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Smart Meters and Remote Control Air Cons

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At Senate Estimates I asked the Australian Energy Regulator if they were concerned that there seems to be increasing control over people’s electricity and access to electricity. It seems to be a case of “see no evil” at the Energy Regulator after hundreds of thousands of Queenslanders had their air-cons remotely throttled by the Government.

As the grid gets more unstable because of net-zero policies the government needs more control over electricity use to avoid damage to infrastructure.

One Nation will oppose this WEF inspired control dystopia at every turn.

Transcript

Senator ROBERTS: Thank you for appearing again today. I have a question about the emergency backstop mechanism from the Queensland government’s Department of Energy and Climate. It’s implemented in Queensland and it allows the government to turn off people’s solar panels at will. A lot of people in Queensland were shocked when the government reached into their homes and controlled their air conditioning units 170,000 times in the last two months. Now we’re finding out the government can turn off people’s solar panels as well. I don’t understand why the panels on someone’s house would have to be remotely cut off, even for self-consumption. As the regulator, do you have any data on how many of these generation signalling devices have been installed in Queensland under this emergency backstop mechanism and how many are installed nationally? 

Ms Savage : Is your question about smart inverters? 

Senator ROBERTS: It’s about smart meters that are cutting off air conditioning units and cutting off solar panels. 

Ms Savage : There is a backstop mechanism that’s been put in place through the Energy and Climate Change Ministerial Council, which I don’t know if the department wishes to comment on. Essentially, it’s to avoid situations of what they call minimum demand, where you might have— 

Senator ROBERTS: Minimal demand? 

Ms Savage : Minimum demand problems. It’s where in system operation you might have so much solar in the system— 

Senator ROBERTS: Like the middle of the day. 

Ms Savage : That’s right. South Australia is where it’s been most acute. You might have so much that you can’t keep a stable minimum generation load in place. Solar is turned off during those emergency situations to ensure that you can keep that minimum stable generation load. I’m not aware of the figures that you’ve just quoted around the number of times it’s been done in Queensland, so I’ll look to my colleagues, Ms Jolly or Mr Duggan, to see if they can assist. 

Mr Duggan : I was going to ask if you could give us a sense of where those figures came from, Senator, because I hadn’t heard them before. 

Senator ROBERTS: I can get back to you on that. It was widely reported in the press last week. 

Ms Savage : It’s not consistent with my understanding, so I think we’d need to see the figures. 

Senator ROBERTS: Okay. We’ll get them to you. Under the National Electricity Rules, what remedy or compensation is available to a homeowner if their solar panels are turned off remotely and they suffer some kind of damage because of that? 

Ms Savage : Again, it’s not an area of the AER’s responsibility. I’m not sure whether there are compensation payments in place—I don’t think there are. 

Mr Duggan : I think having access to the information that you’ve got would help us out enormously, but, to me, the direction of the question is more one that goes to AEMO’s management of the grid. I suspect they would be operating that part of the system. If we can get the information from you, we’ll endeavour to work with those— 

Senator ROBERTS: Doesn’t the Australian Energy Regulator oversee the whole lot? 

Ms Savage : Yes, but not necessarily the way in which the system is operated, and that’s a system operation question. We make sure people comply with the rules. One of the things the Australian Energy Regulator is doing is working with the network companies to do what’s called flexible export limits. This is to ensure that you have a greater opportunity to optimise the solar system across the whole grid so that we’re not seeing solar panels being turned off unnecessarily. Did you want to add anything, Mr Cox? 

Mr Cox : No. I think that’s basically right. At the moment, solar panels, as you mentioned, are turned off to preserve the stability of the grid. It’s a fairly rigid arrangement. Perhaps a more flexible arrangement would allow people to export more frequently at times that are convenient to them, and that’s something we’re exploring with the various network businesses. 

Senator ROBERTS: You used the word ‘acute’ and talk about ensuring a stable minimum generation load. These things—solar and wind—have introduced a hell of a lot of management issues, which adds costs and risk to the system. 

Ms Savage : I think they add cost and risk at times through the day, but they’re also at times free. From that perspective, we see a lot of negative prices—in South Australia and Queensland, in particular—through the middle of the day, which lowers overall average prices of the system, but at other times of the day there are costs to manage the system. Ms Jolly has just reminded me that we do have the export services network performance report, which looks at how the networks are and how much solar energy is being exported into the grid. That report might be useful to you too. 

