Doug Cameron (NSW, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for Human Services) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

At the request of Senator Gallagher, I move:

That the Senate—

(a) notes Government policy inaction is driving up electricity prices, and a Clean Energy Target is the solution to crippling policy paralysis;

(b) observes that the Government refuses to act, citing any and all excuse to delay, when everyone knows it is internal Coalition division and the weakness of the Prime Minister that are really to blame; and

(c) recognises that Australians deserve real leadership on energy and it is clearer every day that they will not get it from Prime Minister Turnbull.

Now, I think we don't get that from the Prime Minister because he really is a weak Prime Minister. Even the issues that this Prime Minister, Malcolm Turnbull, saw as important some years ago—he has now abandoned those values and abandoned those principles because he wants to cling to power as the Prime Minister of Australia. So his own personal ambitions have pushed aside any values that he once had.

We see the government set about trying to resolve the issue of high electricity prices. What it did was it asked the Chief Scientist to prepare a report and give recommendations on exactly what the government should do. Dr Finkel, the Chief Scientist, developed a report. Dr Finkel delivered that report. The key recommendation in the report was to introduce a clean energy target. That was the most fundamental issue and the most powerful recommendation that was there. But it is something this rabble of a government, under a weak Prime Minister, doesn't have the capacity to deliver. That's the problem: there is absolutely no capacity to deliver.

You just look at the report in the Financial Review, going back to 13 June this year. Phillip Coorey, one of the main political analysts and reporters in this country, said:

Malcolm Turnbull has been hit with a stronger-than-anticipated backlash over plans to introduce a Clean Energy Target in a battle which is fast becoming a test of his leadership, Liberal sources say.

It goes on to say:

… only four or five MPs had spoken in favour of Dr Finkel's key recommendation—

this was in the coalition party room—

while about 22, including Tony Abbott, were against, and four more unclear.

I'm not surprised that members of the coalition are unclear. They are really unclear about most things. It goes on:

Chief complaints—

this is in the coalition party room—

were that the CET modelled by Dr Finkel did not classify so-called clean coal as a low emissions source and there was widespread scepticism at his forecast that his CET would deliver lower power prices than doing nothing.

You had people arguing in the party room of the coalition that they shouldn't do anything on this and they should do nothing, while you have got working-class families, with kids, battling to pay their power bills. This just shows you how out of touch, weak and unfocused this government is. It goes on:

"It's a slaughter," said an MP inside the meeting "and a lot of the usual suspects haven't spoken yet".

It goes on to say:

… the prospect of doing anything at all regarding a CET is now in serious doubt.

Well, we know that because the government has had this report now for some time, and it is in no way capable of delivering, even though Labor have said that we will work with the government to deliver a clean energy target in the interests of ensuring that we can do something about reducing power prices in this country. Coorey says:

Both Nationals and Liberals spoke against the plan, despite it promising to lower electricity prices and the government yet to do any design work.

So it hasn't even looked at doing any design work on this. This is a government that really is only a government in name. They are doing no governing, they are weak and they are incapable of delivering reduced power prices in this country.

The Financial Review goes on to quote Senator Cormann. He said:

The biggest cost…tax that we could impose on consumers and taxpayers would be to do nothing.

It was actually Senator Cormann who was saying that we've got to do something about this. But Senator Cormann is being ignored in this debate as well. He said that, without policy certainty, prices would continue to go 'up and up and up.' This is one of the most effective politicians within the coalition putting a warning out to his colleagues in the coalition that, if they don't do anything about this, prices would go 'up and up and up'. It even beggars belief that we have the finance minister having to tell the coalition party room that, if they don't do anything on this, power prices will go 'up and up and up'.

It goes on to say:

…CET with bipartisan support would restore investor certainty to a volatile and dysfunctional energy market, resulting in lower prices. The most expensive option in terms of power prices would be to do nothing, Dr Finkel said.

The person who the coalition asked to do a report, Dr Finkel, is being supported by Senator Cormann, the finance minister, who is saying that we have to do something about this. But hour after hour after hour of division within the coalition party room couldn't bring about a resolution to say, 'Let's get on with the job and reduce power prices for the Australian community.' This is not in the national interest. This weak government is not in the national interest.

Then the Prime Minister is reported to have stressed to the party room that the CET did not prohibit the construction of new coal-fired power stations. What planet is this Prime Minister on? No-one wants to invest in new coal-fired power stations—nobody! Yet, to try and appease the opposition to a CET in the party room, the Prime Minister is talking about building new coal-fired power stations. Then he changes his mind on that, and then the National Party bail him up and he's off down that road again.

The energy sector and the experts believe that even if coal is included in the scheme there is no interest in building a coal-fired power station, if only because they are more expensive than renewable energy. This coalition is in an absolute bind. This government just cannot get its act together to operate in the interests of the Australian community. This government would, through its own ideological approach on power prices and on climate change, force ordinary Australians to pay more and more for their power. They are an absolute disgrace.

Malcolm Turnbull, the Prime Minister, doesn't have a clue about how to deal with this issue, because the extremists in the coalition will do anything to stop a proper, measured, scientific approach to dealing with power prices in this country. This is the same Prime Minister, Malcolm Turnbull, who said that he would not lead a party that is not as committed to effective climate action as he was. He said that before they ditched him, and then he clawed his way back, knifed former Prime Minister Tony Abbott, became the Prime Minister, and he is now captive of the climate change deniers, the unscientific rabble that is the coalition party room. The party room is lording it over a weak and ineffective Prime Minister, a Prime Minister who is a huge disappointment to people who thought that this guy, who was on Q&A with a fancy leather jacket, would do something—that this cool character with the leather jacket would actually make a difference.

Well, the cool character in the leather jacket is an absolute captive of the extremists in the coalition. He is weak, he is ineffective and everyone knows that he is a massive disappointment. It has been reported that he's got an identity crisis. Well, you have to get an identity before you can have a crisis. What is this guy's identity? He just goes from one thing to another—capitulates on one issue of his values and one issue of his principles; it's just capitulate, capitulate. That is the Prime Minister we have—a Prime Minister who would force the community to pay $122 million for a postal survey instead of standing up to the lunatics in the coalition who will never agree that everyone should get equal rights in this country. Households are battling to pay their bills, just being ignored. The man who led the campaign for a republic won't bring a republic debate, won't talk about a republic, because the extremists in the coalition have complete control.

