Penny Wong (SA, Australian Labor Party, Minister for Climate Change and Water) Share this | Hansard source

I thank all senators for their contribution to this debate on the two pieces of legislation before the chamber: the Renewable Energy (Electricity) Amendment Bill 2009 and the Renewable Energy (Electricity) (Charge) Amendment Bill 2009, which have come to the Senate after passage through the House. I want to first acknowledge the work of all the officials within the government who have worked so hard to get the bills to this point and also the contribution of the Senate through its consideration of this legislation.

If the Senate passes these bills, it will deliver the largest increase in renewable energy in the country’s history. I want to go through briefly, in summarising this debate, a number of the policy issues that are contained in the legislation before the Senate.

But before I turn to that I want to briefly respond to two points that Senator Abetz made. Firstly, his proposition is that we should be congratulating, supporting or lauding the Howard government’s record on the environment, and he pointed to two issues. One is the establishment of the Australian Greenhouse Office and the second is the introduction of the renewable energy target. I want to talk about those two things because it was a step to establish the Greenhouse Office; unfortunately, it was a step that was followed by the government’s proceeding to ignore the reports and the policy advice of that office—particularly its approach to climate change policy. Senators may recall that I have mentioned in this chamber previously that this year we saw the 10th anniversary of the then Howard government first receiving a report—which I recall was from AGO; if it was not, there were certainly many other reports from there—in relation to the introduction of an emissions trading scheme. So it is one thing to establish an office that has ‘greenhouse’ in the title and it is another thing, in government, to introduce policy that is aimed at tackling climate change. I think that the judgement of history on the Howard government’s approach to climate change issues has not been, and will not be, good.

The second point that Senator Abetz made—and this is correct—is that the Howard government introduced the renewable energy target. My recollection is that it was Minister Hill that did that. It is to be acknowledged that it was the first national market mechanism to drive investment in renewable energy. But again that reform was not followed up in terms of subsequent reforms or subsequent policy decisions to preserve the benefit of that policy. In fact, the figures demonstrate that renewable energy, by the end of the term of the Howard government, had gone backwards as a proportion of our energy use. The then government ignored a range of advice about amendment of the renewable energy target to avoid that policy outcome and to improve policy outcomes. So, on the two issues that Senator Abetz raises I can say that it was not a bad start but that there was no follow-up. And that has been the unfortunate reality of the coalition’s approach to these issues in government.

As I said earlier, if the Senate passes this legislation the bill will deliver the largest increase in renewable energy in the nation’s history. It will be the largest increase in renewable energy in Australia’s history. This target, brought forward by the government, will deliver a more than fourfold increase in renewable energy by 2020. We went to the election with this commitment—a commitment to ensure that 20 per cent of Australia’s electricity comes from renewable sources by 2020, and the bill before the chamber is brought forward in order to implement that election commitment.

The objective we are aiming for is that in 10 years time the amount of electricity coming from sources like solar, wind and geothermal, will be around the same or equivalent to that used by all Australia’s households today. In other words, our objective is that the renewable energy sector will provide around the same as all of Australia’s current electricity use. This is a remarkable transformation—one that is overdue. It should have occurred before but it does demonstrate that we can set a target, we can drive to achieve that target, and we can exploit the enormous range of renewable energy sources with which we are blessed here in Australia.

I am often asked about the future for electricity in Australia and I make this point: we have wind, solar, wave and geothermal resources. We want Australia, at 2020 or before, to be a world leader in these technologies. As the world moves to a global carbon constraint we want Australian businesses—Australian firms—to be placed to take advantage of the technologies that we have developed. To do that we have to drive innovation and investment in that sector today. This is about Australian jobs, Australian know-how and Australian innovation. It is good for the environment but it is also good for Australian business.

I welcome what I think is the coalition’s support for our renewable energy target. I suppose that I am glad, despite the history that I have outlined in terms of their failure to adopt this type of policy in government, that in opposition they appear to be coming around to the view that it is a good thing to support renewable energy. I again remind the Senate that whilst this bill is necessary to increase our investment in renewable energy in Australia, of itself it is not enough, because if we are serious about tackling climate change this nation needs to do much more. Even with this renewable energy target in place and even with one-fifth of our energy coming from renewable sources Australia’s carbon pollution will be 20 per cent higher by the end of the next decade—by 2020—than it was in the year 2000.

So, even with this massive fourfold increase in investment in solar, wind, geothermal, wave and other renewable sources, Australia’s contribution to climate change will be 20 per cent higher in 2020 than it was in the year 2000. So, you cannot tackle climate change only by investment in renewable energy. That is an important and key part of the equation—we need to drive that investment in our energy sector—but it will not be enough. The only way we are going to be able to turn around the growth in our carbon pollution that is causing, or contributing to, climate change is with a carbon pollution reduction scheme. The only way we are going to turn around the growth that is causing and worsening climate change is to put a firm legislated limit on the amount of carbon that we produce and make those who create the pollution pay for it. So I urge those opposite, who appear to have become supporters of renewable energy in recent times, also to join the bigger fight—