Page 2793 - Week 09 - Wednesday, 17 September 2014
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10,000 jobs and result in $20 billion less of investment in Australia. We saw further reports in early July where Bloomberg projected the global investment in renewable energy infrastructure would surge to $5.1 trillion.
Australia is going backwards under the Abbott government, and we are going to pay handsomely for that patronage of the coal and gas miners. But the Bloomberg report again was a fascinating read. It talked about the fact that renewable energy would reap as much as two-thirds of investment forecast for building new power plants by 2030, with about half of the investment being in Asia, the region where power capacity will grow the most.
They went on to talk about the fact that fossil fuel’s share of power generation will shrink to 46 per cent from 64 per cent now and that the capacity in the renewable sector, particularly in solar, will expand the most in Asia, where new solar sites will exceed gas and coal combined. They talk about the fact that this is all happening because the economics stack up so well and that it is actually an economic case as much as an environmental case that is driving this. So what we are seeing in Australia is a risk to jobs in the sector if the target is cut, a risk that there will be a loss of expertise and the risk that there will be a loss of confidence.
It is interesting to reflect on the history. During the period of the last election campaign Prime Minister Tony Abbott promised that there would not be a change to the renewable energy target. On 19 September 2013, the shadow environment minister, Greg Hunt, told Sky News:
We agree on national targets to reduce our emissions by five per cent by 2020. We also agree on the renewable energy target. And one of the things we don’t want to do is become a party where there is this wild sovereign risk where you are, where businesses take steps to their detriment on the basis of a pledge and a policy of Government. And we’re very clear that that’s not what we want to be.
Then in a doorstop interview on 29 September 2011, Tony Abbott told reporters:
Look, we originated a renewable energy target. That was one of the policies of the Howard Government and yes we remain committed to a renewable energy target. I certainly accept that the renewable energy target is one of the factors of the current power system which is causing prices to go up but we have no plans to change the renewable energy target … our position is to support the renewable energy targets.
I would have disputed his argument at the time about the cost drivers, and certainly what we now see, from the ACIL Allen modelling provided to the Warburton review, is that in fact those claims that he made in 2011 have been overtaken by the more recent modelling.
But what we see here is very clear undertakings from Liberal Party members when they were in opposition. We heard a lot last term about how former Prime Minister Gillard had changed her position on a price on carbon, which I think was confected anyway, when nonetheless we see now that any moral high ground the Liberal Party might have claimed is simply not there today.
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