You only have to go back to look at why we're in this position. It is because the coalition is led by nose by former senator Barnaby Joyce, who was a Kiwi at the time he was in here—a New Zealander—making speeches about $100 lamb roasts. Remember that? He was creating fear in the community about doing something in relation to climate change. Why was he doing that? He was doing that because he was being funded by the mining sector in this country. He was being given massive support and the National Party were being given support by the mining industry in this country. What is the result of that? We are all facing higher and higher power bills because of his incompetence and his bending the knee to the climate change deniers. It's been a decade of stupidity from the coalition. There was even someone who wrote a thesis about climate change. It was Mr Greg Hunt, the ex-environment minister, claiming that it would be $1,300 a tonne. What did ABC Fact Check say? That it is untenable. It is just a nonsense.

I worked in Liddell power station for seven years as a maintenance fitter. I went there in 1974, two years after it was opened. I worked there until about 1981. In those days, in 1972 when this power station was built, Donny Osmond was No. 1 in the charts with Puppy Love. That is how long ago it was when Liddell power station was commissioned. Don Maclean was up in the charts with American Pie, and—Senator Nash would like this—the pipes and drums of the military band of the Royal Scots Dragoon were in the charts with Amazing Grace. The P76 was out there. Remember the Leyland P76? That is when Liddell was built, yet we have a Prime Minister saying we should extend the life of that power station over 50 years. It just beggars belief. The AGL chief executive has said, 'I'm not keeping it going.' I know about some of the problems we had when I was as a maintenance fitter there, trying to keep the boiler tubes decently intact. And I know how the turbines played up and how the turbines have been closed down on a number of occasions over the last year. I know the problems that are there. Yet we have a Prime Minister who wants to keep Liddell power station going.

I like Liddell. I must say, it was great. I was a union delegate at Liddell. We had good wages and conditions. We had good camaraderie. We had bosses that were awful, but we fought back. Even so, those workers deserve a proper move from a power industry that's not going to get any investment to a situation where they can get new jobs doing work in new areas such as clean energy. There was a report in The Singleton Argus today from Elise Pfeiffer. She sounds like a very good reporter; it's a very good article. It says:

In a statement to the Australian Stock Exchange on Wednesday, AGL yet again insisted it does not plan to sell its ageing Liddell power station nor keep it open beyond the set date of 2022.

Instead, the energy powerhouse is assessing its ability to replace the coal-fired station with a mix of energy from solar and wind, and fill its capacity gap with a mix of load-shaping and firming, from gas peaking plant, demand response, pumped hydro and batteries.

That's what the future is laying out. That's where I want the kids of the people I worked with at Liddell power station to be getting their jobs. That's what they should be doing. That's where the young kids who are listening in now should be getting jobs: load-shaping and firming, hydro, batteries, wind power, solar power. That's the future of this country. Yet the coalition are so backward, so incompetent, such troglodytes that they cannot understand what the future is. It goes on to say that the more economically viable position is the one I've just described, and that is opposed to spending millions on upgrading a 46-year-old plant.

Mr Andy Vesey said:

It will require a significant investment and so, you know, if you're thinking about extending the life of a plant like that for 10 years, let's say, the level of investment would be significant …

And the question we have to ask if we're going to make a significant investment in generation, would we do it in an older plant which is less reliable with higher maintenance costs or should we be making that investment in new technology which aligns with what we believe is the future which will be a greater value long term to our shareholders and customers.

The other thing at Liddell power station is that, when the power station was built, Denman Shire Council was the council that entered arrangements about the build with the then state government, but there was no agreement about the clean-up costs, so whoever ends up with that power station will have hundreds of millions of dollars of clean-up costs. These are issues that would have to be factored into any sale price and factored in by anyone who thinks they would take that over.

I will finish on this. A recent report said the coal-fired power stations, Bayswater and Liddell, were creating huge toxic problems—30 toxic substances that have serious health impacts on the communities of both Singleton and Muswellbrook. Why would we keep that going, when AGL are saying there are different ways to do this? I was not a great fan of privatising the power industry; I'm not a great fan of what's happened. Combined with the incompetence of the coalition and Malcolm Turnbull, all it has led to is this crisis.

Zed Seselja (ACT, Liberal Party, Assistant Minister for Social Services and Multicultural Affairs) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I, for one, certainly enjoyed that trip down memory lane from Senator Cameron. I wasn't aware of what was on Top of the Pops in 1974.

Doug Cameron (NSW, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for Human Services) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

You were two!

Zed Seselja (ACT, Liberal Party, Assistant Minister for Social Services and Multicultural Affairs) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

That was a couple of years before my birth. I've got no doubt that Senator Cameron wanted to do that trip down memory lane. I am more interested in a more recent trip down memory lane—this is going back to the last, incompetent, Labor government and its energy policy. We might talk a bit about that. I don't know who was top of the pops, I can't remember who was top of the pops, in 2010, but there was this crew in charge called 'Gillard and Brown', in a Labor-Greens government, who delivered us a carbon tax and a disastrous energy policy. That's why I'm shocked that Labor wants to talk about energy policy today in the Senate. Yesterday we were talking about its economic failures; today, its policy failures on energy—and what failures they have been. This is the party that introduced a carbon tax, the whole point of which was to raise electricity prices. This is the party that introduced a mining tax that hit the economy and made it tougher to use our abundant natural resources. This is the party that, with its partners the Greens, opposed coal mining and any effort to build power stations.

Senator Cameron talked about values. Remember when the Labor Party valued workers? I recall, distantly, a Labor Party that actually used to value workers. But this is the Labor Party which, in South Australia, cost local businesses $450 million because it simply couldn't keep the lights on. With a 50 per cent renewable energy target, the Labor Party in South Australia brought blackouts throughout last summer and left its people with the highest power bills in the country—and you want to talk about an energy policy!

Now Bill Shorten wants to take Jay Weatherill's energy policy national. That's what Bill Shorten wants to do. He wants to deliver the South Australian experiment and impose that on the Australian people. It is Labor nationally that is proposing a 45 per cent emissions reduction target by 2030, a 50 per cent renewable energy target, the forced closure of coal-fired power plants, and no energy security plant. That sounds like a Greens policy to me. It reminds me of a local Greens politician who said words to the effect of 'we don't want to go back to the caves just yet'. That is the type of policy, this Greens-inspired Labor policy, that will kill our economy.

Together these policies would absolutely wreak havoc on Australia's households and businesses, including the 900,000 Australians who work in manufacturing. These are workers who the Labor Party used to care about, but no longer do. Labor's own modelling, back when it was in government, showed that a target similar to 45 per cent, which Bill Shorten wants to impose on Australia, would increase wholesale electricity prices by 78 per cent. The Business Council of Australia called this 45 per cent target 'risky' and 'unnecessary' and said it could jeopardise Australia's future economic growth.

