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Net Zero Climate Credibility is Boiling Over

The UN has dialed up its terror war against the West to ridiculous new levels. We’re now expected to believe in climate boiling.

Basic human rights are being destroyed using false data and children are being scared into thinking they have no future.

Wind and solar fail to provide baseload power and their subsidized existence is driving up energy bills. It’s unsustainable.

I’ll be saying a lot more on this shortly in my adjournment speech.

Transcript

I thank Senator McKim for his matter of urgency.

The public is waking up to the net zero war on living standards, war on freedom of movement and war on property rights.

Following public sentiment moving away from global warming ideology, the media is seeking to restore its credibility on this.

So what’s a climate carpet bagger like UN head Antonio Guterres got to do? Does he admit the scam is over and resign? No. He dialled up the hyperbole from global warming to global boiling.

This hyperbole is dangerous. It’s based on falsification of data. It’s scaring children into thinking they have no future. It’s destroying wealth and property. It’s taking away basic human rights like the right to travel and the right to enjoy one’s own property.

The warmers are desperate to save their scare from the reality of cooling temperatures and the demonstrated failure of wind and solar to provide baseload power, while driving skyrocketing unaffordable power prices, crippling families.

In tomorrow’s adjournment speech, I’ll be saying a lot more.

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Greens and Teals can’t see the wood for the trees

Native timber forestry does not harm the environment, but destroying an established 120 old industry does more harm than good to the environment and to Australian society.

How do the Greens and Teals think they’ll solve Australia’s housing crisis without wood?

Is this another one of those net zero solutions where the coal used to manufacture all those disposable ‘renewables’ is acceptable as long as its burned overseas? Perhaps the climate alarm switches off at the border where East meets West. So much for global climate solutions.

What about the jobs lost? What about the fire risks that come with shutting up forests and no longer managing them?

We’ve already had a taste of what green ideology does to our environment and it doesn’t take a genius to work out that fires need fuel.

The Greens and their climate crisis cronies seem more than happy to add that to the flaming wreck of Australian industries, jobs and the housing crisis.

These are tangible and more real than their manufactured climate fears.

Transcript

As a servant to the many different people who make up our one Queensland community, I speak in favour of Senator Duniam’s motion. The timber industry is an essential industry to maintain Australia’s way of life.

How can Labor Premier Andrews eliminate native timber production while at the same time Labor Prime Minister Anthony Albanese is promising to build 30,000 new homes which require timber? As a famous robot once said, ‘That does not compute.’  

Native timber forestry does not harm the environment. Sensible native timber logging has been going on in Australia for 150 years, and the forests are still here, the fauna and flora are still here.

Until these Labor and Greens ideologues declared war on sustainable timber harvesting, the jobs in the timber industry were still here, the communities that rely on these jobs were still here. Not any more—Dan Andrews has done them in: no jobs in forestry in Mr Dan Andrews’s socialist state of Victoria.

The truth is native timber logging disturbs a few per cent of the total forest area every year. Logging reduces the forest fuel loads to protect us from bushfires. We also saw how badly some areas of forest burned in the deliberately lit bushfires a few years ago, some areas have still not recovered thanks to Greens and teal policies—clearly, not areas that were logged and the fuel loads removed.

One Nation stands as a strong supporter of the logging industry and a strong supporter of humanity. Timber is essential.  

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Climate Ambitions for an Unsustainable Future

I made this statement to the senate recently to highlight the insanity of the C40 scheme. This is a collaborative effort by many of the world’s largest cities which have been captured by the UN monolith and their financial backers, the world’s predatory billionaires.

C40 strives for a ‘zero-carbon future’ and of course it’s backed by those who will profit from the scheme.

In 2021, the Mayor of London, Sadiq Khan, announced that 1000 city and local governments around the world have joined the ‘Cities Race to Zero’. The globalists and their mouthpiece media are supported by a captive political establishment in both the parliament and the bureaucracy.

The main outcome of C40 will be a massive increase in taxation to pay for the apparatus to police the scheme. This will require substantial reductions in personal sovereignty, taking away freedom of movement, freedom of speech, and the freedom to decide how and where you spend your own money.

C40 is about Government autocrats having more money and power, leaving everyday Australians with less. Much less.

In short C40 will regulate and tax individuals into serfdom.

The Lib-Lab duopoly and the Greens have been promoting this agenda for twenty years.

Only One Nation stands opposed to the United Nations, World Economic Forum and the World Health Organisation – all of which are dedicated to increasing their power and reducing your freedom.

Transcript

As a servant to the many different people who make up our one Queensland community, I draw the Senate’s attention to C40 Cities, another campaign, from predatory billionaires who run the world, to destroy our standard of living and steal everything we own for themselves—all in the name of saving the planet. C40 Cities is a product of the usual suspects—billionaires Michael Bloomberg and George Soros, and the Clinton initiative. Sydney and Melbourne have already signed on.

As he calls on the world’s governments to do more on climate change, Michael Bloomberg is doing the opposite. In 2022, he made 702 flights in his five jets, covering 810,000 kilometres, burning 1.2 million litres of jet fuel, and, for those who are counting, producing 3,200 tons of carbon dioxide. Bloomberg’s No. 1 destination was not the Sudan or Afghanistan, where his money might actually help people; his favourite destination was the Bahamas.

Here are the top end C40 targets for 2030, just seven years away. There’s cutting steel and cement use 56 per cent. There’s increasing the number of people in each building 20 per cent—and the Reserve Bank governor recently made a similar comment. There’s eliminating—yes, eliminating!—meat consumption and dairy consumption. There’s limiting buying new clothes to three new items a year—three; that’s three pairs of undies. Food waste is to be reduced 75 per cent, mostly from homes. We’ll shop once a week, buy our allocated ration from bulk displays and eat everything we buy or starve until our next allocated shopping day. There’ll be programmable digital currency to ensure compliance.

These rules are for you, for us, not for the elites and their nomenklatura, their henchmen in the media, academia, the bureaucracy and politics. The rules never apply to the people who make them.

One Nation stands opposed to serfdom. One Nation works for freedom, basic rights and free choice.

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How the West was Lost

On the one hand, Australia bans the use of its own natural gas, while on the other hand plans huge gas processing and export expansion for international bidders.

We’re sending our natural resources overseas to power the economic prosperity of China, India and other nations. Then we’re buying back unreliable wind and solar manufactured with our gas and coal.

Maybe the Greens will appreciate the irony when they’re sitting in the dark without cooking and heating. Gas should be our back-up to the energy shortfalls, not the bad guy.

This war on gas is a heist under the banner of UN ‘net-zero’. The only winners are the billionaires involved with the corrupt UN-WEF “sustainability” agenda.