Senator ROBERTS: Okay. Could you send us that, please. 

Ms Savage : Yes. 

Senator ROBERTS: You may not be able to answer this question, but you’re the overseer. How many air conditioners have been installed with remote demand management systems under the PeakSmart program in Queensland? 

Ms Savage : I wouldn’t have access to that data. 

Senator ROBERTS: Would you be able to get it on notice? 

Ms Savage : I don’t think we would have that as an agency; that sounds like a Queensland government program. 

Senator ROBERTS: But you’re overseeing the national. 

Ms Savage : We oversee the bits that are within the national electricity law and rules. State based programs usually are done through state based legislation. 

Senator ROBERTS: So they can operate independently? 

Ms Savage : If the states have their own legislation, there will be elements that will operate through that. 

Senator ROBERTS: Are you concerned that there seems to be increasing control over people’s use of electricity and access to electricity? 

Ms Savage : In Queensland there has been direct load control of air conditioners and pool pumps for a very long time, for more than 20 years. From that perspective, it is not a new thing in Queensland; it has always been a part of the system operation in Queensland. 

Senator ROBERTS: What about other states? Is it increasing? 

Ms Savage : We would have to look at the numbers. I don’t have the numbers in front of me. 

Senator ROBERTS: Could you get them on notice, please. 

Ms Savage : Ms Jolly, would we have those numbers? 

Ms Jolly : I’m not sure. They may come from the distributors who run those programs autonomously. 

Senator ROBERTS: Do you how many smart meters have been installed in Queensland? 

Ms Savage : I probably know how many smart meters there are in Queensland. We are at about 47 per cent in Queensland. Is that right? We’d have to take that on notice. 

Senator ROBERTS: If you could, please. Forty-seven per cent of households have smart metres? 

Ms Savage : We looked at this last week, so I’m trying to remember what the answer to that is. But I think that we’re heading into that territory in most of the jurisdictions now—up towards the high 40 per cents. 

Senator ROBERTS: Is there anything in the National Electricity Rules that enshrines the right of a customer to refuse a smart meter? At the moment many of the programs have opt-out clauses, but my question is whether there is anything in the Electricity Rules that will stop an electricity company if they decide to try to force someone to take a smart meter, to make it mandatory. 

Ms Savage : I think I’ll need take that on notice as well. 

Senator ROBERTS: It seems like there is increasing power over people’s use of electricity. I’ll just ask a few questions; you may not be able to answer these. It is about the emergency backstop mechanism website. The government says that the emergency backstop mechanism ‘is an important step in supporting Queensland’s transition to a more coordinated electricity system’. Is the electricity system becoming more coordinated, controlled? 

Senator McAllister: Senator Roberts, we’ve canvassed this a few times over the course of the day. It’s very difficult for officials to answer questions about documents when we don’t know the provenance of the documents or the dates they were published or we don’t have the document in front of us. Are you able to table that or perhaps provide us with a web link? 

Senator ROBERTS: Sure. It was a website, last updated 12 December 2023, from the Department of Energy and Climate in the Queensland government. 

Senator McAllister: I see. So it’s a Queensland government— 

Senator ROBERTS: Yes. 

Senator McAllister: I’m not sure that the Commonwealth government can answer questions about Queensland government programs. The AER may have information for you, but there are limits on what we can discuss in this forum. 

Senator ROBERTS: I understand that, Minister. I’m just looking at what the Queensland government is saying about the ‘more coordinated electricity system’ and I thought that that might come under the Australian Energy Regulator. 

Ms Savage : I would probably say that an electricity system must be coordinated—it has always been coordinated—because you have to have instantaneous meeting of supply and demand. That’s why you have a system operator to make sure that you’ve got generation resources available when people demand it. That level of coordination is fundamental to ensuring that we can keep a stable voltage waveform in the system. The physics of that demands it. To answer your question, it has always been a coordinated system and it will need to be remain a coordinated system. 

Senator ROBERTS: It says it’s becoming ‘more coordinated’. 