Only the coalition is capable of delivering solid, reliable and affordable energy for Australians. We as a government take this issue seriously, and we're not taking an ideological approach. Our priority is energy affordability and reliability, while meeting our international targets. That's what a responsible government does. We don't put forward unfunded energy targets. We don't try to close down power stations, leaving a state vulnerable to mass power outages during a storm. We look at the evidence and make considered decisions accordingly. That's why we commissioned an independent review of the National Electricity Market.

Australia's Chief Scientist presented his final report on the future security of the National Electricity Market to COAG leaders on 9 June. The independent review was commissioned following the statewide blackout in South Australia on 28 September 2016. It notes that business as usual is no longer an option. On 14 July 2017, the COAG Energy Council agreed to immediately act on 49 of the 50 recommendations of the independent review into the future security of the National Electricity Market. Following the eight-month review led by Australia's Chief Scientist, Dr Alan Finkel, these significant reforms have been agreed to in record time and will help to drive down power prices and ensure we have a more reliable system well into the future.

Key recommendations which the Energy Council agreed to include:

To help increase gas supply and reduce prices, the government calls on states and territories to accept the Chief Scientist's recommendation to adopt a science based, case-by-case approach to new gas supply and end their arbitrary bans and moratoria. This is effectively saying that we shouldn't be adopting a Greens approach when it comes to exploration. As for the clean energy target, we'll continue to work through it in a considered manner, with further analysis required. What we won't do is what the Labor Party has done and just declare a target without any planning or forethought and expect the Australian people to pay for it.

The coalition government also understands that base-load power anchors our electricity system. We know that we need to keep the lights on for all Australians, something that Jay Weatherill and Labor don't understand. We need to ensure we have enough power to meet future needs. The Australian Energy Market Operator's dispatchability report confirms that the accelerated withdrawal of base-load power, as pushed by the Labor Party, creates major risks in terms of both price and stability. AEMO's analysis shows there is a heightened risk of shortages during summer peaks without targeted actions to provide additional firming capability. They are currently seeking to contract 1,000 megawatts of additional generation for the coming summer to make sure we have enough electricity for these peak demand periods in South Australia and Victoria. The reckless policy of state Labor in Victoria and South Australia, contributing to the closure of Hazelwood in Victoria and Northern power station in South Australia, has seen the need for AEMO to take these steps.

Consistent with the advice of the Finkel review and of the market operator, the government will accelerate work around the strategic reserve, which will beef up how AEMO currently contracts for reserve generation to manage summer peaks. With a major coal-fired power station, Liddell in New South Wales, scheduled to close in 2022, AEMO has identified an additional shortfall of 1,000 megawatts from 2022 onwards. The Prime Minister has started discussions with AGL on keeping Liddell operating longer, remembering that our first obligation to families and businesses is to ensure the stability and affordability of the system. While the government understands coal is absolutely critical to the future of our energy system, Bill Shorten wants to close down coal-fired power stations.

We aren't only looking at coal, though. To help with the integration of more renewables, we are working with ARENA on pumped hydro projects in Queensland, South Australia, Tasmania and New South Wales. The jewel in this crown is the development of Snowy Hydro 2.0, which will increase the generation of the scheme by 50 per cent, adding 2,000 megawatts of renewable energy to the national electricity market—enough to power 500,000 homes. With a reckless 45 per cent emissions reduction target, Labor needs to be held to account for policies that will lead to higher power prices and a less stable energy system. To compare and contrast: everything that the coalition government has done in this space has been designed to deliver affordability and to ensure that we have reliability; everything that Bill Shorten and the Labor Party, at both state and federal levels, is proposing will do exactly the opposite. It will undermine the security and stability of our system and it will dramatically push up prices, as we saw when Labor was last in power.

We are not just looking at the supply side of electricity. We are also looking at what is happening in homes around Australia, with many families not being on the best deal they can be for their home electricity. That's why we're taking further action to help Australian families. We know that 50 per cent of households have not moved retailers or contracts in the past five years, even though savings can be as high as $1,500. At the first meeting of retailers, the Prime Minister has secured agreement on immediate measures and ongoing changes, to be backed by law, to put families and small businesses first.

The commitments from the retailers include: contacting all customers who are on expired discounts and telling them how much they can save on a better deal; requiring companies to report to the government and ACCC what they are doing to get families on a better deal and how many families remain on expired deals; developing simple plain English fact sheets with understandable comparison rates; supporting a change to the electricity rules requiring companies to inform customers when their discount benefits end, setting out the dollar impact of doing nothing; and ensuring families and individuals on hardship programs will not lose any benefit or discount for late payment.

At the second meeting, retailers agreed to go further, contacting another one million customers on standing offers—usually the most expensive rates. The government also secured a commitment from retailers to make available to customers their consumption and payment information, working with the Australian Energy Regulator on a QR code or equivalent on their bill which they can scan using a smartphone and instantly compare offers from other retailers. Since the first meeting, over 280,000 Australians have visited the government's Energy Made Easy website, which allows them to seek a better deal. The industry and government will continue to work together over the coming months to make more changes that will ensure families do not have to pay a cent more for electricity than they need to. The coalition government has directed the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission to review retail electricity prices. The review will scrutinise electricity retail behaviour as well as contracts offered to residential and business customers and ensure consumers benefit from competition in the National Electricity Market. Competition in retail electricity markets should mean lower prices for residential and business customers.

The Turnbull government is determined to ensure Australians get a better deal for their energy. An interim report will be delivered by September, with the final report by June 2018. In responding to the ACCC's review, the coalition government will consider what further action should be taken to ensure the market is competitive and energy consumers, both residential and business, can have confidence in the reliability, security, pricing and terms and conditions of supply. The coalition government will also legislate to remove the ability of networks to appeal the merits of decisions of the Australian Energy Regulator: This will remove the ability of regulated energy network companies to game the system at the expense of consumers. This reform is critical, as network costs make up around 40 to 50 per cent of the household bill. Energy networks will have access to judicial review if they want to challenge the AER's decisions. Telecommunications, water and postage sectors do not have access to merits review and nor should the energy sector. The LMR regime was established in 2008. Since then, electricity networks have used it to challenge 32 out of 51 AER decisions, resulting in $6.5 billion being passed on to consumers in their electricity bills. In not one instance has an appeal by the networks led to reduced costs for consumers. This process is seen as a free option for network businesses. A research note by a major broker said of LMR:

… investors are getting this as a 'free option', with the upside being it brings forward a dividend surprise.