Transcript

As a servant to the many different people who make up our one Queensland community, I thank Senator Pocock for his motion. I question why we need a dedicated export facility for the Beetaloo Basin’s natural gas. Australia has 10 natural gas export terminals—two in Darwin. Beetaloo output is expected to be huge, and much of it should be used here in Australia, not exported.

Australia’s parasitic mal-investments in wind and solar are destroying our energy generation capacity. Gas generation is essential to keeping the lights on, while commercial gas hot water and cooking are likewise essential. Everyday Australians will never accept the insane idea that Australia should stop using gas. This is despite the advertising spent on climate campaigns designed to do one thing—line the pockets of climate carpetbaggers, like those funding teal senator David Pocock’s campaign. Gas connections are being banned in new builds and existing lines will be ripped out because, at some point, we will need to recycle that copper, since world production will never be able to supply the copper needed for UN net zero.

My own building that I rent in Campbell, in Canberra, sent out a note to owners this week saying that the body corporate had been told they will need to remove the gas hot water system, rip out the pipes and remove all gas appliances by 2035. Homeowners will have to pay the bill—likely, over a million dollars all up. This is a brand-new building! What a waste.

On one hand, the green ideologues will require owners to spend tens of thousands of dollars per unit to pull out near-new hot water heating, gas lines and equipment and replace them with less efficient solutions. Then the ideologues will complain, ‘Rents have gone up!’ Of course rents are going up. Green ideology is forcing rents up by forcing landlords’ costs up. How are the climate lobby not connecting the dots here? How much more productive capacity are we going to rip out, to replace it with shiny new electric capacity that doesn’t do the job as well as gas? Never mind the environmental waste of tossing millions of stoves into landfill where they can rot beside broken and toxic solar panels and wind-turbine blades! And these people were worried about plastic straws! Please!

One gas provider proudly claims on their website that they’re banning gas to ‘save the planet’. No, you are depriving Australians of our own gas so you can sell it for a larger profit into an energy starved world market, a situation the government’s price cap on gas made worse because it made exports more profitable than domestic sales in a disrupted supply market.

Meanwhile, another energy retailer is advertising on their website—listen to this—that:

We all like to do our bit for the planet, so you’ll be happy to know you can reduce your household carbon emissions by switching from appliances running on grid electricity to natural gas.

It goes on to say that ‘gas is the perfect partner for solar’ and by connecting your home to natural gas you ‘can lower your carbon emissions by up to 77 per cent in Victoria compared to electric cooking and hot water appliances.’ Which is it? Is gas a perfect partner to solar or is it environmental vandalism?

Another energy provider’s website has a spiel about renewable gas, which turns out to be hydrogen. Hydrogen is not even a viable fuel yet as it takes huge amounts of energy to make it out of water and yet they have rebranded it already. That must be some sort of record! What a mess climate carpetbaggers have created through their green and teal shills in the Senate. What I have not heard in the gas debate at all is a major reason gas is better than electricity, and that is transmission loss. Electricity suffers transmission loss getting from the point of generation miles out in the countryside to homes in the city. Gas does not suffer a transmission loss. Factor that into energy calculations and electrification becomes an even worse idea.

We’re banning Australians from accessing our own natural resources while allowing our gas to be flogged off to international bidders at a premium just as our coal is shipped to China where it powers the solar panel and wind turbine export industry that the Greens and teal Senator David Pocock worship with no hint of irony. Meanwhile, a rapidly increasing global energy market values and prefers hydrocarbon fuels, coal, oil and gas. The West is deindustrialising while the rest of the world, including China, India, Pakistan and Bangladesh, are industrialising using our gas and coal. The war on gas is a heist of our nation’s natural resources. We’re sacrificing economic prosperity and the opportunity for advancement for all the Australians in the name of a corrupt United Nations sustainability agenda that sustains nobody except the billionaires behind it all. It is wealth transfer from we the people to global billionaire elites and global predators like BlackRock, Vanguard and State Street.

One Nation rejects the electrification of Australia’s gas supply and questions the Middle Arm project. Natural gas must stay as a choice for all— (Time expired)

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Australia turning into a spiderweb of high voltage transmission lines

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It’s estimated that 28,000km of power lines will be required to help the government’s net-zero pipe dream.

In many places, these powerlines are being proposed over prime agricultural land with the owners having their property compulsorily resumed.

I spoke in support of a inquiry to give affected landowners a voice as the government bulldozes over them on their way off the wind and solar cliff.

Transcript

As a servant to the people of Queensland and Australia, I want to acknowledge the people in the gallery. My brothers and sisters in Queensland amongst the rural sector were at a property rights conference just last Friday. The stories about the so-called green power—wind and solar—are well and truly horrific.  

People are just starting to wake up to the blight that is coming upon this country. And it’s not just the city people paying for power; it’s rural landholders and farmers losing their land, losing their livelihoods and losing their health. The social, economic and moral impacts are enormous and devastating. And the anti-human Greens are responsible.  

I want to compliment the farmers who have come here today. Thank you so much, because what you’re showing is democracy in action. You’re putting pressure on the people down here in this chamber. We are paid by these people. We serve them.  

Recently I was in the wonderful Widgee community to listen to people about the Queensland government’s plan to destroy their national park and communities in order to build a high voltage powerline. Electricity transmission has become a controversial topic in recent years. The UN’s 2050 net zero—next to zero—needs a huge spend on wind turbines and solar panels, inevitably located in the bush and requiring tens of thousands of kilometres of transmission lines to bring the power all the way to the cities. 

Long transmission lines were not needed when coal power kept lights on and fridges running, lifting our beautiful country into a period of prosperity and stability. 

The woke Left—the socialist Left—are destroying what works and replacing it with a short-lived, unscientific exercise in feelings. Net zero will need $50 billion spent just on transmission lines, every cent of which will come out of the pockets of everyday Australians and electricity users, including manufacturers. Queensland Premier Palaszczuk’s plan for a big battery in the Pioneer Valley calls for peak generation of five million kilowatts of electricity to be delivered into a 275-kilovolt transmission line. It’s absolute insanity, deceit and arrogance. Premier, where’s the costing on the several thousand kilometres of additional lines necessary to carry that amount of power into the grid without melting the wires? Are you forgetting that melted wires is exactly what happened when the Kennedy renewables project was connected to the grid, and that was less than one per cent of the Pioneer project? 