CHAIR: On this notion of the national energy grid and the role of the states, I think what we’re probably tripping over here is the situation where there is a national plan and the states each have a set of responsibilities. How they then roll out those responsibilities is sometimes done in the state and not necessarily part of the purview of— 

Senator ROBERTS: I understand that. I’m trying to find out whether or not you have any role in that or any information about that. 

Ms Savage : I’m happy to try and answer your questions. They’re just not necessarily directly in my patch, but I’ll help you however I can. 

Senator ROBERTS: That’s about all I had. You’ve already answered the last one I had. 

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“That’s not my job” Lemmings Driving us Off the Net Zero Cliff

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No one in government will take responsibility for the net-zero plan going wrong. Mr Parker who heads the Clean Energy Regulator is paid over $630,000 a year, yet he admits that even if catastrophic errors in claims about Net Zero are brought to his attention, he would do nothing about it. No-one on the panel were prepared to answer questions about your right to receive reasonable power bills or to continue to enjoy a standard of living better than a third world country.

Minister McAllister points out that the department is only responsible for the “broad settings” and that other institutions are there to simply follow their tasks under legislation.

Only One Nation is prepared to face up to the UN-WEF Net Zero agenda and pull the plug on the nation killing scam invented by predatory globalists.

Transcript

Senator ROBERTS: Thank you, Chair. First of all, thank you for being here. Can I ask whether you take any responsibility for assessing the cost of trying to run the grid on wind and solar? 

Mr Parker : No, Senator, we don’t do that kind of work. Our job, as defined by statute, is to administer various programs in the climate space, but not that one. 

Senator ROBERTS: Thank you. Do you do any analysis, measuring or modelling on how much wind and solar actually cost once you include the necessary firming or integration costs, the storage and additional transmission? 

Mr Parker : No, Senator. 

Senator ROBERTS: Your job is just to pursue the legislative targets? That’s your statutory job? 

Mr Parker : That’s broadly right. It is in an unofficial space somewhat broader than that, because we have insight, if you like, into industry trends and what’s going on through our liaison with industry, and we are able to feed those views into the policy process. 

Senator ROBERTS: When you say, ‘trends’ what do you mean? They aren’t cost trends. 

Mr Parker : No. We have some information on costs but, as I said, we don’t model those. The sorts of information which we look at are developments in the markets for the relevant carbon instruments, the quantity of investment taking place and so forth. We have an insight into that from our on-the-ground work. 

Senator ROBERTS: You don’t raise the alarm bells over whether chasing net zero for the energy grid is practically feasible or how much it’s going to cost to get to 2035 with solar and wind powering everything? 

Mr Parker : No, that’s a policy question; we don’t get into that. 

Senator ROBERTS: You don’t test AEMO’s Integrated System Plan at all—there are so many acronyms aren’t there?—to see if it has any flaws? You don’t analyse GenCost from CSIRO to see if there are any faulty assumptions? 

Mr Parker : We’re familiar with all of those reports, but it’s not our role to critique them, if you like. 

Senator ROBERTS: As the national regulator for this type of energy, even if it were brought to your attention that there are fundamental flaws in the foundational documents for this whole plan, like the Integrated System Plan or GenCost, you wouldn’t or couldn’t do anything about it. It’s not your responsibility? 

Mr Parker : It’s not our role within our statutory remit to do anything about it. 

Senator ROBERTS: Thank you, Mr Parker. I only ask, because almost every climate related agency I’ve ask, whether it’s supposedly justifying the mad switch to solar and wind or whether it’s actually implementing the policy says, ‘It’s not our job to consider the big picture.’ I’m not arguing that you’re shirking it—I’m not at all. I’m just confirming that you don’t do it. We could be driving off a cliff here and everyone is saying, ‘It’s not my job to think about the cliff, I just drive the car,’ because you’ve been appointed as the driver. Does that terrify you? 

Senator McAllister: Senator Roberts, you’re now— 

Senator ROBERTS: Does it terrify you, Minister? 

Senator McAllister: You’re now asking the official about his feelings and you’re asking me about my feelings. I can explain to you the policy position of the government, the policy arrangements in the government and the responsibilities. The Department of Climate Change, Energy, the Environment and Water is responsible for the broad settings in relation to the energy market. They’ve been here this morning, answering questions from senators about the approach they take to policy development for the settings for the energy system. There are other institutions, as you’ve observed, that have either advisory or regulatory roles. The CER is one of them and they’re here and able to answer your questions about the task that they’ve been given under legislation. 

