Press conference, Parliament House, Canberra

MINISTER FOR CLIMATE CHANGE AND ENERGY, CHRIS BOWEN: Good morning everyone. Well, Australia’s hit 50 per cent renewable energy, and we’re leading the world in battery deployment. Ten per cent of the extra capacity in batteries, it was added globally.

In recent times, it was added in our country. These two things plus the reforms to the default market offer that the government implemented last year are delivering today material and in some cases significant reductions in energy prices for millions of Australians. The default market offer is a benchmark price.

It doesn’t apply to everyone, obviously, but it does set a benchmark for energy prices across the board. And I’m pleased with today’s figures. Reductions of 3.4 per cent to 7.7 per cent in New South Wales; of 7.2 per cent to 10.7 per cent in Queensland; and of around 1.1 per cent in South Australia.

This matches of course, and is consistent with the decline yesterday announced under Victorian default offer of around 5 per cent. I’m particularly pleased with the progress for small business. These reductions in energy prices are even bigger, up to 20.9 per cent for small businesses in rural New South Wales.

That is significant. Now, there’s a long way to go. Australians are continuing to feel cost-of-living pressures.

Energy prices are still higher than we would like. But I do acknowledge this very real progress today. It’s no coincidence that 50 per cent renewables and 414,396 homes batteries installed under the Cheaper Home Batteries policy which are reducing prices for them, but for everyone, by reducing the reliance on expensive coal and gas in the evening.

One of the biggest impacts on energy prices is those night time peaks when we rely much more on gas and also more on coal, which is more expensive than renewables. If we're saving more of the renewable energy from the day and using it more to flatten out that night-time peak and reduce prices, that is the system working. And those 414,396 home batteries installed since 1 July last year, together with a big uplift in grid scale batteries and a small contribution from community batteries, are making a difference.

So as I said, a long way to go. There's more work to do to keep this transition well underway. There are plenty of challenges internationally and domestically.

But the plan that we put in place is showing dividends for the Australian people. We've always said renewable energy is the cheapest form of energy. It's the fastest to deploy.

It's more reliable. Coal breaks down every day. And when coal breaks down, bills go up.

Properly supported by storage and by transmission, renewable energy leads to a more reliable, more sovereign energy system and one that's in the best interest of Australians. Happy to take questions. Ryan?

JOURNALIST: Minister, over the last 12 months there's been a massive increase in the forecast of power use by data centres over the next [indistinct] years. How do you think about that and power prices? If you had to choose, would you be willing to limit the growth of data centres if it was going to have an impact on power prices?

And would you be willing to expand, say, the Capacity Investment Scheme [indistinct] additional generation needed? MINISTER BOWEN: Yeah, that comes as no revelation, Ryan. I mean, the data centre conversation is one that lots of people are having.

Energy ministers around the world are having. Energy ministers in Australia are having. They do use a lot of electricity.

That's why we spend a lot of time on it. That's why Tim Ayres, Andrew Charlton and I work closely together on the AI and data centre strategy, which is a principles-based approach, but lays out the principles the Commonwealth will require. And a few weeks ago, I put those principles to state and territory ministers and got almost unanimous agreement that we would apply those principles.

And those principles are that data centres should bring their own additional renewable energy. So they've got to bring new renewable energy to the grid, which is important and actually could be useful, for example, in helping some of the wind farms that are under development with PPAs, for example, to actually make those wind farms more viable and get them to a final investment decision.

Secondly, they should be flexible and have redundancy in their system. And that can be done. Around the world, again, jurisdictions are looking at data centres and working with them to say build in extra flexibility when you're building your data centre and ideally be built near generation.

They’re the three principles. Now I'm pleased with the way states and territories are working with us to get that done, with one exception, and that's a good thing. So I don't accept that it's a choice.

I think properly calibrated, then it can be a net plus for the energy system. But I do accept the fundamental point that that you make, that without those rules and guidelines we put in place, it would be a challenge, but we're avoiding that problem. JOURNALIST: Minister, can I just get your response to the revelations regarding BHP, that they had stalled or delayed major projects to cut emissions.

Are you disappointed by those revelations and do you have any knowledge that these projects have been penalised? MINISTER BOWEN: Obviously, I keep in close contact with emitters across the board and I make my expectations crystal clear publicly and privately. I will say we have requirements under a matter of law with the safeguard mechanism.

BHP is included in that. That does provide some flexibility because we do recognise that the 200 or so biggest emitters in the country in terms of facilities they do face different challenges and opportunities, but I want to see all large emitters reducing emissions on-site. That applies to BHP and anyone else.