It’s a fact that Katherine Myers from Victoria addressed the Property Rights conference in Gympie on the weekend. She told us that 80 per cent of solar and wind in western Victoria is not connected to the grid. You guys have blown that money and now you’re wanting to tear up farms to get it to the cities. Once wind and solar wear out, which takes only 12 years—and that’s the reason they’re called renewables, by the way—and taxpayers become jack of this ruinous drain on public finances the bush will be left a wasteland of glass, toxic chemicals, rusted steel towers, concrete and fallen wind turbines full of oil and dangerous chemicals. Do you know why they’re called renewables? Because you have to renew the bloody things every 12 years. In the space of building one power station you need to build four generations of solar and wind. That’s why they’re renewables. 

Wires melting is exactly what happened when the Kennedy renewables project was connected to the grid, and that’s less than one per cent of the Pioneer project. Nothing stacks up—nothing. Their owners are Bahamian shelf companies and Chinese shelf companies, which have no intention of remediating this inevitable environmental disaster. Who will be left with this legacy of blown toxic panels and wind turbines? You will be. That’s why we need this inquiry to explore this issue. 

One Nation stands opposed to green vandalism underway in rural Australians’ backyards just so that wealthy, ignorant and uncaring inner-city anti-human Greens and teals can feel better about their inhuman energy consumption myths. Why do the Greens hate nature? Let’s look at their track record. They chop down trees to make way for steel and fibreglass monuments to the sky god of warming, who is celebrated with religious fervour by people who think themselves too clever for religion. Tens of thousands of hectares have been cleared and devastated for electricity interconnector easements. It’s a permanent scar across the landscape for no reason.  

The seabed is marked with two new interconnectors to get hydropower from Tasmania to energy deficient Victoria. Suicide is what’s going on with the Victorian government. They’re suiciding their state. Productive farmland and native grasses are covered in a carpet of glass and silicon reflectors. The sea is supposed to shine, not the countryside. Productive land is dug up as a graveyard for expired wind turbine blades. There’s strip mining of the seabed for rare earth minerals to make EVs and big batteries. Beautiful natural lakes in China are polluted with toxic chemical run-off from the processing of rare earths. The Greens look the other way with this environmental vandalism because ignoring environmental standards is essential to bring the price of solar down so that they can claim the price of solar is falling. 

This is the stuff that comes out of the south end of a northbound bull. So there’s China’s environmental standards and the health of the locals, but who cares about children being devastated? Our beautiful bird life is sliced and diced in wind turbines across the country. If oil were the culprit, they would never shut up about birds. But with wind turbines: ‘Shoosh. No-one mention the dead birds.’ 

I make this offer to the Greens: come camping with me. Let me show you the beauty of this amazing countryside and then perhaps then you will be less likely to chop it down; cover it in glass, steel and concrete; pollute it; and lock it away so nobody but a chosen few can appreciate the beauty. One Nation is now the party of the environment. 

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Australia Council happy to waste 7% more of your money to virtue signal

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Everyone’s power bills are going up, which made me wonder why the Australia Council was happy to make their power bill 7% more expensive for no reason at all.

Despite the same power coming through the plug (probably from a coal fired power station) the council elects to make their bills 7% more expensive so they can buy “green power”. What a scam and a waste of money.

Transcript

Senator Roberts: I want to follow up on something we discussed last time. You may recall that last estimates we had a conversation about your power bills.

Mr Collette: Yes.

Senator Roberts: A lot of people are talking about power bills these days.

Mr Collette: They are.

Senator Roberts: This is estimates, and one of the purposes of estimates is to assess how you are spending taxpayers’ money. That is what I want to revisit. Firstly, thank you for your detailed response, when you took my question on notice. That was SQ 23-003317. I hope all of the Public Service takes notes from you about how questions on notice should be answered. We appreciate it.

Mr Collette: Thank you.

Senator Roberts: In that answer, you said that you elect to add the green power product to your power bills. That is totally optional. You opt in, and you take extra money from the taxpayer to pay that expense. That is making your power bill 6.8 per cent—say seven per cent—more expensive than otherwise. Whether you opt in to pay the extra for green power or not, the same power comes through the same plug, probably from a coal-fired power station. But you are choosing to waste taxpayers’ money on this optional expense that makes no difference to what is turning the lights on. How much did you pay for green power over the last year?

Mr Collette: I will have to take that on notice, unless my colleague has the answer.

Mr Blackwell: I don’t have it.

Mr Collette: We will try to come back to you with an equally exemplary response.

Senator Roberts: Good, thank you. I don’t expect this of you, but do you have any guess as to what your power bill is?

Mr Collette: I would not like to guess, no.

Senator Roberts: Can you also tell me how much you expect to pay this coming year?

Mr Collette: I can’t tell you that, but I will certainly get that information for you.

Senator Roberts: You were established under legislation; correct?

Mr Collette: We are.

Senator Roberts: So I assume you have been established with the objective of funding the arts.

Mr Collette: Yes, we have, investment and advocacy.

Senator Roberts: Investing in arts and advocacy on behalf of the arts. Thank you, that is clarifying. What part of your objectives enables you to waste an extra seven per cent a year on a core component, power, when it is literally the same power coming through the plug whether you pay the extra expense or not?

Mr Collette: What part of our objectives? I think the Australia Council—Creative Australia to be—does have sustainability goals, and we try to exemplify those, which are important to the sector that we serve as well. Given that we invest in the sector, and we advocate for the sector, I think this is generally respected by the arts and creative industry.

Senator Roberts: I think you are wasting taxpayer money and that should be cancelled. Would not that money be better spent on the art that you are supposed to be funding?

Mr Collette: There is always a cost to investing in servicing the art that we are funding, and I think you will find that this is significantly respected by the sector.

Senator Roberts: The point is that you are spending an extra seven per cent on a key component—

Mr Collette: I understand that.

Senator Roberts: Same plug, same power.

Mr Collette: I understand that. But there are different kinds of value as well.

Senator Roberts: I am not arguing with you on that point.

Mr Collette: So this would be a small contribution to social and environmental value that is respected by the sector, and I am sure if you ask their general view on whether we should save whatever the sum is—seven per cent of our power bill, and I confess I don’t know our power bill as I sit here—you would find very broad support for what we do.

Senator Roberts: I think there is a lot of ignorance—and I am not singling you out; I think it goes right through the community—about this green power, because the same power comes from the same place through the plug, regardless of whether you pay that seven per cent or not. So I would like to know what benefit you get from that seven per cent.

Mr Collette: I will take that on notice and come back to you, once I understand the argument that I think you are making—that there is actually no difference in this power. I need to satisfy myself on that argument and then we can come back to you with a response.

Senator Roberts: I am pleased to hear that. Thank you.

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Snowy 2.0 continues to throw good money after bad

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I questioned the Snowy Hydro Authority on the Snowy 2.0 project at Senate Estimates.

