Labor Members on the Committee welcome the opportunity to discuss the critical issues around providing affordable and reliable energy in regional and rural Australia. We thank the Member for Indi for her work in putting forward the Australian Local Power Agency Bill.
The best route to providing affordable and reliable energy for our future across this nation is through renewable energy supported by firming and storage technology, and distributed by an appropriately updated grid and transmission system.
Australia has an abundance of natural resources to harness in both wind and solar, and we have growing capacity and expertise when it comes to storage and grid modernisation.
We believe the Parliament should be spending more time considering precisely how Australia can create jobs and generate reliable and affordable energy through the renewable energy sector, especially in regional Australia.
While the Australian Local Power Agency Bill 2021 provides some meaningful and valuable solutions in this area, Labor has proposed a suite of measures to deliver on these objectives.
Labor’s Powering Australia Plan contains a comprehensive range of policy measures to generate secure, affordable, and reliable energy that would also create jobs across regional Australia. Indeed, RepuTex Australia modelling has shown that of the more than 600,000 direct and indirect jobs to be created by this plan by 2030, 5 out of 6 would be created in regional Australia.
In addition, Labor’s Community Battery program would invest $200 million to cut power bills, cut emissions, and reduce pressure on the electricity grid by accelerating the rollout of community batteries around the country. Labor’s plan will connect and share energy across local communities, including to households that can’t install their own batteries – and it would help to create jobs through installation and construction.
Similarly, Labor’s Solar Banks program would invest $100 million to support solar energy for households that can’t install their own rooftop solar, allowing those households to access cheaper and cleaner energy. By helping to grow the mid-scale solar construction sector, particularly in regional Australia, and by enabling local contractors and businesses to share in the renewable energy resource boom, this measure will also grow employment.
Labor’s Powering the Regions Fund would support the decarbonisation of existing industries, help to create new clean energy industries, and develop and train workforces and workers in new technologies, all through a dedicated Powering the Regions Fund.
Labor’s plan for Carbon Farming will see Australia approach carbon markets and the purchase of Australian Carbon Credit Units with greater integrity and to ensure consistency with our agricultural objectives. Modelling has shown that investment in this Carbon Farming plan will overwhelmingly create jobs in regional Australia – indeed that will be the case for 83% of jobs created.
Agriculture has carried a significant part of our emissions reduction task, and Labor will support the development and commercialisation of new technologies, improving carbon farming and offsetting opportunities, and bringing electricity prices down.
Labor will invest in research for the Australian Sustainable Seaweed Alliance – one of the most promising technological advances that has shown the potential to reduce methane emissions from livestock by more than 90%.
Labor’s Powering Australia Plan is fully-costed and modelled and this modelling has shown the immense potential it has to create jobs boost our economy, especially in regional Australia.
We thank the Committee for its consideration of the Australian Local Power Agency Bill, and particularly acknowledge Dr Haines for her work in thinking carefully about the energy needs and challenges in regional Australia, not least through direct engagement with regional communities. We urge the Parliament and the Government to consider more initiatives that can create regional jobs through the renewable energy sector. But there can be no doubt that in the face of chronic inaction by the Morrison Government, it will take an Albanese Labor Government to shape and deliver a 21st century energy system in Australia, with a logical focus on investment and jobs in the regions, and outcomes that include lower power prices for Australian families and businesses, the emission reductions required to address dangerous climate change, and much greater energy security and resilience.
Josh Wilson MP – Deputy Chair Josh Burns MP
Member for Fremantle Member for Macnamara