Doorstop: Clean Energy Target

We are now in the fifth year of this government and over the weekend we saw very clear evidence about why Australia is in the deep throes of an energy crisis. Under this government wholesale power prices have doubled and that is feeding into household and business power bills with whopping increases, and prices skyrocketing. We are seeing concerns over security over the coming summer and the summers after that. Pollution is up, one in three renewable energy jobs have been lost since Tony Abbott became Prime Minister, and those jobs are still being lost under Malcolm Turnbull.

 

Over the weekend the National Party reminded everyone why we are in this crisis. Internal divisions and ideological obsessions are stopping this government from getting on with the job of putting good energy policy in place. Over the weekend the National Party sought to put a veto on consideration of their own Chief Scientist report, which the government itself commissioned, to introduce a Clean Energy Target. That Clean Energy Target would see investment start to flow to ensure as the ageing coal-fired power stations start to shut down in the coming years and decades there is new investment and generation to ensure reliable, affordable supply of electricity is guaranteed to Australian households and Australian businesses.

 

There are two things that the government needs to do now, rather than ideological obsessions and giving into the veto from the National Party and the hard-right of the Liberal Party. Get on with the business of a Clean Energy Target that is again recommended by the Grattan Institute only this morning. And pull the trigger on the Domestic Gas Security Mechanism (ADGSM) that will ensure that Australian businesses have access to Australian gas. That trigger was supposed to be pulled by the 1st of September and we have had absolutely no explanation from Malcolm Turnbull about why they are delaying that critical measure that we dragged them to kicking and screaming over the last two years.   

 

JOURNALIST: What would you like to see come out of the meeting this afternoon with AGL?

 

BUTLER: What I want to see instead of distractions and companies being summoned to meet with the Prime Minister is him do the hard work of getting his Party to support the Finkel Report, a report they commissioned from the Chief Scientist that made a very clear recommendation that a Clean Energy Target is needed to get investment going. We’ve said we are willing to sit down with the government and negotiate that so it is bipartisan and gives investors certainty to start releasing the billions of dollars that will be needed to build the next generation of electricity investment. All we’ve got though from the government in response is personal abuse and ideological attacks instead of the hard work that is needed. That is something I’d like to see the Prime Minister and the Minister for Energy do this week. 

 

JOURNALIST: Do you have sympathy for the jobs that will be lost at Liddell?

 

BUTLER: Of course. As power stations start to exit the system because they reach the end of their operating life it is imperative that there are good periods of notice given to those workers and those communities and, to use the words of the Paris Climate Agreement, make this a Just Transition so there is economic diversification and workers are looked after. But selling false hope with thought bubbles like Malcolm Turnbull’s is not going to give any certainty to communities that are confronting the loss of coal-fired generators that were built in the 60s and 70s. What we need instead is a plan to give those communities a long-term future.

 

JOURNALIST: Do you instead expect that the Prime Minister will offer some sort of tax incentive to AGL to keep Liddell open, and what would you think if that happened?

 

BUTLER: Who knows, the Prime Minister is making this up as he goes along. This was a thought bubble from last week. Still no costings have been made. The industry has made it clear over the weekend that hundreds and hundreds of millions of dollars would need to be spent to give this 50-year old power station a few more years of life. We want to see what the alternative propositions that the Prime Minister might be thinking of to ensure that New South Wales has a long-term reliable and affordable supply of electricity. I don’t really expect much from the Prime Minister that is concrete this week because frankly he is just making it up as he goes along. Thanks everyone.