In December 2016, the Commonwealth sought agreement at the COAG Energy Council to abolish LMR but was unsuccessful in achieving the support of all states due to vested interests. That is why we are showing leadership and taking this position to abolish this appeals mechanism. To back this, the Turnbull government is strengthening the AER by providing it with an additional $67.4 million in funding. This will ensure they are fully equipped to address behaviour in the market that is resulting in higher than necessary electricity prices. This is a response to the recommendation of the Finkel review to increase resources for the AER. Making sure the AER is well resourced is critical to consumer confidence in the electricity and gas markets.

In contrast to our comprehensive, wide-ranging plan to help Australians get secure, reliable and affordable power to their homes, we have seen the results of Labor's green-inspired policies. We have seen what has happened in South Australia—the highest bills in the country and the least reliable network. We have seen in Victoria, as a result of Labor pushing out Hazelwood, energy companies AGL and Energy Australia increasing bills by up to $135 in 2017. In its Climate Action Plan, Labor said it would kick-start the closure of coal-fired plants.

John Williams (NSW, National Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

They'd put us in the dark.

Zed Seselja (ACT, Liberal Party, Assistant Minister for Social Services and Multicultural Affairs) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

As Senator Williams points out, it would put us in the dark. It would put Australia in the dark. Labor wants to take the South Australian failed energy experiment, which leads to lights out and the highest energy prices in the country. Bill Shorten and federal Labor want to take that national. I find the fact that Labor would come to the Senate today and want to talk about energy policy absolutely extraordinary. We are happy to talk about energy policy, because we are absolutely the party who will do all we can to keep the lights on, and we will have the policies to keep prices as low as possible. Labor's only policies will see prices go up and the reliability of our system undermined.

Labor's one policy prescription is closing down 24 coal-fired power plants. The Australian Energy Market Commission said a forced closure policy could cost up to $24 billion and thousands of jobs—thousands of jobs of people whom the Labor Party used to represent. No more do they represent them. The contrast could not be clearer between us and a Labor Party that is now so enthralled by Greens policy that it will take reckless action. Bill Shorten has indicated that, if he becomes Prime Minister, he will shut down our coal-fired power industry, he will push up electricity prices with a 50 per cent renewable energy target and a 45 per cent reduction target, and he will put our economy at risk. Our manufacturing sector, which relies on cheap energy, will be absolutely decimated, and the small businesses that flow from it will also be decimated. There are workers, regional towns and suburban areas and households that rely on this. There are households that can't afford to pay for Bill Shorten's deal with the Greens. And fundamentally—

Carol Brown (Tasmania, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Parliamentary Secretary for Families and Payments) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Mr Shorten.

Zed Seselja (ACT, Liberal Party, Assistant Minister for Social Services and Multicultural Affairs) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I will respond to the interjection from Senator Brown. It is 'Mr Shorten', but I note there was no objection to what I was saying about Mr Shorten's policies: how Mr Shorten's policies will take us back to the Dark Ages; how Mr Shorten's policies will see Australia on a path to oblivion when it comes to our economy; how Mr Shorten's policies, which he has adopted from the Greens, will see the loss of tens of thousands of jobs; how Mr Shorten's policies will see jobs being exported offshore; and how Mr Shorten's policies will see families having more and more pressure put on them because of ideology. That is the offering from the Australian Labor Party and Mr Shorten. They have now adopted Greens policies. They want to shut down the coal-fired power industry in this country. They want to push up electricity prices. They want to give us a state of being that the people of South Australia have been living now for a number of years and, most starkly, in the last year or so when we've seen the statewide blackouts for the first time in living memory. They want to take us back to the Dark Ages.

I'm very, very pleased to sit here and compare and contrast what a Turnbull coalition government is doing and has done with the alternative that is being put forward by Mr Bill Shorten and the Australian Labor Party. The Australian Labor Party once claimed to stand for workers but it now stands for Greens preferences. This is an Australian Labor Party that would absolutely sell this country out with its energy policy. It would sell out our economy, it would sell out our business sector and it would sell out Australian families.

Jenny McAllister (NSW, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

It's apt, isn't it, to be talking about policy leadership on the day that the High Court has ruled that we have to continue with this shambles of a postal survey cooked up by the government?

On energy, much like on marriage equality, the government has had to repair its makeshift solutions so many times that there's really not much left but masking tape and bits of chewing gum.

In this case, it's not just a case of the government making a bad decision; it's actually refused to make any decision at all. Its policy paralysis on energy has had serious effects for business, consumers and our environment. Let's be really clear about this: we are in the middle of an unprecedented investment strike which has been brought about by the government. Earlier this year, the head of the Energy Council, which represents the coal-fired generators and the gas generators, wrote:

We are already experiencing the consequences of energy policy paralysis … The "grid" as we know it is degrading in front of our eyes.

But you don't hear much about that from the coalition, a group ordinarily enthusiastic about championing the views of business, because they are not listening. They are stuck in an ideological dilemma entirely of their own making.

I want to take a moment to consider how we got into this mess in the first place. This is not a technical problem. We know how to reduce electricity prices and we know how to reduce emissions, and we know that those two things are entirely compatible. This is a political problem. It's a political problem because the solution requires the coalition to make a break from the universality of coal-fired generation, a mineral that has long ceased to be an energy source and instead has become a symbol of the culture wars in the coalition party room.

The Liberal Party brawl about energy has been going on for so long that it is hard to remember where it all started, but late last year we were promised a circuit breaker. The Finkel review was supposed to be a way for the Liberal party room to put off having to make a decision about energy policy. They were going to defer it for a while and have an expert come up with what was hopefully a workable compromise. Within days, however, the Minister for the Environment and Energy had already been forced into an embarrassing backdown. On Monday on ABC Radio an EIS was in. The minister said:

We know that there's been a large number of bodies that have recommended an emissions intensity scheme, which is effectively a baseline and credit scheme, we'll look at that …

That is what he was saying on the Monday—'We'll look at it.' On talkback radio on Tuesday it was ruled out. What did he say on the Tuesday, just 24 hours later? He said: 'The Turnbull government is not contemplating such a scheme. We are not advocating for such a scheme. What we are focused on is driving down electricity prices and increasing energy security.' How utterly embarrassing and completely depressing for Australian consumers and Australian energy businesses.

This depressing trend continues. Every time anyone from the government dares question the orthodoxy propagated by the hard Right of the Liberal Party, the hard Right flex their muscles and bring them right back into line. It was inevitable that the same thing would happen to Dr Finkel's proposal. Within hours of the Liberal Party's special meeting on the Finkel report in June, one anonymous but very, very talkative MP had briefed The Australian:

Finkel in its current form is dead.

What we have had ever since is a government in search of an escape and absolutely desperate to avoid making a decision. It has been months since Chief Scientist Alan Finkel delivered his report recommending a clean energy target. The Finkel panel indicated that there was an urgent need for a clear and early decision on a clean energy target. At this stage, I think we'd just settle for a decision.