Snowy 2.0 is a ‘big battery’ that pumps water from the Talbingo Reservoir up to the Tantangara Reservoir during the day when there is excess wind and solar electricity, then lets the water down during the evening peak to generate electricity when the sun isn’t shining and wind isn’t blowing.

If this sounds like we are planning on generating electricity twice to use it once, that is exactly what pumped hydro does.

The original cost of $2 billion is now out to $5.9 billion and likely to go over $10 billion. In addition, the transmission lines to bring the power into the grid will gouge out national parks and farmland, and cost another $10 billion. And their main boring machine has been bogged for more than a year.

I asked if this project is worth continuing.

The lack of detail around how much the power will cost electricity customers is frightening.

Listen to the answers. It sounds like the Snowy Authority is planning to profiteer by having the only power available when solar and wind are not generating enough power.

All I can say is be worried – this Government is actively planning massive increases in power bills.

Transcript

Senator Roberts: Thank you for appearing again today. Florence is now acknowledged to be bogged. When will it be unbogged?

Mr Barnes: I expect in weeks, not months. As soon as the slurry plant is operating, we’ll push forward, obviously in close consultation with our colleagues at DPIE and Parks, but we expect it to be relatively soon.

Senator Roberts: I empathise with you, having managed underground projects, some quite large—not as large as this one. There is a lot of uncertainty, and it’s hard telling people who are looking on how to think about this. It’s very difficult to describe.

Mr Barnes: You’ve got to see it to believe it.

Senator Roberts: That’s right. We’ve got journalists—admittedly journalists—now saying it’s time to cut our losses on Snowy 2.0. If the project is completed and all the high-voltage transmission lines are built across farmyards and national parks, there must be a calculation that takes the capital cost of the project as a whole and divides that by the life of the project to get a figure for how much the annual amortisation charge for the capital costs will be. Do you have the latest projection, please?

Mr Barnes: There was quite a lot in your question. Obviously we haven’t got an updated cost here, and we’ll provide that in months. We don’t have the cost of transmission, so I wouldn’t be able to provide that. I fully expect, through our corporate plan process, we’ll assess the returns from Snowy 2.0, and, if anything, the commercial case for it has got stronger since FID.

Senator Roberts: Sorry?

Mr Barnes: The commercial case for it has gotten stronger since the financial investment decision.

Senator Roberts: There were many factors that drove that commercial decision in the first place. Well, it wasn’t commercial, from what we understand, because there was no cost-benefit analysis, and the business case was redacted heavily, under Malcolm Turnbull’s prime ministership. This annual amortisation charge, which you can’t provide, is combined with annual costs like labour and maintenance to calculate what the real cost per megawatt hour will be once the project starts. You wouldn’t have the projected cost per megawatt hour either then?

Mr Barnes: That’s correct, but to think about Snowy 2.0 in megawatt hours is perhaps not the right way to think about it.

Senator Roberts: It’s a battery.

Mr Barnes: Yes, but it’s the provision of dispatchable demand over very long storage duration that allows lots of variable renewable electricity to be delivered. So we look at the business case in a much more fulsome way across the whole Snowy business. For example, over the past few years, we’ve procured 1,500 megawatts of solar and wind PPAs to enable the transition, which assets like Snowy 2.0 support. I think you’ve got to look at a whole-of-business business case, and the simple amortisation plus labour is, perhaps, too simplistic a way to consider the business case.

Senator Roberts: Now you’ve got me really worried. It’s not your responsibility with the solar and wind, but now I’m terrified of it. Your website lists the levelised cost of storage at between $25 and $35 per megawatt hour. On 340,000 megawatt hours each year, this suggests an annual cost of $11 million, including operating costs, maintenance, capital costs and the cost of buying the electricity to pump the water uphill. Is the $25 to $35 figure still accurate and, if not, what is the new figure?

Mr Barnes: I’ve not got a calculator that capable in my head, but I think there might be a multiplying factor out on those numbers. The levelised cost of storage I think we have on our website is sourced from international studies and our view of levelised cost of storage. I don’t have the updated figure in my head at the moment.

Senator Roberts: Our staff team did some calculations. Now, admittedly, we don’t have all the costs, but it just seems ridiculously low. When we pile on these extra costs of the delay, we’re wondering about what will happen.

Mr Barnes: Just to be clear, the levelised cost of storage is what one would add to variable renewable electricity to provide a firm product. Also, the 340,000 megawatt hours of storage is not deployed over a year. It will be deployed multiple times through the year, depending on the market dynamics.

Senator Roberts: It seems to us that the capital cost is becoming a huge stumbling block. Even if you take just the cost of the project, at $6 billion—and there are serious doubts about that now—and amortise those across 50 years, the annual capital charge will be $120 million, and double that if you add the pole and the wires. That puts the cost of your electricity at over $700 per megawatt per hour, including the poles and wires. The current spot price for last weekend—admittedly the weekend was cold down here—for last weekend was $150 per megawatt hour. Is there something we’re missing?

Mr Barnes: We’ll certainly do a full financial review of the project when the increased costs are known. But I think you’re mischaracterising the nature of the asset in that it isn’t an energy provider. It’s an insurance provider for when the wind isn’t blowing, the sun isn’t shining or there is plant failure elsewhere. So we don’t sell it as a baseload energy price, which is what you’re referencing.

Senator Roberts: Hasn’t it been touted as a peak period source of electricity?

Mr Barnes: The two major sources of revenue will be the difference between the price we pump the water up to Tantangara, which will soak up demand from solar and wind when it’s not required, and the price at which we sell it in peak periods when solar and wind aren’t available or other plants are not available. So it’s an asset about being there when everything else isn’t. It isn’t sold on an energy basis, which are the reference prices you’re quoting.

Senator Roberts: Okay. But the projected cost must be the single most important KPI of this project.

Mr Barnes: Cost and schedule are my most important KPIs. The reason we came out with the schedule is that there are many stakeholders interested in the schedule, and we’ll work through the cost and associated business plans around that.

Senator Roberts: There seems to be a real risk, though. I acknowledge your point that we can’t just charge per kilowatt hour—or we can’t just recognise a per kilowatt hour figure. But there seems to be the real possibility that the price of electricity generated, recovered and stored will be massive, even without government subsidies coming in year after year.

Ms Barnes: I think that’s for others to comment on. My focus is on getting the project at schedule and cost and making a business case for it, which I think is very strong. There are many other factors which will determine the price of electricity.

Senator Roberts: Minister, can you provide on notice the current projected cost per megawatt hour of electricity generated by Snowy 2.0 on the first year of operation, please?