Now, again, I do recognise that there are challenges. You know, not every technology is available in the first instance or is commercially available. But they are required to comply with the safeguards reform.

We're doing a safeguards review during the course of this 12 months. I'll look at all submissions. It'll be a very genuine process.

And I'll weigh up all advice as to how the safeguards reform should be tweaked going forward. JOURNALIST: Just a quick one, will you seek any clarification or reach out to BHP [inaudible]… MINISTER BOWEN: Look, I regularly am talking to businesses right across the economy. BHPs included in that.

Mike? JOURNALIST: Minister, you said 50 per cent renewables in the grid. Is that based off the last quarter or are you anticipating you might get to an average penetration level this year around over half?

And also, do you still think, given that there's been a drop-off in investment in the past 12 months, that 82 per cent renewables is achievable by 2030? MINISTER BOWEN: Sorry Mike, I was talking about the last quarter of last year. It’s a little bit less than the first quarter of this year as is expected, because it’s- different seasonal factors come into play.

I would expect us to hit 50 per cent average quite soon. On relation to 82 per cent, I don’t accept that it’s not achievable. I also don’t think it’s inevitable.

I think we’ve got to keep our foot on the accelerator. We’ve got to keep working at it. I’m pleased- you know, renewable energy was about 33 per cent when we came to office.

It’s about 50 per cent now – that’s not bad progress, but there’s more to do. Cam? JOURNALIST: Minister, as you look over the medium term into the 2030s when a lot of these coal stations come out of the grid, do you expect the price impact [indistinct] trend downwards, or are there still going to be some fluctuations throughout the five, 10 years?

MINISTER BOWEN: There’ll always be pressures and fluctuations internationally in particular. I mean, we are in the midst of the world’s largest energy crisis – although, to be fair, that energy crisis is largely playing out in oil, not in gas or coal. Obviously, the last crisis mainly played out in gas and coal, the Ukraine crisis.

I expect the continued influence of renewable energy to be putting substantial downward pressure on prices. But we’ll also have challenges and headwinds, but the direction of travel with more renewable energy, properly supported by proper storage- and that’s the key here. You know, we’ve had good renewable energy in the middle of the day for quite a while.

The key turning difference is that we’re now storing that renewable energy for the night time, reducing reliance on coal and gas, enabling some of the closures of coal-fired power stations that are already in the system, already planned for, to be done more safely when it comes to reliability, and that’s a good thing. Charles? JOURNALIST: Minister, you mentioned the popularity of the home battery scheme.

It also means it’s expensive. Is this just a case of spending a lot of taxpayer dollars to save a lot of taxpayers just a few dollars at the bill? MINISTER BOWEN: It’s a very good investment, not only for those Australians who are reducing their bills by 90 per cent, and in many cases never getting a bill again, which is a good thing.

I mean, 414,000 households – when you think about the average population of a household, we're getting up around that million Australians, with between 1000 and 2000 Australians putting in a battery a day, that's a good thing for them. But as I said, it's an investment for the entire country because when those people aren't calling on gas at night or using less gas, that's reducing prices for absolutely everyone.

JOURNALIST: Minister, there's been a fair bit of criticism about the spend of your involvement in COP. Can you walk us through those numbers? And how do you justify to taxpayers spending that large amount of money?

MINISTER BOWEN: Absolutely. So as you know, Australia's chairing the COP negotiations this year And that does come as an expense. Whenever Australia steps up internationally and chairs a big international meeting, it does come with some expense.

So, for example, when Australia chaired the G20 in 2014 under Tony Abbott, it cost $400 million. When Australia chaired APEC under John Howard, it cost $330 million. We're doing it at a substantial less cost than that, mainly because we're not hosting here in Australia.

We're co-chairing in Turkiye. The budget outlines $50 million roughly directly in COP costs, and that's part of a broader $150 million roughly investment in climate initiatives, particularly across the Pacific. Now, I'll make a couple of points.

Firstly, this is unquestionably in Australia's best interest to step up and play an outsized role in the world. We believe Australia having more influence is a good thing. The Coalition believes Australia having more influence is a bad thing.

Secondly, when we were in opposition, not a word of criticism from us on those costs of APEC and G20 because we're patriots. We want to see Australia do well. We want to see Australia step up around the world.

A patriot party would embrace this. A partisan party would reject it. That's the choice Mr Taylor and Mr Tehan have made.

In relation to other costs, there has been some misreporting this morning. It's been reported that the presidency has 100 staff. It doesn't.

