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Legislative Council - Fifty-Third Parliament, Second Session (53-2)
2015-07-29 Daily Xml
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Renewable Energy

The Hon. G.A. KANDELAARS (15:06): My question is to the Minister for Climate Change. Can the minister outline the importance of renewables in building a low carbon future for South Australia and explain how renewables are helping drive investment in this state?

The Hon. I.K. HUNTER (Minister for Sustainability, Environment and Conservation, Minister for Water and the River Murray, Minister for Climate Change) (15:06): I thank the honourable member for a fantastic question. At least someone in this place wants to get to the nitty-gritty of what really are challenging positions for this state's future and not muck around with covering up for federal counterparts at another level who, frankly, are driving us back into the Stone Age in terms of their approach to science. The Hon. Gerry Kandelaars, of course, understands that there are very important imperatives in terms of tackling action on climate change, the economic imperatives not being the least of them, and I am very pleased to see that some of these economic discussions are starting to occur in the community.

We know that, in order to succeed in the low carbon world of the immediate future, we need to decouple emissions growth from economic growth. This is something that has been recognised the world over, and it is, in part, the message that the former US vice-president Al Gore delivered to state environment ministers this week in Melbourne.

Key to this transition, of course, is going to be renewable energy. Al Gore told us that the expansion of renewable energy in the United States has been proceeding apace. More people are employed in the renewable energy sector in the United States than in the coal industry, he told us. Renewable energy provides jobs, helps cut emissions and provides a cheaper source of energy.

Here in South Australia, we are committed to providing the certainty needed to ensure our state capitalises on the nearly $2 trillion of renewable investments projected for the Asian region to 2030. We have already had some $6 billion of capital investment in renewables, 40 per cent of which has been spent in our regions.

Our actions stand in stark contrast to those of the Liberal Party. The Liberal Party likes to talk about sovereign risk, but their actions do nothing but create sovereign risk. The fact is, undoing the bipartisanship that used to exist around the federal Renewable Energy Target and attacking ARENA and the CEFC have done serious reputational damage to Australia, something reflected to me in private conversations with business leaders around the country. The Liberal Party are stuck in the past and it is the very dim distant past, because the recent Liberal past has not been all that bad in comparison to the current Prime Minister's government.

This current Prime Minister we are suffering under has declared war on renewables. Coal is good for humanity, he says. He has labelled wind farms as noisy and awful, and on Monday the Prime Minister stated that 23 per cent of renewable energy generation is 'more than enough'.

Let's be quite clear: tilting at windmills is not just the speciality of the federal Liberals. Those opposite are gold medallists at it, as well; they do not like renewables. What this place needs is more Liberals like Sarah Henderson, federal member for Corangamite. Ms Henderson has stood up to the Prime Minister's attack on wind and solar energy through his silly instructions to the Clean Energy Finance Corporation. 'Wind and small-scale solar should be included in the CEFC mandate,' she said.

Contrast her actions to those opposite in this place. What did we hear from those opposite when Tony Abbott threatened the renewables investment pipeline in this state? Not a word. Instead, they decided to launch an inquiry into wind farms, one that has no scientific or expert support but it can, of course, damage renewable investments and jobs in this state by creating uncertainty. I am told that there is almost $4 billion of potential wind farm investment that has already received developmental approval in South Australia.

The Hon. D.W. Ridgway: Why haven't they invested then?

The Hon. I.K. HUNTER: The Hon. Mr Ridgway is asking incredulously, 'Why haven't they invested?' Just revisit the recent past with your Prime Minister saying to Alan Jones on the radio, 'We want to reduce it.'

Members interjecting:

The PRESIDENT: Order! This is not debate time; it is question time. Allow the minister to answer.

The Hon. I.K. HUNTER: These people opposite us have—

Members interjecting:

The PRESIDENT: Order!

The Hon. I.K. HUNTER: —no economic credibility, Mr President; no plan for jobs; no plan to capitalise on the low carbon world of tomorrow. They are stuck in the dim, distant past and want the rest of us to go there with them. It is really important to just go back a few years. At the time I thought those days were not all that pleasurable. However, in comparison to what we are hearing now they are paradise. There is no greater Liberal authority on emissions trading schemes than Mr Malcolm Turnbull. Yesterday I understand he eloquently explained emissions trading schemes to people. He said:

There has been a distinction drawn in the debate…between a fixed-price cost of carbon which people particularly called a carbon tax and one that is floating because it is related to the purchase of permits and that, of course, the price of permits depends on supply and demand and that's an ETS.

Mr Turnbull is also well versed in direct action, penning a piece back in December of 2009 entitled 'Abbott's climate change policy is bullshit.' He would know. After all, he, along with John Howard, proposed an ETS as far back as 2007. Why did the Liberal Party of Australia propose an ETS? As Mr Howard said at the time:

It is fundamental to any response both here and elsewhere that a price be set for carbon emissions. This is best done through the market mechanism of an emissions trading system.

This was prime minister Howard interviewed on Radio 3AW Melbourne, 9 May 2007. And as Mr Peter Costello has explained in the past:

A market based solution will give the right signal to producers and consumers. It will make clear the opportunity cost of using energy resources, thereby encouraging more and better investment in additional sources of supply and improving the efficiency with which they are used. That has to be good for both producers and consumers and better for the environment.

That was Mr Peter Costello's speech, 18 January 2006. Why was all this being done? Let's turn again to those sage words of former prime minister John Howard. He stated:

In the years to come, it will provide a model for other nations to follow. Being amongst the first movers on carbon trading in this region will bring new opportunities and we intend to grasp them.

Australia has the physical resources, the human capital and the technological strengths to be a global leader in key low emissions technologies. We can be an energy superpower in a carbon constrained future.

That was former prime minister John Howard's speech, 17 July 2007. There was once a time when the Liberals were a party of markets; a time when they advocated for market-based solutions. You have to wonder how far they have strayed when China is set to introduce national emissions trading in over a year's time and it is our very own Liberal Party clinging to command and control responses. This Liberal Party is a sad reflection of what has gone before them.

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