Senator McAllister: Senator, I will take that on notice. I would also direct you to the evidence given to you already by Mr Barnes in relation both to the variability in the electricity market that Snowy will participate in but also—

Senator Roberts: A lot of variability means uncertainty.

Senator McAllister: Senator Roberts, I think that Mr Barnes has given an indication that he thinks it’s a strong business case and they’re presently working through it. I have taken your question on notice.

Senator Roberts: Thank you. This had nothing to do with your government, but right from the start of this project, Malcolm Turnbull’s government refused access to the cost-benefit analysis and heavily redacted the business case. There have been lots of questions about this project right from the start and now there are even more questions—and I don’t blame Mr Barnes for that.

Mr Barnes: My interest is running a commercially viable and efficient company, and that’s what I’ve done all of my career. The reason I joined Snowy was to get the opportunity to deliver Snowy 2, because I think it’s an incredibly important asset to the energy transition. I fully expect it to be very commercial. We’re trying to deal with the hardest part of the transition, which is providing deep storage to enable more renewables. So I expect it to be a very commercial business.

Senator Roberts: Can I confirm media reports that Snowy Hydro was found in a third independent audit last year to be noncompliant on environmental plans in 15 instances and that you have at last 10 management plans overdue?

Mr Barnes: I think, Senator, that you’re maybe referring to a National Parks Association report that was released last Thursday, without consultation with Snowy Hydro. We are currently operating under all of our construction approvals. So there are no breaches there. The plans and requirements as a result of the construction and operation of Snowy 2 obviously changed in nature over time. There are some that are relevant to construction, and we’re fully compliant with those. There are some that are relevant to operation and some that are relevant to rehabilitation. We work closely with all of the agencies to make sure that they’re reviewed and consulted on in every thorough way. I think there’s been a misunderstanding of some of the dates on various websites. So I have reached out to the National Parks Association to help them understand how it operates.

Senator Roberts: So it’s a misunderstanding that 10 of the 16 management plans for multibillion-dollar pumped hydro projects are overdue by 31 months, as reported in the media, citing the National Parks Association? So you think they’ve got it wrong somewhere?

Mr Barnes: The plans that are being referred to are prepared by Snowy and they are reviewed by various agencies. In consultation with the agencies, some of the dates that were originally envisaged are not being met and, therefore, are phases of the project which are way into the future. One of the things that may be useful for us to do is to work with the various agencies to make that understanding of how this process works. I would have happily taken the National Parks Association through that process.

Senator Roberts: Okay; so they jumped the gun?

Mr Barnes: They didn’t consult with Snowy Hydro before releasing it to the media.

Senator Roberts: Can I go to your opening statement? You recently announced a one- to two-year delay.  That’s a heck of a range, 100 per cent—from minimum to major.

Mr Barnes: It’s a project that’s being constructed over more than one to two years. It’s been in construction a few years. I think it was appropriate to give a range until we do more work.

Senator Roberts: I appreciate your honesty. I am not questioning your honesty—and I appreciate that you have given us that figure. But, for the project, that’s a pretty big number. What was the original planned project duration?

Mr Barnes: It was before my time. Perhaps we’ll come back to you. We gave a notice to proceed in mid-2020 and power was expected in 2025-26.

Mr Whitby: First power was for 1 July 2025, from a notice to proceed from August 2020. So five years was the original—

Senator Roberts: So the delay is 20 per cent to 40 per cent?

Mr Barnes: That would be the simple maths.

Chair: Senator Roberts, I’ll get you to wind it up and share the call, if that’s okay?

Senator Roberts: Okay. You mentioned in your statement the combination of four factors. What are the four factors? I’ve been through your statement and I couldn’t see them.

Mr Barnes: In our advice to ministers and in our media release we identified the effects of COVID and bushfires on the mobilisation of the project, the effect of many global factors on the availability of skilled labour and also the costs of materials. There’s a lot of steel and concrete in the project. We’ve found that some elements of the design—as we’ve gone through the process of design—are, in some cases, more costly to complete. And finally, the site conditions, of which the Florence ground conditions are the most impactful, also includes things like additional eroding. They’re the four factors.

Senator Roberts: Good luck getting that machine out.

Mr Barnes: Thanks.

/5 Comments/by

Same place, same time, different temperatures. What’s the BOM hiding?

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The Bureau of Meteorology has been in the process of replacing mercury temperature probes with digital probes at weather stations across the country.

After a long Freedom of Information process, we now have field logs from the Brisbane Airport station showing that the two different devices can record different temperatures at the same place at the same time.

The Bureau have said both of these sets of data has always been available but I don’t believe them and I think they’ve been caught out. We need a transparent inquiry into all of BOM’s temperature measuring.

Click Here for Transcript

Chair: Senator Roberts, over to you for 10 minutes.

Senator Roberts: Thank you again for being here, Dr Johnson and Dr Stone. I would like to table these two articles, Chair.

Chair: Certainly. What are they?

Senator Roberts: They are newspaper articles.

Chair: Given they are public documents, we probably don’t need to table them; we can just circulate them around the committee.

Senator Roberts: The first document is about two articles in the Australian newspaper about parallel temperatures at Brisbane Airport—following on from Senator Rennick. The other one is about forecasts from the Bureau of Meteorology that have been inaccurate. Going to the first one, I’ve tabled some important news about parallel temperatures at Brisbane Airport, showing that your temperature probes do record different temperatures to mercury thermometers in the same location at the same time. If I could please go to Freedom of Information 30/6155, regarding the daily maximum and minimum temperature parallel observations for Brisbane Airport, which the stories relate to, what date did you first receive the FOI request? I think you said 2019.

Dr Johnson: It was received on 12 December 2019.

Senator Roberts: What date did you release the documents to the applicant?

Dr Johnson: Well, the documents were released, as agreed with the respondent, on 6 April 2023, but, as I said in my earlier response to Senator Rennick’s question, the documents released were the ones that we were quite happy to provide in 2019 to the respondent, but the respondent didn’t wish to avail themselves of that material back in 2019.

Senator Roberts: Why did you fight to keep this information a secret?

Dr Johnson: We didn’t fight. Again, I reiterate my response to Senator Rennick: we didn’t fight anything. We were unable to fulfill the request that we received in 2019 because the information that was requested did not exist in the form that the respondent requested it. So we offered the respondent the material we had. They declined and sought to appeal it through the various appeals processes. Our decisions were reaffirmed by both the Information Commissioner and the Administrative Appeals Tribunal, and the information that we offered to provide the respondent back in 2019 was provided in April this year. So this notion that the bureau’s withholding information is a fallacy.

Senator Roberts: So we’d have to look further into that, but not here.