It has 30 staff. And many of those people- all of them, in fact, were engaged on climate discussions anyway. It's just that they now will have more impact because we're chairing the negotiations.

Australia's always been participating in COPs. I mean, Mr Morrison as prime minister, for example, took a delegation of 75 people to Glasgow, fair enough, including 13 personal staff. But we were a pariah at that time.

We took a delegation last year to Belem of 75, exactly the same number, and as a result were asked to be the President of Negotiations. Now, on my own travel, again there's been some misreporting this morning, I saw a report saying I was in Türkiye in January, I was not. My first international trip was last week this year to Denmark.

I do note that I've taken one international trip this year, so has Mr Tehan. I went to Denmark, he went to Taiwan. He's criticised me for going to Denmark.

He went to Taiwan at taxpayer expense. Mr Tehan is the biggest hypocrite in the Federal Parliament. When he was last a minister, in his last year as minister he went to France, Singapore, Vietnam, Korea, Japan, the United States, Indonesia, India, United Arab Emirates, France again, Italy, Belgium, United Kingdom and the Maldives twice at taxpayer expense.

Now, if Mr Tehan is going to criticise me for federal travel, for ministerial travel, he needs to justify why was he in all those countries at taxpayer expense in his last year as minister, including on the VIP, on the Royal Australian Air Force plane, at the cost of hundreds of thousands of dollars in the last period as minister. I went to Europe last week flying commercial, as I should, quite right.

He went to the Maldives twice on the VIP. Now, if he wants to have a debate about international travel, I'll have it with him. I didn't seek it.

I'd rather debate policy. He wants to criticise me for international travel. All right, Dan, let's have the debate.

JOURNALIST: Mr Bowen, yesterday you said fuel supply was secure into July. In terms of what would trigger stage three of the fuel plan, are we out of the woods? Or is there still a risk that these [indistinct]?

MINISTER BOWEN: I'm never going to say we're out of the woods, certainly not while the Straits of Hormuz are closed. I'm not going to say that. I am going to say we are very well placed, and about as well placed as any country in the world now.

Again, talking to some of my international counterparts during the week, they were very impressed with what Australia's been able to do, the fact we have more fuel in Australia today than when the Iran war started. And we have more diesel in Australia today than at any time since the minimum stock obligation came in in 2023. Now, I read all sorts of commentary.

I read commentary from experts saying we're going to have rationing at Easter. Some of you wrote it. I'm not being critical of you because you had to write what the experts were saying, but they were wrong.

And then I see more experts saying, oh, we're going to have rationing soon. I don't envisage needing rationing. That's not the plan we're working on.

We’re working on getting as much fuel into Australia, including the 800 million litres extra we've got under the Export Finance Australia deal to give us that extra buffer. That's what we're working on. Of course, governments, federal and state, are working together, have been since 28 February, on worst-case scenario contingency prudent planning should things get worse internationally, because there is pressure.

But the fact that we've been able to get more fuel in Australia now than on 28 February means we're very well placed. JOURNALIST: Minister, coming back to the DMO, in 2021 to 22 for the electricity distribution area of McMahon, the DMO was $1,609. After this reduction, the DMO will be $2,328 for that area.

Labor has promised to cut bills. How can you [indistinct]? MINISTER BOWEN: Well, as I said, there's much, more to do.

I said at the outset, Australian families are doing it tough, including because of energy bills. That's why we're working so hard to put downward pressure. That's why there's more to do.

So, we are far from saying mission accomplished. What we are saying is a combination of things, including the Ukraine crisis, are seeing bills much higher than we would like. But the answer to that is a properly calibrated, sensible, common sense rolling out renewable energy and storage that's what we'll keep doing it you know the people in McMahon have taken up home batteries at a great rate as have people across Western Sydney and the outer suburbs in particular because they know that that's good for their pocket as well as being good for the planet.

JOURNALIST: Minister, we saw on Four Corners last night, BHP quietly walking back its climate commitments. Do schemes like the fuel tax credit scheme need to be revisited to see if there's a better way to incentivise decarbonisation? MINISTER BOWEN: I’m not sure if you were here for Dan’s question, but I did deal with BHP generally.

We just had a budget a couple of weeks ago. We decided not to make that change. We're focusing on the safeguard mechanism, which is seeing substantial reduction now, equivalent each year of a third of Australia's domestic aviation emissions coming down on site, not counting offsets, which are important, but even not counting those, the equivalent of Australia's domestic aviation emissions coming down a third each year through the safeguard reforms.

Again, there's a review which I'll undertake later in the year, which will look at the safeguard reforms to see what more should be done. I'll get submissions saying it's too tough. I'll get submissions saying it's too loose.