This isn't a problem caused by partisanship. At the start of this year, industry, consumer and not-for-profit groups put out a rare joint statement on energy. I'm going to read it because all of these groups, not normally allies, said:

The status quo of policy uncertainty, lack of coordination and unreformed markets is increasing costs, undermining investment and worsening reliability risks. This impacts all Australians, including vulnerable low-income households, workers, regional communities and trade-exposed industries.

The finger pointing will not solve our energy challenges. More than a decade of this has made most energy investments impossibly risky. This has pushed prices higher while hindering transformational change of our energy system. The result is enduring dysfunction in the electricity sector.

We need mature, considered debate.

Well, that was in February, and now—in September—nothing has changed.

Labor have been willing all along to compromise in order to find a solution, to work with whoever we can on the other side of the aisle who might be in a position to meaningfully or coherently negotiate. But this is something the Liberal Party has proven to be unwilling and unable to do, time and time again. The problem is that the Liberal Party doesn't need to compromise with us; it needs to reach a compromise with itself. What does the solution look like? It's not coal. You have to wonder how far from the pack you have strayed if you are being slapped down by electricity companies as being too bullish on coal, as the Prime Minister was yesterday. The simple reason AGL, like all the other generation companies, is getting out of coal is that it doesn't make economic sense for them.

Ian Macdonald (Queensland, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

They worked for the Labor Party!

Jenny McAllister (NSW, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I want to take a moment to talk about this, because Senator Macdonald is having a minor fit over there about the fact that someone at AGL once worked for GetUp! and maybe supported renewables.

Senator Ian Macdonald interjecting—

Well, there are all sorts of conspiracy theories, and Senator Macdonald is voicing them now, about how environmentalists are trying to capture Australian business with leftist policies. The fact that people have missed is this: it is not that the Australian energy sector has been dragged to the left; it is that renewables are now a sensible, mainstream, entirely unobjectionable policy proposition everywhere except in the coalition party room. And it's not just business but households as well.

It's worth reading the material AEMO produces, rather than just name-dropping AEMO, which is the government's current approach. AEMO says that net residential demand—the households, the mums and dads the coalition love to talk about—is 'projected to decline as growth in population and appliance usage is offset by increased generation from rooftop solar and by energy efficiency initiatives'. That is what AEMO projects. That's its vision of a future electricity network, and it actually doesn't look like a great big new coal-fired power station.

The electricity system is changing. It is radically altering, and the coalition are simply not keeping up with the market reality, with the technological reality, with the engineering reality. Despite all the carry-on about how they are going to be guided by economics and guided by engineering, none of that is evident in their approach, because they're so selective in the material they are willing to draw on when they are considering the AEMO information. Think about transition. On average, network charges accounted for 43 per cent of residential electricity prices in 2015. If you are generating locally, that entire charge no longer need apply to you. There are enormous savings. If you want to go chasing savings, there are enormous savings available with a more decentralised energy system. Let's talk about storage technology. We've already seen two huge technology driven changes in electricity demand. The peak in the electricity system used to be in winter, associated with heating homes. Now it's in summer, associated with the ubiquitous presence of air conditioning in so many Australian homes. The growth in rooftop storage has seen further changes. There's a dip in energy use in the afternoon as people generate their own power and then a surge in use in the early evening. And storage technology is going to drive further changes.

The system is changing. The demands of the system are changing, and solutions that were appropriate back in 1970, when most of the people on the other side formed their view about energy policy, are not solutions that will work in the future. Battery technologies are expected to fall in cost by another 40 to 60 per cent by 2020. We are seeing the introduction of entirely new technologies that will radically change the way that households and businesses consume electricity, providing opportunities for people to manage their electricity demand behind the meter at home. Energy Networks Australia predicts that 30 to 50 per cent of Australia's energy needs will be supplied by millions of customer-owned generation and storage devices.

The Prime Minister can complain—and he often does, slightly disingenuously, because I'm not sure that he actually believes it—about wind and solar having different generation profiles from traditional coal. Sorry, Mr Turnbull, that is just the future. That is where technology is going. People are going to have rooftop solar; they are going to have batteries—they already do. Tens of thousands of Australian households already do, and they are looking to the government for leadership as to how all these new technologies will be integrated into a new system. But all they get is a nostalgic hankering for coal, which presents no solution to the energy challenge that we face now.

We should be able to make our energy system more flexible, better able to accommodate diverse sources of supply, and better able to manage our demand and sequence our demand so that overall the system is in balance. That is what all of this communication technology will allow, if only the market can be adapted to allow these things to take place, and nothing has happened on this front. The coalition has been asleep at the wheel while report after report has been produced by the AEMC, the AER and the AEMO begging the government to undertake meaningful market reform to allow these technologies to work.

I come back to the original proposition. We need to create a certain investment environment. This is something the coalition has comprehensively failed to do, and the repeal of the carbon price was the first step in a long march towards trashing the energy market. Everybody who knows anything about the electricity system is demanding policy certainty. Dr Finkel presented options months ago that still wait to be enacted. All that it would take is for the coalition to get its act together, sort out its own differences, put aside the dinosaurs and the hard Right of the Liberal Party and the National party, and come to a decision, based, as they say they will, on the engineering, on the science, on the economics and on Dr Finkel's report.

Ian Macdonald (Queensland, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I am so delighted the Labor Party have raised this subject for debate this afternoon. I can't for the life of me understand why they would want to do it. This debate highlights that the Labor Party federally have no policies whatsoever to address the crisis that is confronting Australia. In Queensland, the state that I represent and that I will refer to often in my presentation, naturally enough, the Labor Party are all over the ship on energy policy. The only thing that's clear from the state Labor government in Queensland is that they own the generators of electricity in Queensland. They have been gouging the market, selling electricity—generated by coal-fired power stations—at enormous profit, simply to prop up the Queensland state budget which, because it is run by the Labor Party, would otherwise be in real crisis. From a Queenslander's point of view, there are very high electricity prices. Why? Because they are gouged by the electricity generators of Queensland, owned by the state government, providing huge profits to the state government, who are trying to balance their budget at the expense of Queensland households.