Dr Johnson: That’s the record and the truth.

Senator Roberts: You’re paid by the taxpayer, Dr Johnson, just like I am. You’re meant to serve the

taxpayer, as I am. You have a remuneration package of over half a million dollars a year from taxpayers. The information you have, the work you do, belongs to the taxpayer, correct?

Dr Johnson: As I said in my response by Senator Rennick, all of the bureau’s data records are available to the public, either in digital or analogue form. They’re held in the analogue form in the National Archives, and the digital records are available on the bureau’s website.

Senator Roberts: I’ve heard that before, but I’ve also seen people who can’t access the information.

Dr Johnson: I can only tell you the truth, and the truth is that those records are available on our website or in the National Archives by request.

Senator Roberts: Why did it take an application to the Administrative Appeals Tribunal for you to back down?

Dr Johnson: I reject that comment. The information that was requested by the respondent or the proponent—I’m not sure how you want to characterise it—was not available. We can’t create something that’s not available.  We offered the respondent a set of alternatives, which they declined initially and then subsequently agreed to take. So, again, this notion that the bureau is withholding information from the public or from this particular respondent is just not true; it’s inaccurate. I can’t be any clearer on that.

Senator Roberts: No; you’re clear. Do you disagree that your temperature probes are recording different temperatures to mercury thermometers in the same place at the same time?

Dr Johnson: I’ll let Dr Stone address that.

Dr Stone: No, you actually expect pairs of measuring instruments to have different measurements.

Senator Roberts: So if we had two probes, they would be slightly different. I understand the natural

variation.

Dr Stone: Within tolerance, yes.

Senator Roberts: Would the difference between the two probes be less or greater than the difference between a probe and a mercury thermometer?

Dr Stone: I’ll reiterate that liquid-in-glass thermometers have a tolerance, an acceptable error, of 0.5 of a degree. Our electronic probes that we’ve been using for 30-odd years have a tolerance of 0.4 of a degree. The electronic probes that we’re about to roll out have a tolerance of 0.2 of a degree. You can expect a difference between the two probes that is the sum of the tolerances of the two probes.

Senator Roberts: I understand that. So there is a difference between the mercury in glass and the probes?

Dr Stone: In which sense? In tolerance?

Senator Roberts: No, in the actual measurement. There’ll be difference in the two measurements?

Dr Stone: Sometimes, because they operate within that tolerance.

Senator Roberts: I understand about tolerances.

Dr Stone: For the ones operating at Brisbane Airport, for example, I have the figures on the distribution of readings and the mercury-in-glass. I don’t have the exact figures, I’m sorry, but approximately 40 per cent of the time one of the probes measured a higher amount than another.

Senator Roberts: The figures are 41 per cent—

Dr Stone: About 30 per cent of the time, they measured below, and the balance of the time they measured very similar.

Senator Roberts: So there is a difference. There has to be.

Dr Stone: Correct, and we expect the difference—

Senator Roberts: So 41 per cent of the time it recorded a warmer temperature, and cooler temperatures were recorded 26 per cent of the time.

Dr Stone: Something like that, yes.

Senator Roberts: So are you saying that the analysis of Marohasy and Abbot is incorrect? Or are you

saying that it may be correct but it’s within allowable tolerances, so you don’t care?

Dr Stone: Which part of their analysis? They did quite—

Senator Roberts: The 41 per cent warmer and the 26 per cent cooler.

Dr Stone: If they are the figures. Sorry; I’ve got them here. Yes.

Senator Roberts: 41 per cent and 26 per cent?

Dr Stone: That is correct.

Senator Roberts: Thank you. Do you think it’s significant that your new temperature probes are, on

average, recording warmer temperatures than the mercury thermometers in the same locations at the same times?

Dr Stone: They are not, on average. There is a difference of two-hundredths of a degree, which is not a significant difference.

Senator Roberts: I said on average they’re recording a warmer temperature.

Dr Stone: No, sorry. On average, there was a difference of two-hundredths of a degree between the liquid-in glass-thermometers—

Senator Roberts: So, on average, the probes are recording a warmer temperature.

Dr Stone: 0.02 degrees is not a significant difference.

Senator Roberts: On average, they are recording warmer temperatures than the mercury.

Dr Stone: No. 0.02 degrees is not a significant difference.

Senator Roberts: Graham Lloyd is a credible journalist; I’ve seen his work many times. The story also

says that you, Dr Stone, claimed in response to these issues—presumably he asked you—

Dr Stone: No, he didn’t.

Senator Roberts: that all temperature data is publicly available on your website, including the parallel data. Is that true?

Dr Stone: All of our digitised data is available on the website, and, as Dr Johnson mentioned to you earlier, data that hasn’t been digitised is available from the national archive.

Senator Roberts: The temperature data that was released in the freedom of information request was not available on your website, was it?

Dr Stone: There were two pieces of information provided. One was scans of field books which hadn’t

previously been digitised. Those were digitised upon request and provided. Then the electronic data is available on the bureau website.

Senator Roberts: Well, why were you in the Administrative Appeals Tribunal trying to keep it secret?

Dr Stone: Sorry?

Dr Johnson: Senator, with respect, I think we’ve addressed this. This notion that we are withholding

information from the public is just false. The administrative appeals process was instigated by the proponent, who disagreed with the decision that both the bureau and the Information Commissioner had made in respect of the freedom of information request. Again, I reiterate that the bureau’s actions were affirmed by both the Information Commissioner and the Administrative Appeals Tribunal. So this notion that the bureau withholds data is false, and it’s very important that it’s on the record, because, as you say, taxpayers have a legitimate expectation that the data that is generated with their money—

Senator Roberts: Can you take me—

Chair: Last question, Senator Roberts.

Dr Johnson: is available. I just don’t know how much clearer we can be on this.

Senator Roberts: Can you provide the URL where the parallel temperature data was available on your website prior to the FOI?

Dr Stone: This is a key point. The applicants asked for ‘the report’ in which parallel data was recorded. I’ve just explained the data existed in two places. The respondent refused the offer of data on the basis that we couldn’t provide it in one form. It doesn’t exist in one form: there are field books that have the manual temperature readings written down, and there’s electronic data. Bring those two together, and you can construct the parallel dataset, but they specified that they would only accept reports of parallel data, which don’t exist.

Senator Roberts: I know—

Chair: Senator Roberts, we need to move on. Your time is up.

Click Here for Transcript

Chair: Senator Roberts, you have one or two questions?

Senator Roberts: Yes, that’s it. I just have three very short questions.

Chair: Go ahead.

Senator Roberts: The information you scanned from the field book for the freedom of information request—where was that available before the FOI request?