I'll work it all through in our normal way. JOURNALIST: Just on timing, if Iran war does wrap up soon or in a future where we don't have an Iran war happening, is this something worth considering? MINISTER BOWEN: Well, we had a budget a couple of weeks ago and we've made our decisions for this fiscal year.

JOURNALIST: Minister, just on data centres, there continues to be criticism that the principle-based approach of the Commonwealth that subsequently states isn't enough, particularly in how it may safeguard water and energy supply for regional areas. Is there a conversation to be had about ramifications then for data centre developers? MINISTER BOWEN: I think that would be fair criticism if all we were doing was the principles-based approach.

But we have agreed with states and territories to look at our regulatory options, including through the Australian Energy Market Commission and a rule change. And that work, we've asked Anna Collyer, the chair of the AEMC, to undertake that work as expeditiously as possible. There are a range of options that you can use to regulate.

We do think on balance, the best one to look at most urgently is a rule change through the AEMC to say, if you want a data centre in Australia, great, we welcome the investment, but you'll bring your own renewable energy and you'll be flexible and you'll help us manage the grid. Properly managed, it can be a good thing. Properly managed, it can actually add to the renewable energy and the flexibility.

But I accept you've got to properly manage it and that requires some regulation. And again, in my discussions with data centres, Tim Ayres and Andrew Charlton talk to them more than I do, but I do talk to them as well, and they get that and they're up for that conversation and they want to help. JOURNALIST: You mentioned at the start that largely this 50 per cent renewables has been driven through the home battery programme as well … MINISTER BOWEN: And other things.

JOURNALIST: Where are we at when it comes to opening up the home battery scheme to apartment complexes, to renters, to folks that aren't able to have control over ... MINISTER BOWEN: So of course the home battery policy does apply to apartments. So anyone can get one.

But I accept there's extra degrees of difficulty with stratas. Stratas are managed by the states. New South Wales for example, has done good reforms to make it easier for stratas to do things like solar panels and batteries and EV charges.

And there's a particular challenge for renters. I do understand that. That's one of the reasons why we've done Solar Sharer, which provides an option of three hours free power for anyone with a smart metre in the DMO jurisdictions and matched by Victoria.

That's good for renters. That's why we have solar for apartments, a federal and state joint programme which is making some progress and seeing more renewable energy into apartments. So I accept there's more work to do here, absolutely.

And that there's a higher degree, much higher degree of solar and batteries in stand-alone houses and apartments. That's true. And there are challenges for renters.

That's true. It's not an easy policy challenge when you consider the complexities of stratas in the landlord-renter relationship. But we have taken some steps, Solar Sharer, solar for apartments, and we'll always look at what more sensibly can be done.

JOURNALIST: Minister, there are many variables, of course, in the price going forward, but do you foresee a situation where you would need to give more energy bill rebates at some point in the future, or do you think those days are behind us? MINISTER BOWEN: Well, we're not contemplating that. Okay, one more.

JOURNALIST: The Australian Energy Producers Group have expressed some concern about the gas reservation policy framework. They're warning that it could threaten existing contracts and damage Australia's reputation. What do you make of some of those criticisms?

MINISTER BOWEN: This is a very carefully- one, this is a very carefully calibrated reform. You know, I announced this in December, I think in this room, in December, that we would do this. And then we spent months consulting, and then we're now consulting further, because it is a big change.

But it's also, in one respect, a modest change. All we're asking Australia's gas producers is put enough aside so we don't have gas shortages in our country. We're a large gas producer, we're a large gas exporter and we have for 20 years had forecast shortfalls in gas.

That's not okay. Now, there are some gas companies who don't care, who'd say, well, that's not our problem. We're just going to keep exporting 100 per cent or as much as we want.

We don't agree. We've got to act in the national best interest. Now, we accept we don't want to have a policy agenda which discourages new investment, hence we so carefully designed it.

Hence we're working so carefully and collaboratively with the Western Australian Government. Western Australia's policy is an inspiration and not something we want to disturb, it's something we want to celebrate. And I'll make this final point.

Everything that's been said about this Commonwealth policy was said about the Western Australian policy 15 years ago. Gas companies said it would be a disaster, it would chill investment, there'd be no new investment. That's not how it's turned out.

So you can run scare campaigns. We are going to act in the national best interest. I've got a caucus meeting.

Cheers, guys. Thank you. We acknowledge the Traditional Owners of country throughout Australia and recognise their continuing connection to land, waters and culture.

We pay our respects to their Elders past, present and emerging.