You wouldn't think it could get worse in Queensland, but it can. The Palaszczuk government have indicated that they want to have 50 per cent of Queensland's power in renewables by 2030. For one thing, that provides them with a real problem with balancing their budget, because renewable energy means less coal-fired energy and it means that there will be less revenue going to the Queensland budget. But for consumers in Queensland—for mums and dads and for small businesses—it means that the price of electricity will skyrocket again. In my own home town of Ayr there was a blackout for about five hours a couple of weeks ago. I don't think it was lack of supply. It was probably for some maintenance, but I suspect it's the Queensland government acclimatising us to the fact that, under their policies, Queenslanders will eventually suffer the same fate that the South Australians suffer under the Labor government there—having no power in the hottest months of the year. And for Queenslanders, and particularly where I come from in the north, having no power in the summer months will just be horrendous. This is what you can expect from state Labor governments in Queensland and around the country following the lead of the Labor government in South Australia, where the lights are simply turned out.

There is a fallacy around that renewable energy is cheap. I'm pleased to say that in the north there are a number of renewable energy projects. The Kidston Solar Project has $54 million of subsidies from the Australian taxpayer via the Clean Energy Foundation and another almost $9 million from ARENA, the Australian Renewable Energy Agency. So, regarding suggestions that renewable energy doesn't cost you much: it might not cost you much because taxpayers are subsidising it. There is the Ross River Solar Farm proposal, with $20 million from the CEFC. There's the Kennedy Energy Park, with $18 million from ARENA. This doesn't fit into the same category, but there is the Moranbah solar farm which Adani are going to do. That has no subsidy at this time. There is the Collinsville Solar Farm, with a $60 million subsidy from CEFC and $9.5 million subsidy from ARENA. There is the Pentland Bioenergy Project feasibility study, with another $3 million from ARENA. They are just a few renewable energy projects in North Queensland. Forget about Australia! Imagine the taxpayer subsidies of the clean energy proposals across the nation.

I want to repeat an explanation that a constituent gave me: 'Renewable energy has nothing to do with reducing energy prices; its sole purpose is to assuage the middle-class guilt of the inner-city intelligentsia.' That is not a bad description from that constituent. People who live in a completely different world to the rest of Australia think that they have to do something, so they think this renewable energy will be good for the planet.

Let's have a look at how good it will be for the planet. I do hope that there is a Greens senator around who might come and tell me where this argument is wrong, because I keep raising it. I keep asking the Greens to tell me where this scenario is wrong, but, apart from abusing me and calling me names, they never answer the question. The question is this: Australia emits less than 1.2 per cent of the world's total carbon emissions. I will repeat that so that anyone who might be listening to this can understand that: Australia emits less than 1.2 per cent of the world's total carbon emissions.

If Mr Shorten and Ms Palaszczuk have their way, they are going to reduce those emissions by a small amount. Let's say 50 per cent of our power comes from non-carbon sources; what we're going to do to help the world is reduce Australia's 1.2 per cent of emissions by 50 per cent. I asked Dr Finkel this question: if you reduce Australia's carbon emissions by 1.2 per cent, which is down to zero, what impact will that have on the changing climate of the world? His response was 'virtually none'. Whilst the Labor Party and, as my constituent said, the inner-city intelligentsia with their middle-class guilt feel good about this, it's not going to make one iota of difference to the changing climate of the world—yet it will cost Australians.

You know, Australia used to have a competitive advantage. It was never in the price of our labour. Certainly our labour was skilled, but the price of labour made us relatively uncompetitive around the world. The one competitive advantage that Australia had was cheap, affordable, regular and reliable power. Why was that? Because in Australia we are blessed with huge reserves of high-quality coal and we can get electricity cheaper to Australian manufacturers. Korea Zinc's Sun Metal was encouraged to set up a zinc refinery in Townsville about 30 years ago. This was one of the reasons they set up in Townsville in Australia. Rather than doing what lots of others have done and take the zinc concentrate back to Korea, they set up in Townsville where the zinc was mined. Why? Because they could be guaranteed cheap coal-fired energy for a long period of time. Regrettably—and I know Sun Metal have looked at this with regret in years gone by—that agreement ran out and now they're being forced to pay enormous prices for the huge amounts of power they use, which makes it very, very difficult to compete in the world.

We emit less than 1.2 per cent of the world's carbon emissions. Even if we stopped all emissions from Australia—that is, shut off every electric light, stopped every car moving and didn't allow South Australia to run all of these dirty diesel generators—it would make virtually no difference. If we shut Australia down completely and saved 1.2 per cent, according to common sense—and if you want a better authority than common sense, go to Dr Finkel, who said this—it would make virtually no difference to the changing climate of the world.

My friend and colleague Senator Williams had some research done on Australia's position on coal-fired power stations compared to other countries in the world. I'll say this slowly so some of the Greens and Labor senators can absorb it. Let me give you an example. This research talks in units of power. Australia has fewer than 73 units of power—that is, units of coal-fired power generation. There are 73 from Australia. What has China got? China has 2,107 units. Australia has 73. When we get the coal-fired, base-load power station in North Queensland, which I am confident will come with a change of government in Queensland at the next election, we will go up to 74 or 75 units of power. According to the Labor Party and the Greens, this is going to destroy the world. Australia will then have, say, 75 units of power; China has 2,107; Germany; 155—double what Australia has—Japan, 119; Russia, 358; Poland, 178; South Africa, 108; Ukraine, 112; United States, 783; Again, I relate these figures to Australia. United States has 783; Australia, with its one new coal-fired power station, has 75. Can I ask the Greens or the Labor Party speakers who might be following me in this debate, how does having one new low-emissions, high-quality coal-fired power station in Australia have any impact whatsoever on the changing climate of the world?

I know it is popular for the Greens to say, 'You're a dinosaur; you don't accept that the climate is changing.' Of course I accept that the climate is changing. And I always give the obvious, exaggerated example that once upon a time the world was covered in ice and now it isn't so, clearly, over time, the climate does change. I accept that the climate changes. But, Australia's carbon emissions, if carbon emissions are the problem—I say if they are, but I don't go to that debate—then Australia emits 1.2 per cent. If Labor and the Greens' policies are to be implemented, that might come down by an infinitesimal amount. But even at 1.2 per cent, Dr Finkel confirms that it has absolutely no impact on the changing climate of the world.

There's a lot of misinformation that goes around about carbon emissions and electricity prices. I like energy minister Senator Canavan's description of Westpac bank. When Westpac said that they didn't want to get involved in coal—for one, Adani had never asked them for any money. When we look into it, why Westpac were a bit concerned about the Queensland coalfields opening is because Westpac owns several mines in the Hunter Valley and they own the Newcastle Port, so they don't want any competition. Senator Canavan was so right when he said that Westpac should go back to its old name of the Bank of New South Wales because clearly it was more interested in its New South Wales coal and port investments than it was in the future of Australia.