Dr Johnson: That would have been available as a paper record in the National Archives.

Senator Roberts: The scanned information from the field book and the FOI information—where is that available on the bureau’s website today?

Dr Johnson: The scanned information from the bureau’s field books is not on our website. That was a specific request undertaken for a particular proponent.

Senator Roberts: So it’s at the National Archives.

Dr Johnson: But, to my comment earlier: if anyone from the public wants to access our field books they can put a request in through the National Archives. There’s no issue in doing that.

Senator Roberts: Science thrives on debate—open debate based on objective data. A truly scientific body would be encouraging people like Marohasy, Abbott, Bill Johnson and others to actually challenge the Bureau of Meteorology. So why do you run from those challenges? You’ve had many, many scandals—

Dr Johnson: Senator, I just can’t agree with the premise of your question. We don’t run. We welcome engagement with all sectors of society in the work that we do. I think this has been an ongoing subject of public discourse for a long time. Our records are available to anyone who’d like to access them. We welcome all members of the public if they have an interest in our records. There’s no impediment to them accessing them.

Senator Roberts: There’s a list of scandals, if you like, or accused scandals, involving the BOM and global weather agencies. The question—

Dr Johnson: Sorry—Senator, I don’t know what you’re referring to.

Senator Roberts: I’m questioning your data.

Dr Johnson: What are you referring to by ‘scandals’?

Senator Roberts: Questions about temperature fabrications lead to a call for a full inquiry. That inquiry was not held.

Dr Johnson: There have been assertions about these which have been tested in independent inquiries on at least two occasions since I’ve been Director of Meteorology.

Senator Roberts: One of them was just tea and bickies! It looked at the process, not the data.

Dr Johnson: Senator, these are independent—

Chair: Let’s not speak over each other, please.

Dr Johnson: These are independent reviews commissioned by the Australian government into our practices.

Senator Roberts: One of them I know was a cursory look over the processes and did not go into the data.

Dr Johnson: I’m not sure what you’re referring to—

Senator Roberts: The one under Tony Abbott as Prime Minister.

Dr Johnson: but all I can say is: in response to community interest in our practices, certainly since I’ve been Director of Meteorology, or aware of it, or within the vicinity, 2017 was the last one. It was commissioned by then minister Frydenberg. An esteemed panel of national and international leaders—

Senator Roberts: It looked at the process.

Dr Johnson: confirmed that our methods were fit for purpose and sound. These are world experts.

Chair: Senator Roberts, maybe, if you would like, you could catalogue the issues that you’re detailing here and place that on notice for Dr Johnson to respond to.

Senator Roberts: I am happy to.

Chair: It could be that we have a difference of opinion here. Just so that we have the facts on the record, that would be really handy.

Senator Roberts: Thank you, I’ll do that.

Chair: Thank you very much.

/7 Comments/by

Listen to this if you’ve been affected by a wind, solar or power line project

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The Australian Energy Infrastructure Commissioner has a sole focus on receiving complaints about wind, solar, pumped hydro, battery and power line projects among others.

If you have been affected by a project underway or even one that is proposed you need to submit a complaint by following the steps at https://www.aeic.gov.au/making-a-complaint

Transcript

Chair: Senator Roberts.

Senator Roberts: Thank you for being here this morning. I understand one of my staff called you yesterday?

Mr Dyer: Yes.

Senator Roberts: He had a very pleasant talk. Thank you very much for opening the door. Is it accurate to say that you are the national commissioner for complaints about wind and solar projects?

Mr Dyer: I’d like to characterise it as the ombudsman of first and last resort. If you have a concern about a powerline, a wind farm or whatever that might be in our jurisdiction and you don’t know how to get it solved, you can come to us and we’ll figure out the right process to get the concern addressed.

Senator Roberts: When you say ‘you’, that was used in a colloquial sense. This is open to any citizen in Australia?

Mr Dyer: Yes. We’re a national service and we get complaints from around the country.

Senator Roberts: That’s wonderful to hear. So anyone who has a complaint about wind projects, solar projects, batteries or transmission can make a complaint to you?

Mr Dyer: Yes. If you go to our website, which is aeic.gov.au, the second or third tab along says ‘making a complaint’. There’s the process, the form and the policy. You can call us, you can mail us, you can email us or you can arrange to meet with us.

Senator Roberts: How many are in your office? I understand you have a small office.

Mr Dyer: We’re a very efficient team.

Senator Roberts: I wasn’t being critical.

Mr Dyer: We have, I think, five people.

Senator Roberts: And you’re meant to take care of people’s complaints about solar and wind. And you work with the state government, with the federal government, with private entities?

Mr Dyer: Yes.

Senator Roberts: Thank you.

Mr Dyer: The respondent is usually the developer to a concern. But sometimes it’s a planning process or an EPBC issue. It’s not always the developer, but usually that’s the case.

Senator Roberts: So it could get pretty complex?

Mr Dyer: Yes. We’ve had some of them going for a long time, but we get through them.

Senator Roberts: Can you perhaps talk a bit more about what you can do for someone who has a complaint that you can look at, because people are not aware. Talk to everyday Australians.

Mr Dyer: I don’t have the budget for a front page ad in the Sydney Morning Herald. But people do find us. If you’ve got constituents who have concerns, we should talk about how they can come to us. The best thing to do is promote our website, and that has all of the details. Typically our process is that, if we get a complaint, we’ll do some research on the project and the proponent, and what is going on. If we don’t already know the proponent, and in many cases we do, we will go and get a briefing or open the door, and sometimes the complainant is known to the proponent. Often they’re not known, and so we’re able to build and bridge a relationship between the complainant and the proponent to work through whatever the concerns are. Many concerns are solved by just provision of factual information. It’s often a misunderstanding or misperception that has caused them to come to us.

Senator Roberts: I certainly agree with that. I would like to ask whether you’ve received any complaints in relation to the proposed Eungella or Burdekin Pioneer pumped hydro project in the hinterland near Mackay and the proposed Borumba Dam pumped hydro and the transmission lines around Widgee, which is near Gympie in Queensland.

Mr Dyer: No.

Senator Roberts: Not any?

Mr Dyer: No.

Senator Roberts: There’s a massive community movement in both cases.

Mr Dyer: Then feel free to connect them to us and we’ll work through it.

Senator Roberts: Okay. It’s shocking to me that, in both of those projects, it appears there has been an appalling level of community consultation. This is entirely from the Queensland government. In Eungella, for example, people who were going to have their houses compulsorily resumed and flooded for the new pumped hydro dam found out via media release. Then they found out that they couldn’t get loans for their business, renovations or sell their house, because their land is now jeopardised. Transmission lines for the Borumba project near Gympie are currently proposed over prime agricultural land, which would be again compulsorily resumed despite the community pointing out that there are state-owned land corridors available nearby. Does this lack of consultation sound like it meets the needs for best practice that your office would recommend?

