PRIVATE MEMBERS' BUSINESS
Mr FRENCH (Moore) (12:56): I've been trying to work out what the coalition's energy policy actually is, and I think I've finally got it. They want cheaper electricity; they just oppose building the cheapest new electricity. They want a reliable grid; they just oppose the transmission needed to connect new generation.
They want Australian manufacturing to grow; they just oppose the investment certainty manufacturers need. They want coal fired power stations to stay open; they just do not want to explain who is going to keep them running. Apparently, after doing all of that, power prices will magically fall!
That is not an energy policy; it is a wish list with all the difficult bits crossed out. Governing requires more than announcing the destination. You have to explain how you are going to get there.
Let's take coal. Those opposite talk about ageing coal fired power stations as if governments can simply order them to continue operating forever. But these are enormous pieces of industrial machinery.
They wear out. Boilers deteriorate. Turbines require major overhauls.
Maintenance costs increase. Eventually, the owners look at the cost of keeping those plants open and make a commercial decision. You cannot repeal metal fatigue.
You cannot move an amendment to stop a boiler tube leaking, and you certainly cannot run a national electricity market on nostalgia. So when the coalition keep saying, 'Keep the old plants open,' there are some fairly obvious questions—for how long, at what cost, who pays and what will replace them eventually? These are not minor details.
While those opposite were in government, 24 of Australia's 28 coal fired power stations brought forward their closure dates. Four gigawatts of dispatchable generation left the system and only one gigawatt went in. They knew these generators were going to close.
The companies told them, the market told them and the engineers told them. Instead of building what came next, Australia got a decade of political warfare over energy. Then the bill arrived.
They promised wholesale electricity prices below $70 a megawatt hour. They left government with wholesale prices above $280. Apparently their answer is now to do it all again—delay investment, oppose transmission, create uncertainty, keep ageing generators running longer and then act surprised when electricity becomes expensive.
But this debate is not only about household power bills; it is about Australian industry. For decades, some of our biggest manufacturers have relied on long-term electricity contracts. Those contracts gave them certainty to invest, employ people and compete internationally.
But those contracts won't last forever. Manufacturers are now looking at the next 10 or 20 years, and that is where energy policy stops being a political argument and becomes industrial policy. If we want to make things in Australia, we need abundant, reliable and internationally competitive electricity, not eventually; we need to build it now.
That is why certainty matters. Generation matters. Storage matters.
Transmission matters. Businesses need to know what that system looks like. Investors need to know what we are building, and workers need to know that those jobs have a future.
The independent experts are remarkably consistent. The Australian Energy Market Operator says: Renewable energy, firmed with storage, backed up by gas and connected with upgraded networks remains the least-cost road map … The CSIRO says: Renewables supported by storage remain the lowest-cost generation investments … The Australian Energy Market Commission has warned that delaying generation, batteries and transmission risks higher electricity prices.
So the choice is straightforward: with aging infrastructure that needs replacing, we can plan the replacement, attract investment and build it before the system disappears, or we can delay, pretend the old system will last forever and eventually discover that infrastructure does not care about political slogans. Labor is choosing to build more generation, more storage and more transmission, firming capacity and a system capable of supporting Australian industry for decades to come.
Those opposite offer something different: cheap power without new generation, reliability without investment, manufacturing without certainty and aging power stations without the maintenance bill. There is a technical term for a policy like that—it doesn't work. The coalition spent a decade discovering that the hard way.
Australia should not have to pay for them to learn it twice.