Senator ROBERTS: Thank you, Minister. Thank you, Mr Parker and your team. Thank you, Chair. 

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Smart Meters … It’s No Longer a Conspiracy Theory!

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Smart Meters cutting off your power is no longer a conspiracy theory. It’s already here! The Queensland Government reached into people’s homes to take control of 170,000 air-cons in the last two months.

Wind, solar and the demonisation of coal is destroying our once reliable power supply, turning Australia into a third world country, despite our vast natural resources.

Only One Nation will stop the Net Zero insanity and bring back cheap power bills.

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The Biggest Air Con of the Summer!

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Queensland’s state-owned power grid reached into people’s homes 6 times and turned down 170,000 air conditioners.

It’s called PeakSmart limiting and they don’t tell you when they’ve cut your cooling —  instead they tell installers and repairers in case you call them out thinking there’s a problem.

They hope you won’t notice… Have we reached Peak Stupid yet with the government’s Net Zero target? 

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Cancel Net Zero Now!

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Australia has the most wind, solar and batteries on the grid ever. PM Albanese promised cheaper power yet his government’s commitment to Net Zero drives up your power bills and the cost of living.

While unsustainable wind and solar fail to provide baseload power, their subsidised existence is driving up energy bills.

I’ve been fighting the Net Zero scam for over a decade in the Senate and will keep on fighting for all Australians.

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CANCELLED: Rattle ‘n’ Hum: Cairns

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Unfortunately tonights event in Cairns has been cancelled. We apologise for the inconvenience.

If you made a booking with the venue please do the courtesy of calling them to cancel if you will no longer be attending.

Rattle n Hum Bar & Grill
65-67 The Esplanade
CAIRNS, QLD 4870
Tel: 07 4031 3011
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2023 Year in Review: Net Zero Lunacy

With the most wind, solar and batteries on the grid than ever, Australian power bills have never been higher.

For over a decade and almost everyday in the Senate since being elected, I have been fighting the net-zero scam.

I’ll be fighting even harder next year.

Watch some of my speeches about this issue here at https://www.malcolmrobertsqld.com.au/?s=net+zero

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Cheaper Electricity Bills Anyone?

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The Australian Renewable Energy Agency (ARENA) assures me that as Australia has very good sunshine and solar energy is the cheapest form of energy on the planet, we can expect to have cheap electricity. That’s nonsense because they don’t take into account all of the extra costs of firming, storage, extra transmission lines and general unreliability. Any Australian who looks at their electricity bill knows solar isn’t cheaper.

I was even more surprised to learn about the agency’s support of solar in renewable iron and steel manufacturing on a massive scale. The idea of such energy intensive industrial process being powered by cheap solar, which is currently too expensive and unreliable for Australian households, is pipe dream stuff.

This government is driving Australia off the cliff and is in the drivers seat essentially saying – “It’s not my job to think about the cliff, I’m just driving the car.” The idea of a net zero future with wind and solar providing base-load power and creating “green steel” is not real.

The net zero pipe dream is a nation killing fantasy that is already hurting the regions, ruining small business and driving up the cost-of-living all over Australia.

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Time to Cancel Snowy Hydro

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The $100-$200 million tunnel-boring machine known as Florence has been bogged in muddy water on soft ground for a year.

I followed up on previous estimate questions, where I was categorically lied to by bureaucrats who were trying to cover up this expensive and embarrassing disaster.

Why is the government allowing executives from the Snowy Hydro Authority to deliberately mislead the committee about the main tunnel being blocked by a boring machine that has not moved in a year? Why did Snowy 2 executives and the government cover up the toxic gas in the tunnel that is coming from the chemicals used to unsuccessfully free Florence?

The cost has now blown out to $12 billion, with another $5 billion needed to carve a 50 metre wide easement through the Snowy Mountains National Park. This is to build transmission lines to take the power into the grid and to upgrade, to carry 2200 MW of power for 20 minutes in the morning and evening peak, which is all Snowy 2.0 will generate.

I look forward to receiving the answers to my Questions on Notice for the Minister.