Mr Dyer: We find that most proponents need help in some way, shape or form. I did have a look last night at the Queensland hydro website, and it didn’t jump out to me how you might make a complaint, for example. So, it’s possible that we may need to help them get their complaint process in place. We’ve had to do that with all the TNSPs, and help them get that in place, and the policies put in place, make it transparent on the project website, and away they go.

Senator Roberts: Thank you. What does the best practice consultation look like?

Mr Dyer: It’s a long topic, but it’s about knowing who your stakeholders are and being fairly well advanced in your thinking about what you’re trying to do. If I reflect on a call I had last night, it’s don’t go about it in secret. We often get developers that want to have one-on-one discussions with the landholder to sign them up for hosting the wind farm or the solar farm and say, ‘This is very confidential. We can’t let you talk to your neighbours.’  Before the developers leave the front gate, the whole street knows what the deal is.

Senator Roberts: And they know that these guys are wanting to cover it up?

Mr Dyer: Yes.

Senator Roberts: Which doesn’t build trust.

Mr Dyer: Yes.

Senator Roberts: To build trust, developers need to listen first and then talk once they understand people’s needs?

Mr Dyer: Yes. It’s, for want of a better word, not a crude word, it’s a professional sales role that they’re in. But it’s got to be done with ethics and transparency and thinking like a landholder will think—how you go about matters.

Senator Roberts: I’ve been up to both projects, but already there are many constituents who are saying that this will never be built. It’s just going to do enormous damage. It’s just the Queensland government diverting attention in the media and in the community from serious problems like the Mackay Base Hospital. That straightaway has destroyed any trust in that community.

Mr Dyer: It sounds like they might need some help, so I’ll approach the chair and we’ll start the process.

Senator Roberts: We’ll get your website and your name and we’ll send it to—

Mr Dyer: I’ve got a card here for you. You can take that after the session.

Senator Roberts: I’m intrigued about bonds on solar and wind generators. In the coal industry, for every acre that a surface mine uncovers the coal company has to provide a bond to the government, and then it doesn’t get that bond back until the land is fully reclaimed. Sometimes the reclaimed land is far more productive and far cleaner than the original scrub. What is the bond on solar and wind generators?

Mr Dyer: It’s up to the commercial arrangement between the landholder and the proponent. It’s no different from you owning the milk bar as a commercial landlord down the main street of town. If the tenant defaults and leaves the building, you’re stuck with the bain-marie.

Senator Roberts: So, without a bond, at the end of life, solar and wind generators can just walk away from it? Where are the funds to ensure remediation?

Mr Dyer: Some landholders are quite savvy, and I have seen everything from bank guarantees to bonds being in place, but it’s not across the board. That’s not to say it’s not happening and not being done, but it needs to be a standard practice.

Senator Roberts: There is a standard in the coalmining industry, but there’s no standard in the solar and wind industry?

Mr Dyer: It’s something I’ve advocated for a long time. It’s in section 8 of my report in appendix A, that is, the need to have licensed developers accredited to have the skills to carry out the process, as we are doing in offshore wind, and also that the area being prospected has been sanctioned ahead of time.

Senator Roberts: I want to put on the record that I appreciate Mr Dyer’s frank and complete comments and his openness. It’s much appreciated. Thank you.

Chair: I think we would all agree.

Mr Dyer: Thank you.

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ARENA hands out $2.15 billion in subsidies to supposedly “cheap” renewables

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We constantly hear that “renewables” are the cheapest and the best way to go. If that’s the case, why does the Australian Renewable Energy Agency need to commit $2.15 billion in subsidies, grants and loans to prop up “renewable” projects?

Transcript

Senator Roberts: Thank you for appearing today. The latest figures I have about funds committed, as at June 2022, is $1.86 billion committed across Australia. That is from the 2021-22 annual report. Do you have the most recent figure on what you have committed?

Mr Miller: The most recent figure is $2.15 billion.

Senator Roberts: It’s constantly jammed down Australian throats that wind and solar are the cheapest forms of energy. Why do you have to commit billions in subsidies to wind and solar if this is the case? If they are so much cheaper, shouldn’t they be able to survive without your subsidies and just simply beat coal and gas in the market?

Mr Miller: ARENA hasn’t given much, if any, support to wind projects, in our history. When ARENA was formed 11 years ago, wind was relatively mature and didn’t need much support. Solar was an industry where Australia had a research advantage and a burgeoning research community, and ARENA stepped into that space and continued providing research funding to solar.

I think it’s entirely appropriate that we aim for lower cost, higher efficiency and more sustainable solar materials. That is what the work that we do supports. In terms of our support for solar, our key program in that respect was in 2016-17 where the intervention that ARENA and the CEFC provided the industry, with $92 million funding to two large-scale solar projects, drove the cost of that technology down from $2.50 a watt to $1.25 a watt following that program to the point where large-scale solar is economic in Australia—and the International Energy Agency says is the cheapest form of electricity generation in history. 

ARENA’s continued support for solar R&D is to create a sustainable, comparative and competitive advantage for Australia in this important technology, to unlock the potential for solar to be that form of ultra low-cost generation to support a giant iron and renewable steel manufacturing capability in Australia and to provide low – cost energy into our industrial system and to our domestic users. We take that responsibility seriously, and we are very excited by the opportunity to continue to support solar PV research, manufacturing and production in Australia to that effect.

Senator Roberts: Could you take on notice to explain in depth the cost structures around solar that you are contributing to at the moment, please? In simple terms, the generating of solar is cheap but, by the time we add the doubling or the tripling of the area needed because of the variability in nature and then you add the battery storage, it’s very, very expensive.

Mr Miller: Senator, I’m not clear what you want me to do.

Senator Roberts: I would like the levelised cost of solar produced electricity equivalent to coal in terms of quantities and reliability?

Mr Miller: I would point you to the good work that the CSIRO has done in collaboration with AEMO in their GenCost analysis, which is thorough analysis by the team at the CSIRO, which shows you the levelised cost of solar on its own and wind on its tone and then adds storage to that, which is a proxy for firming. I would suggest that we would not be able to provide you with any more information than that high-quality work that has been done by the CSIRO.

Senator Roberts: That’s fine; thank you, Mr Miller—because the CSIRO’s assumptions are just woeful. If that’s the best and you term it excellent, we’re in trouble. That’s my view. So thank you for saying that.

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