A lot of comments have been made about AGL, who want to shut down a power station that is making considerable contributions towards the power that we currently have. If Liddell power station, which is owned by AGL, is closed in 2022, the authority has identified an additional shortfall of 1,000 megawatt hours to the Australian grid from 2022 onwards. Fortunately, the government is trying to arrange or assist a buyer to take that project on. But we wonder why AGL is so, what I might call, bolshie about its energy network and the huge money it's made over the years from coal and other energy supplies. Then we read in today's paper that one of their senior executives is a mouthpiece for the ALP. She was, as I understand it, on the board of GetUp! and, no doubt, influencing, very substantially, policy of AGL. I just hope that the shareholders in AGL understand that this company, which has made squillions out of energy supply, most of which was from coal-fired power stations, is now taking the GetUp!-ALP-Greens' line to their business. I suspect that their business will start to fall, and I hope shareholders are aware of that and might be interested in that.

The whole energy market is ridiculous at the moment. In all of my time in the Senate—and that's been a long while!—power supply, energy supply and costing have been matters for state governments. Why? Because the state governments own the transmission lines and the generators. That's been the case, but we now have state governments refusing to allow us to tap the enormous reserves of gas under the ground in Victoria, in South Australia, and now, I understand, in Western Australia, along with the Northern Territory—all Labor governments. There's gas there, but they won't even let it be discovered.

Fortunately the coalition government saw a national crisis coming and said, 'We've got to do something about this because the states are not.' The coalition government has taken the lead in trying to keep the power supply flowing. We've mandated a certain amount of what the Labor Party would allow to be exported gas. That will now be used on the domestic market to help try and bring prices down. The Commonwealth government has put pressure on the generators—in my case, that's the Queensland state government—to reduce their generating profits by stopping gouging the market and bringing it back to something that is reasonable. These initiatives had to be taken by the federal government because state Labor governments were incapable of dealing with these issues.

I have a lot more I want to say on this particular subject, but I've run out of time. I again thank the Labor Party for nominating this as the topic for debate today. I couldn't have asked for a better debate myself. It just shows the people of Australia that the Labor Party has no interest. They're captured by the inner-city Greens intelligentsia, they're trying to assuage their consciences, and what they are doing is putting up prices for ordinary Australian families, making power almost unreachable for many Australians. Unless the Commonwealth acted, as it has done, this would have got worse. Congratulations to Mr Turnbull on his leadership and initiative in this area. (Time expired)

Malcolm Roberts (Queensland, Pauline Hanson's One Nation Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Trust, trust, trust. As servants to the people of Queensland and Australia, we listen to the people of Queensland and across Australia, and people repeatedly tell us they can't trust the tired old parties. Think about this, senators from the Labor Party: you had an opportunity today to decrease energy prices by removing the GST on energy, and what did you do? You voted against reducing energy prices.

Before we go into that further, let me just remind people of the fundamental importance of energy. Since 1850 and the industrial revolution, we have seen energy prices decrease in real terms. That has led to increasing productivity, and with increasing productivity there is increasing prosperity. That has enabled us to have human progress. Human civilisation has progressed dramatically, not just because we are a creative species and a caring species—contrary to what the Greens would have us believe—but because we also apply that creativity to reducing energy prices. That has increased human progress dramatically. Energy is what drives the implementation of our creative talents. Kevin Rudd's initiatives, joined by Penny Wong, Peter Garrett and Julia Gillard—and Christine Milne; how could we forget her!—are reversing human progress. They are denying the people of the Third World cheap energy, or they are trying to. They are denying people jobs in this country and, in fact, they are exporting jobs from this country.

A false statement in this Labor Party motion is that the clean energy target will reduce energy prices. We have seen prices go up by more than double the CPI to an outstanding high—eight times what they were in 1980. That is an explosion in energy prices. As a result of the Finkel report, I commissioned, at my own cost, a review by a well-known energy economist, Alan Moran. He points out that, if we adopt the Finkel report, consumers will not be paying less for energy; they will be paying around $800 a year more. He also points out that energy prices have increased from around $40 per megawatt hour during the first 15 years of the present century to currently in excess of $80 per megawatt hour and that futures prices are now over $100 per megawatt hour. There is more to come in the future, and with the clean energy target there will be even more beyond that.

So we are seeing a degradation of our energy market. In fact, this is really an energy racket, because it is polluted by subsidies, vested interests and regulations. This is a fundamental thing in what we see the Labor Party advocating. They are advocating the Finkel report and the clean energy target when, fundamentally, the driver of energy prices is the overregulation of energy. We no longer have an energy market; we have an energy racket. That energy racket is now laced with subsidies, vested interests, regulations and politicisation. We don't have an energy market now; we have an energy racket. What is more, that racket is distorting prices; it is increasing prices dramatically. We are seeing more of it and it will continue, as the Moran report shows.

Let's look at the Finkel report and see what it is based on. Finkel does his projections based on the economic modelling of Jacobs. We see that, in recent years, literally within the last few years, the Jacobs modelling has contradicted itself several times. It raises serious questions about Dr Finkel's report. We have to question now the purpose and the nature of the modelling. It looks to me like it was rigged to produce the result that government wanted. Is that what Alan Finkel was paid to do?

We will see something else now. As Dr Moran has pointed out, if we continue to do what the government is doing now, we will see export industries hurt. The trade-exposed energy-intensive industries that are really suffering will suffer body blows, and we could lose them as well. So it won't just be small business that falls prey to the tired old parties; it won't just be employees. It will be big businesses and our highly competitive businesses that will be destroyed in this country. We need to end the renewable energy target, not bring in a worse replacement. I must give credit to Senator Macdonald. I have developed enormous trust in him as a result of his work in recent months.

Let's have a look at what has happened in South Australia. We have seen a Labor government destroy its own state, gleefully blow up a power station and celebrate it. Isn't that what terrorists do? They destroy the power stations. That is what Jay Weatherill's government has done. Why have they done that? Because the Greens have pushed them into it. They have lulled the Labor Party into it. The Labor Party needs the preferences; the Labor Party then falls for the trick. The Greens are actually running South Australia, to the detriment of all South Australians. We have seen the Greens in their home state—it is basically their home state, apart from Tasmania, the state where they were most popular—lose one of their two senators, and Senator Sarah Hanson-Young is now on her own. That is not all we see in South Australia. We see the madness that the Xenophon team has been plying the alliance of the Greens and the Labor Party. Those three have colluded to drive up energy prices in that state. But, sadly, we've also seen a dysfunctional Liberal Party in South Australia that has been gutlessly silent—cowed into submission and cowed into not having the guts to stand up and call the alliance of the Labor Party, the Greens and the Nick Xenophon Team for what it is. They're all hurting energy prices.