Transcript

Senator ROBERTS: Thank you for being here again today. Mr Whitby, in the November 2022 estimates, I asked you:I note that the tunnelling machine Florence was bogged up near Tantangara Reservoir. Can you confirm how long it was bogged and confirm that it’s now back in operation? The answer you gave was: The tunnel-boring machine hasn’t been bogged. It encountered soft ground, which we expected. We have been progressing the tunnel-boring machine through that zone with care and diligence. In February 2023, I was reassured Florence was not bogged, and, in May 2023, was advised it would progress shortly. Minister: today, the ABC published photos of Florence clearly in mud and water in a story that says it was flooded in and unable to function from the moment it hit the soft ground a year ago. It moved a matter of metres. Further, the article goes on to say Snowy Hydro authority knew it was bogged even as they testified in senate estimates that it was not. The authority was covering up the machinery to progress Florence. A slurry machine that lays down a base for the machine to travel over was not ordered when the waterlogging was discovered. It was only ordered when Florence became bogged. Why is the government allowing the authority to deliberately mislead the committee?

Senator McAllister: Thank you for the question, Senator Roberts. I don’t quite recall the evidence being provided in the terms that you suggest in your question. But I confess I don’t exactly remember all of the
testimony that was provided at all of the estimates. I will invite Mr Barnes to respond.

Senator ROBERTS: Minister, before you do, were they lying to you? When did you know about the machine being bogged?

Senator McAllister: I will take that on notice. You will understand that I don’t have all of the communications between the authority and shareholder ministers, so I will see what I can provide.

Senator ROBERTS: I would like to know when you found out the machine was bogged, if you made inquiries beforehand, were they lying to you, and whether or not you were misled.

Senator McAllister: I will take those questions on notice.

Mr Barnes: Obviously, there are many engineering terms, but bogged, paused or stuck, all have subjective definitions. There has been no point since Florence encountered this incredibly soft and wet ground in November 2022 that the machine has not been able in some way to move forward. In fact, as part of its stabilisation and commissioning of the slurry treatment plant since December 2022, it has in fact moved 10 metres as part of that activity, so it is not bogged; it is able to move. In May I apologised for my perhaps optimism regarding the ability to get Florence moving at pace again. The full story on the slurry treatment plant is that Florence is going to hit what we know to be naturally occurring asbestos about seven kilometres into its journey.

Senator ROBERTS: Naturally occurring what?

Mr Barnes: Asbestos.

Senator ROBERTS: Do you mean naturally in the strata?

Mr Barnes: Yes, and the slurry treatment plant is designed to handle those conditions. The incredibly soft ground it hit early in its journey was not predicted at that stage, so the slurry treatment plant, which was always
envisaged—just not envisaged that quickly—was ordered and started to be designed as early as December 2022. It is now complete, commissioned. Once we receive an approval from the New South Wales Department of Planning and Environment, we will be able to move forward.

Senator DAVEY: I agree with your recollection, Senator Roberts. Mr Barnes, you spoke in May about the fact that the slurry treatment plant was coming. I took it from that evidence that it would be activated sooner
rather than later, but are you saying it still hasn’t been turned on?

Mr Barnes: To jog your memory, I think I said weeks, not months. I should have said months, not weeks. It wasn’t a mistake, it was my optimism at the time. The physical works to get the slurry plant complete and
Florence able to move. We’ve all progressed. What I underestimated was the process with which to go through the approval process, given the sinkhole that formed in December is just outside our construction boundary.

Senator ROBERTS: Mr Barnes, could you give me on notice the movement of the machine, in metres, between November 2022 and February 2023, between February 2023 and May 2023, and from May 2023 to now?

Mr Barnes: Yes.

Senator ROBERTS: Thank you. Minister, it seems on the face of it that this is government misinformation covering up a massive failure. I’m not blaming you entirely for that, because this whole thing was started under
Malcolm Turnbull as prime minister and Scott Morrison as prime minister. There was no fully disclosed business case. It was heavily redacted. There was no cost-benefit analysis done. The whole thing is based on a false premise. This is what happens when the top is rotten. I’m not referring to you as being rotten, Minister; I’m referring to the project when it was first given the go-ahead. But you’re now carrying the can.

CHAIR: Is there a question?

Senator ROBERTS: Yes. Minister, what questions are you asking about the rest of the project, because this is serious stuff?

