add 17.8 gigawatts of solar power this year. In the US, the Governor of California, Jerry Brown, in January set a target of sourcing 50 per cent of his state's power supply from renewables by 2030. In April, HSBC analysts warned of the growing likelihood that fossil fuel companies may become 'economically non-viable' as people move away from carbon energy and fossil fuels are left in the ground. HSBC suggests divesting completely from fossil fuels and shedding the highest risk investments such as coal and oil.

But almost immediately the 2013 election was won, the Abbott government chucked its promises and began making statements clearly aimed at undermining and destabilising investment in the renewable energy industry in Australia, like blaming the renewable energy target for significant price pressure in the system—an opinion so inaccurate it must have been borrowed from Tony Abbott's business adviser and climate sceptic Mr Maurice Newman. It became obvious what was planned when the Prime Minister's office established an unnecessary and inaccurately-described 'independent review' to the renewable energy target instead of taking expert advice from the Climate Change Authority's legislative-required review of the renewable energy target. The outcome of the disgraced Warburton review, as it has become known, was guessed by the rest of us when the Prime Minister hand-picked an assortment of fossil fuel boosters and climate change sceptics to sit on its panel but did not appoint anyone with any in-depth industry experience or expertise in renewable energy.

After refusing to accept the report's initial recommendations, after the findings of ACIL Allen's report, sending it back for more work on options to abolish the renewable energy target and then finally accepting the report in September, the government has sat on it and refused to respond to it. Instead, they have focused on a floating real 20 per cent target for renewable energy, as if Australia needed a limit on the amount of renewable energy generation and engaged in eight months of dishonourable haggling to reduce the renewable energy target to a figure their big pollution donors would accept. Now we are here at a figure of 33,000 gigawatt hours as a revised large-scale renewable energy target after a dishonest, manufactured crisis by this government and that the Clean Energy Council has described as causing a cut in large-scale renewable energy investment in Australia of almost 90 per cent in the last year. That has forced many of the sector's 21,000 employees out of their jobs. No new projects are going ahead—and why would they? The government has sought uncertainty in the sector, and it has achieved it. It has damaged investments. It has spooked investors, with many of them losing confidence in Australia as a safe investment destination. This is a far cry from 2013, before the election, when Australia, as I said, was one of four most attractive countries to invest in renewable energy.

Just to make sure that the uncertainty was guaranteed and as destructive as possible, the Abbott government has performed another backflip on multiple promises it made as recently as two months ago by eliminating the need for two-yearly reviews of the renewable energy target. If there is still a process of reviewing this scheme every two years, investors simply will not put their money on the table. They will not build new projects. But if we refer to the joint press release on 16 March, when Minister Macfarlane and Minister Hunt clearly understood that this issue goes to the heart of investor confidence, they said:

As the Government has made clear throughout the negotiations … we will also remove the requirement for regular two-yearly reviews of the RET to give the industry the certainty it needs to move ahead.

Yet now they have completely reneged on that part of the deal. Clearly there in black and white in their own press release on the government's website they said that they would remove the requirement for regular two-yearly reviews. By raising this red herring of the inclusion of two-yearly reviews and of native wood waste to be included in the target, this completely undermines the newly negotiated target of 33,000 gigawatt hours. But, as the Clean Energy Council and the Solar Council have made clear, this deal simply cannot proceed unless the government drop their reckless idea of re-establishing these two-yearly reviews, because that goes to the very heart of business confidence, of investor confidence. Labor has always been with the industry in restoring investor confidence, and that is why we have negotiated in good faith to come to the figure that we have come to of 33,000 gigawatt hours. Yet, the government—dishonestly, again—has now put these red herrings on the table. One would be not a sceptic at all to think that this government simply does not believe in wanting to get to a negotiated outcome.

The jobs and investment created by the Renewable Energy Target are critical in my home state of Tasmania, a hallmark of renewable energy, and I am sure that the Tasmanian Premier, Will Hodgman, is very timidly and quietly worried about the Commonwealth's attack on the RET. He certainly has been deadly silent on it. Tasmania currently supplies more than 40 per cent of the nation's renewable energy and, with further development, has the capacity to utilise its natural advantages in hydro and wind into the future, growing the industry further in Tasmania and growing jobs, much needed jobs, in our home state. Tasmania simply cannot afford to lose the jobs and economic growth provided by renewable energy to Tony Abbott's ideological attack. Labor simply will not stand by and watch another industry disappear from Australia under this government's watch.