PRIVATE MEMBERS' BUSINESS
Mr WILLCOX (Dawson) (11:21): I thank the member for Indi for bringing this motion forward. I support strong communities, and I support communities receiving their fair share when they host infrastructure. But this motion does address the symptom and not the disease.
The real problem is that Australia has built an energy transition around increasingly complex regulation before properly asking the most basic questions: Does the project work? Is the power reliable? What will it cost?
And what happens to the land when the project is finished? Look at the Mt Challenger Wind Farm proposal in Dawson. Families around Proserpine and Kelsey Creek spent months living in needless uncertainty over massive turbines placed right next to their homes and also being developed on prime agricultural farmland.
After six months of testing, Alinta finally confirmed what should have been obvious from day one—the site is not suitable. It should not take half a year of community anxiety to reach a conclusion that common sense should have dictated from the start. The community deserved better sequencing—test the site; establish the economics; establish the feasibility; and then ask communities to engage meaningfully with a serious proposal.
This is where the coalition offers a different vision. We believe in energy abundance, not energy scarcity. We support coal, gas, hydro and renewables where they make sense and are in the right place.
We will also lift the prohibition on nuclear energy. Our policy is explicitly technology neutral and focused on affordable, reliable power—the source that will generate the most cost-effective and reliable electron—because net zero cannot be the destination at the expense of security and prosperity. Energy-intensive industries need electricity when they need it, not only when the sun shines or the wind blows.
Look at Tomago Aluminium. The New South Wales government have bailed them out with a $2½ billion support package to secure the smelter's future. This proves the grid cannot deliver reliable and affordable industrial power at scale so billions are being spent propping up an energy transition that squeezes out manufacturers.
There are clear lessons from overseas. Let's look at Germany. It pursued an enormous energy transition built largely on renewables and imposed extraordinary costs on the energy system.
The result is a country where consumers face some of the highest electricity costs in Europe while an energy-intensive industry faces electricity prices more than twice those paid in the United States. It is an economic story of ideology over people and prosperity. When energy becomes more expensive, everything becomes more expensive.
Manufacturing becomes less competitive. Investment leaves. Jobs are put under pressure, and, eventually, the middle class starts asking a very simple question: how do we work this hard and somehow become poorer?
Australia is already heading in that direction. Two parents are working—two incomes in the household—and yet the mortgage, groceries, insurance, electricity and fuel consume more and more of what they earn because energy is the economy. We have the opportunity to learn from Europe's mistakes before we repeat them.
We should not spend trillions of dollars building an energy system that makes Australian industry less competitive and Australian families poorer. And the question must be asked: Who pays later? Who pays to dismantle the turbines?
Who restores the land? Who carries a liability when a company disappears, is sold or walks away? Regional Australia must not be the graveyard of infrastructure, and prime agricultural land should not be permanently compromised.
The coalition has already committed to protecting our farmers, requiring a social licence for energy infrastructure. That matters because food security is national security. Australia must be able to feed itself.
We need reliable power, affordable power, securable power—power that supports manufacturing, agriculture, jobs and prosperity—and we need security before symbolism and prosperity before ideology. Net zero should never be the destination at which we sacrifice the things that actually make Australia prosperous. (Time expired) The DEPUTY SPEAKER ( Ms Mascarenhas ): The time allotted for this debate has expired.