How can we have trust in those tired old parties, especially the Greens and the Nick Xenophon Team? Why is there inaction, supposedly, from the Prime Minister, according to Senator Gallagher's motion? It's very simple: the economic reality is biting. We now see the legacy of driving up energy prices. People are now feeling it in the hip pocket. Businesses are now sacking employees. Steggles have gone under—a household name. They're gone. What we've seen is economic reality coming home to roost, but it's going to get far worse.

As for action, part (b) of Senator Gallagher's motion talks about action. Look at the action that her own Labor Party is taking in the state of Queensland, where the major coal-fired power stations are owned and operated by the Labor Party government.

Barry O'Sullivan (Queensland, National Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Profiteering!

Malcolm Roberts (Queensland, Pauline Hanson's One Nation Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

It is exceptionally high profiteering. It's, essentially, a tax. It is a tax—nothing else. It's a tax that's destroying jobs, a tax that's destroying people's futures, a tax that's destroying industries and a tax that's destroying exports and making us uncompetitive. Then, as South Australia is on 47 per cent for its renewable energy target, what does the Labor government want to do in Queensland? It wants to bring on a 50 per cent target. Then it has the dishonesty to claim that it won't cost jobs. If we bring in a 50 per cent renewable energy target, that means that that will either displace or be an addition to the coal-fired power stations, which will mean that they will have to shut. They will not have the subsidies that intermittent energies now have. When they shut, that will put coal operators, coal employers and power-station workers out of their jobs. They will watch these imported windmills and imported solar farms working with subsidies passed on by state governments through taxation and higher energy prices.

What we have from the Greens and the Labor Party—can you believe it—is a highly regressive and destructive tax. That's because energy is an essential commodity today. It's no longer a luxury, I say to the Labor Party. Energy is now essential, a significant part of people's expenditure and highly regressive on the poor. Who is subsidising the wealthy to install subsidised solar panels? The poor, because they can't afford solar panels. So we now have a Queensland government that is stealing taxation—they're exorbitant rates, and it's nothing more than a tax—destroying the future of the state with a renewable energy target that is even beyond South Australia's imagination and using subsidies to kill the futures of people on lower incomes.

That's not all. We see the Nicholls opposition in Queensland—the LNP—passing a Labor Party budget that includes a 50 per cent renewable energy target. We also see that they want a target of around 23 per cent. How can anybody trust any of the tired old parties—the Greens and the Nick Xenophon Team? Then we have hydro. Hydro is the only power source that's cheaper than coal-fired power stations, but we can't build dams in this country, despite having massive water flows and water reservoirs up in North Queensland. We cannot build dams because of the Greens.

Let's look at the cause for energy prices being so high and increasing. First of all, we have the Renewable Energy Target, which kicked in in 2007. That Renewable Energy Target coincides exactly with the dramatic increase in prices for electricity. The Renewable Energy Target, with its massive subsidies to solar and wind, has driven up the price of electricity. We've seen subsidies for the intermittent energies and we've seen gold-plated networks that are abnormally high and intolerably high because they're not being managed because the sector is too highly regulated.

We also see something else, and that is what the Howard government brought in. Prime Minister John Howard proudly said that he wouldn't sign the Kyoto Protocol, and that was good. But he also said that we would comply with it, and that we did. To be able to do that, the Howard government had to stop land clearing or stop industry. So what did it choose to do? It chose to stop land clearing. If he'd implemented that then, as a result, the government would have had to pay compensation to farmers in New South Wales, Queensland and the other states, but that's in fact not what happened, because to get around that compensation, Prime Minister Howard colluded with the then Premier, Peter Beattie, and the then environment minister in New South Wales, Bob Carr. They put in place native vegetation protection legislation, which stole farmers' property rights, and Bob Carr is on YouTube gloating and laughing at doing it in a way that would mean farmers would not be entitled to compensation.

We've also seen jobs destroyed by the Renewable Energy Target that the Howard government put in place. A question for everyone: who was the leader of the major political party in this country that first brought in an emissions trading scheme? It wasn't Kevin Rudd; it was John Howard. Howard had the trifecta: the first emissions trading scheme as policy, the Renewable Energy Target and the stealing of farmers' property rights. How can we trust anyone in this debate? Following Kevin Rudd's mad, lunatic and disastrous quest for UN favours in his 2007 campaign, when the Labor Party brought out Al Gore to spread his lies, instead of countering it with facts, John Howard actually endorsed it by timidly falling for the ploy and reinforcing the claims about climate.

Just a couple of months ago John Howard said, by the way, that the two per cent Renewable Energy Target was all it should've been. He is the man who brought in what we see now: around 23 to 28 per cent. In 2011, four years after he left the prime ministership, John Howard was delivering the Global Warming Policy Foundation's annual lecture in Britain in London. After wreaking all of this havoc and doing all of this damage, John Howard admitted that he is agnostic on climate change. He hasn't seen the evidence, and that's why he's agnostic. The reason is that there is no evidence. What we see from the Liberal Party and the National Party is gutlessness, but what we see from the Labor Party and the Greens is dishonesty and deceit. We see that from the former Prime Minister, Kevin Rudd.

Then we move onto the mad rantings we heard from the Greens this morning. We heard about hurricanes—the North American equivalent of cyclones—increasing. Let's have a look at that. We saw one cyclone last week, and then we see evidence that another cyclone is building and about to head towards North America. We then look at the records from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration in North America, and we see that in the last 10 years North America has had 10 cyclones. If we go back to the 1850s, 1851 to 1860, the first years of the records, we see 19. That's double. If we then look at 1880 to 1889, we see 27, almost three times the number of cyclones we've had in the last decade.

Senator Whish-Wilson this morning was speaking rubbish, absolute nonsense. There are no trends that indicate any changes in rainfall patterns; no trends that indicate any changes in drought severity, frequency or duration; no trends that indicate any changes in snowfall; and no trends that indicate any changes in cyclone severity, intensity or frequency. In fact, cyclones and hurricanes lately are unusually low in the last 10 years. We see no changes in ocean pH. What some people call acidity is actually alkalinity, because the pH is around 8.3. That makes it alkaline, not acidic. How can we trust the mad rantings of the Greens when they distort the facts? Instead of data, what do the Greens they rely on? They rely on pictures of cute, cuddly animals and colourful fish, instead of data. That is not science.

Then we look at the Labor Party—and I see Senator McAllister in the chamber right now. She has mentioned things like a 97 per cent consensus. When people don't have the scientific data, they put in a red herring like 'a 97 per cent consensus'. Well, I am here to say that the 97 per cent consensus has been proven to be a 0.3 per cent fudging, and none of those scientists have any proof—

Stephen Parry (President) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The time for the debate has now expired.