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Legislative Council - Fifty-Third Parliament, Second Session (53-2)
2015-09-23 Daily Xml
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Renewable Energy

The Hon. S.G. WADE (14:23): I would be fascinated to see what music sharks like. I seek leave to make a brief explanation before asking a series of questions of the Minister for Climate Change in relation to renewable energy investments.

Leave granted.

The Hon. S.G. WADE: The minister issued a press release on 17 September 2015 entitled 'South Australia powers ahead of Australia on renewables'. The release describes the Pastoral Land Management and Conservation (Renewable Energy) Amendment Act 2014, which seeks to provide renewable energy investors access to crown land.

The release highlights that analysts have anticipated that some $2 trillion of renewable investment will be available in the Asia-Pacific region to 2020, but that more than $6 billion has been invested in South Australia and that the government aims to reach a renewable energy investment target of $10 billion. Minister Hunter quotes data from a report of 30 September 2013, which was entitled 'Proposed energy targets for low emission investments in South Australia'. Page 3 of that report states:

…it is recommended that a prudent investment target should be set that is achievable under most circumstances. One possibility is a target of $10 billion by 2025.

The circumstances include the possibility of a large-scale renewable energy target (LRET) of 26.4 terawatt hours. The federal government has reduced the LRET, but only to 33 terawatt hours, reinforcing the prudence of a $10 billion investment target by 2025. My questions are:

1. If $6 billion has already been invested in renewable energy in South Australia between 2003 and 2014, how can it be powering ahead of Australia on renewables when a report the government is quoting states the target of $10 billion is a prudent investment target?

2. If $2 trillion is being invested in renewable energy in our region by 2030, again how can the government suggest that it is powering ahead when it is pursuing a prudent, perhaps even modest, target of $10 billion, which represents half of 1 per cent of the region's renewable energy investments?

The Hon. I.K. HUNTER (Minister for Sustainability, Environment and Conservation, Minister for Water and the River Murray, Minister for Climate Change) (14:26): I thank the honourable member for his most important and very detailed question, and I thank him for taking the time to read my media releases. Of course, we do round down for media releases, but I should advise for the sake of accuracy that currently our advice is that we have about $6.6 billion invested in South Australia. The media release says $6 billion for simplicity's sake.

The key point that he makes is that South Australia has been a very attractive place for renewable energy companies to come to in order to invest in our state, particularly at a time when the then prime minister of the federal government was frowning on renewable investment, was boasting on shock jock radio in New South Wales that in fact they wanted to reduce renewables across Australia, and again using capital letters, he spelt out the word 'reduce'. We are very hopeful that with a change of leadership at a national level we will see some slight, initially and perhaps greater later on, nuancing of that message from the federal government.

We have, of course, as a state decided that we would make the job easy for renewable investment companies who want to come to South Australia. We have changed the regulatory approach; we have changed the planning approach. As the honourable member said in his question, this chamber has changed the legislation, in terms of how we approach renewable energy companies and crown land in terms of the pastoral areas. All of that is to reduce red tape, to make it quicker and easier to get projects up and running and to attract that investment to this state, because we know at least 40 per cent of that investment is invested in rural and regional South Australia, creating good sustainable jobs for our local regional communities.

They really underpin the resilience of small towns and regions in this state because these jobs are created, as I said, I think, in this chamber before, for periods of 10, 15 or 20 years. In terms of the Snowtown project, for example, we were told when I was out there for the opening that they have taken 20 people from the local area to Germany and, I think, Denmark, to train them up to come back to South Australia, live in local communities and maintain that infrastructure that has been put in place.

These are long-term investments. They are worth hundreds of millions of dollars, and for international companies to persuade their shareholders to invest they need a long-term vision. That was severely undermined just a few months ago by the debate we had at the federal level about the renewable energy target. Again, I found that a very bruising debate, particularly when we should, as a nation, be looking towards the future for our renewable investments and not trying to drive these companies away to investing in other countries where they might find a higher level of welcome.

The state government, of course, has gone out of its way to welcome these companies and this investment. As the honourable member said, $6 billion—I say now $6.6 billion—has been invested in projects so far. We are looking to again use our connections and our leverage that we have as a state to try to drive that investment up to $10 billion. We need to work with the federal government to do that and, as I say, we are very pleased that there is a new leadership and I am hopeful we are sniffing the breeze and scenting a very nuanced but slight change in the messaging that is coming out of Canberra.

We understand the politics. We understand the way the National Party works with the Liberal Party in coalition and we understand there will need to have been some sort of compromise reached between the Prime Minister and his coalition partner in relation to sustainability, but the Prime Minister is on the record as being a supporter of renewables and he is on the record as being a supporter of action on climate change. I am very hopeful that as we work very closely with the federal government we will be able to utilise those connections that we have built up with the government and get more renewable investment into this state.

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