Senator McAllister: You are right in this regard: the project as first announced by the Turnbull government does not reflect the dimensions and characteristics of the project as we now understand it. Some of those changes and issues were known to the previous government and not revealed. Minister Bowen has made it very clear how disappointed he was when he came to government and discovered that aspects of the project, including significant delays in cost increases, had not been communicated. As I indicated earlier in my evidence, when Mr Barnes was appointed, the expectation from the shareholder ministers was communicated very clearly to the board and, I understand, through the department to Mr Barnes that we wanted to see this project back on track. We wanted the new management to examine it and provide advice about how to get it back on track. It took some time. It wasn’t possible to do that in weeks; it has taken Mr Barnes some time. When that advice was provided, it was to the Minister, who then sought to communicate it directly to the Australian public. These are complex projects. We accept that. We have noted a constructive tone and a more open approach to communication from the engagements we are presently having with Snowy Hydro, and we hope to see this project—which, as I indicated, is an important project for the energy system and the Australian people—back on track.

Senator ROBERTS: Let’s move to something else that the government has lied about. This might not be ministerial staff or the ministers themselves, but we know that the agency has lied about the toxic gas in the shaft
coming from isocyanate, used to strengthen the ground in the absence of proper machinery—the slurry machine. That was more government misinformation, wasn’t it, Minister?

Mr Barnes: I’m happy to talk to this. You are referring to an incident that occurred in early July. When polyurethane foam, which is sometimes used in front of the tunnel boring machine, comes into contact with water
it can create isocyanate gas. It did so. The incident was reported quickly, access to the site was restricted, additional personal protective equipment was provided and monitoring was put in place.

Senator ROBERTS: What was that personal protective equipment?

Mr Barnes: You can do positive-pressure face masks which stop any gases entering.

Senator ROBERTS: Does that involve carrying air or oxygen?

Mr Barnes: No. I don’t how the reverser flow works, but you picture the large face masks with a positive flow meter. They have a filter. I don’t know the details of how those machines work, but they do protect the individual. We have actually stopped using the polyurethane foam and reverted to grout on that.

Senator ROBERTS: So lives are at stake?

Mr Barnes: Absolutely. This is a complex project with many hazards.

Senator ROBERTS: And the economy is at stake if this project doesn’t live up to nameplate design. How much is Florence worth, and who pays if you can’t get it out or if it comes out as scrap?

Mr Barnes: Florence is not identified as a single item in the project line, but between $100 million and $200 million would be an estimate of a tunnel boring machine. But Florence is able to progress its journey once we
receive the necessary approvals.

CHAIR: We’ll need to rotate the call, Senator Roberts. Do you have a final question? We can come back to you.

Senator ROBERTS: In May I asked about the updated cost, and Mr Barnes replied, ‘We haven’t got an updated cost here and will provide that in months.’ Your updated cost is now $12 billion? Is that it?

Mr Barnes: That’s correct.

Senator ROBERTS: Does that include two major expenses: transmission lines to get the power in and out and the ongoing cost of Florence still being bogged?

Mr Barnes: It is the cost to complete the project to the transmission lines at the power station, including all action necessary to complete the head race tunnel, which is where Florence is.

Senator ROBERTS: So any additional transmission lines needed to take the power out are not part of that project cost?

Mr Barnes: We have one transmission connection from the power station up to the grid, which Snowy Hydro pays for on an ongoing tariff.

Senator ROBERTS: My understanding is that the current transmission lines will not be adequate after Snowy 2 comes in.

Mr Barnes: For snowy 2 to get its full potential, there is an extension to the transmission grid required.

Senator ROBERTS: Thank you. So the total cost of this project—

CHAIR: We need to move on, Senator Roberts. We need to rotate the call.

Senator ROBERTS: Okay.

Senator McAllister: Senator Grogan, I took on notice a series of questions from Senator Roberts. I had previously indicated that these were questions for shareholder ministers and I would take them on notice on their
behalf. I just want to clarify that that’s also what you were seeking in the other questions that you put to me later on?

Senator ROBERTS: I’m happy to get an answer from the government ministers. It doesn’t have to be you; just the person in charge would be perfect.

Senator McAllister: Thanks, Senator Roberts.

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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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