When government discounts expire, Australia will be facing their highest electricity bills ever.
This is despite CSIRO claims that wind and solar are the cheapest forms of electricity.
With the largest amount of wind and solar on the grid, electricity prices have never been higher – go figure. Australia is incredibly rich in resources and should be an electricity super power.
Instead, we have Minister Ayres and the once respected Commonwealth Scientific Industrial Research Organisation (CSIRO) who continue to destroy our country.
Transcript
Senator ROBERTS: My questions are fairly short. CSIRO didn’t give a direct answer to my question on notice about the cost of Pioneer-Burdekin pumped hydro, but I have the latest figure the CSIRO is using for the Pioneer-Burdekin pumped hydro in Queensland: $12 billion. We now know the Queensland government internally have the actual cost at $36 billion—triple. Snowy 2.0 has blown out from $2 billion to $20 billion, and I forecast that in 2017. That’s if you include the connecting infrastructure—everything to turn the power on. Why do you continue to tell Australians this is a cheap pathway to follow when every step we take proves you wrong—repeatedly wrong. Why?
Dr Mayfield: These numbers are embedded in our GenCost report and, with every technology, we’re looking for actual projects to base our numbers on. I don’t believe we’ve been using the numbers for the Queensland project as part of that. Mr Graham can probably clarify that for me, but we update that on each cycle based on what’s actually happening out there. So the numbers are as up to date as they possibly can be, as we get more project information.
Senator ROBERTS: That worries me more—that they’re up to date. Your GenCost is nothing more than a fairytale. Considering the assumptions, when we include, then, all of the additional costs, like pumped hydro, that are needed to make it work in Australia, we’re not going to have a cheaper energy system, are we, under GenCost?
Dr Hilton: Chair, could I just object to the use of ‘fairytale’? I think that’s a pretty derogatory way of describing what is a well-considered report that has opened itself up to input from a large range of experts over an eight-year period and, I think, provides excellent guidance to the community about the levelised cost of energy.
CHAIR: I think you’ve put that—
Senator ROBERTS: As I said, when we go into the assumptions, it’s a fairytale.
CHAIR: Senator Roberts!
Senator Ayres: Can I just make a couple of comments about this? I think it’s—
Senator ROBERTS: The assumptions have been proven wrong repeatedly.
CHAIR: Senator Roberts!
Senator Ayres: It’s the kind of badgering of our key national scientific organisation that you should not do—you should not do. It’s an organisation that has served Australia well for decade after decade after decade. It is composed of scientists and staff who work diligently on these questions. It is, of course, open to people—particularly people who have got some peer-reviewed scientific background, but it’s open to people—to ask questions and to criticise the findings of the CSIRO and any other research institution. I don’t mind the scrutiny. I don’t think it does your cause any good when you ask these questions, but I don’t mind it. What I do mind is the use of derogatory language. The problem is it’s not just a One Nation Senator who does it. We sort of expect that. It’s the Leader of the Opposition who said on GenCost: It’s a discredited report—let’s be clear about it. It’s not relied on. It’s not a genuine piece of work.
Senator ROBERTS: Correct.
Senator Ayres: What is wrong with the Liberal and National Party that you allow a bloke to run the show who pours scorn—
Senator ROBERTS: Chair, this is taking up my time. It needs to stop.
CHAIR: Alright.
Senator Ayres: who pours scorn on science and engineering. It has it has got—
Senator ROBERTS: You’re just taking up my time to shut me down.
Senator Ayres: But you’re the one who applied the derogatory comments. It’s got to stop.
CHAIR: Minister!
Senator ROBERTS: It’s my opinion.
Senator Ayres: It’s got to stop.
Senator ROBERTS: It’s my opinion.
Senator Ayres: It’s got to stop. It’s disrespectful.
CHAIR: Minister. Senator Roberts, can I just have a conversation with you?
Senator ROBERTS: Sure.
CHAIR: You still have the call. You’ve asked a question in a certain way. Dr Hilton has put some comments on the record about that. The minister has put some comments on the record about that. My job is just to make sure that you ask your questions in a courteous way. And you can ask questions about GenCost. I’d just ask that you put them in a courteous way.
Senator ROBERTS: Let’s get a move on to the next question. Can you guarantee—guarantee—the entire electricity system, from generation to poles and wires to the electricity bill to the cost of taxpayers, is going to be cheaper if we continue down your pathway? The Renewable Energy (Electricity) Act was passed in the year 2000 under the Howard LNP government. So for more than 20 years, government has forced an increasing amount of wind and solar onto the electricity grid. I have here a graph of the cost of electricity over the past 20 years. It has tripled, largely under your guidance. Can any one of you experts here please tell me in which year on this graph putting more wind and solar onto the grid has brought down the price of electricity? I’m happy to table this.
CHAIR: Thank you, Senator Roberts.
Dr Hilton: Senator, we don’t have a pathway; we provide data to our elected representatives for them to make policy decisions about our electricity system. We’ll continue to do that through the GenCost report in a manner that is objective and that is open to feedback with each iteration of the report, as it’s been over the last eight years, and it’s up to our elected representatives to make the policy decisions about pathways, as they’ve done over the last 30 years, as you showed in your graph.
Senator ROBERTS: So you can’t guarantee a pathway.
Senator Ayres: It’s not up to Dr Hilton or the CSIRO—
Senator ROBERTS: The CSIRO has advised there are three pathways, Senator.
Senator Ayres: They don’t run the energy strategy of the Commonwealth or the states. They provide expert advice on what the cheapest technologies are in the Australian context. That’s what they do. They are scientists. They provide advice. It’s a matter for government to follow it. It’s not their pathway. The government—and the private sector too—takes advice about what the cheapest forms of technology are, and if you persist in supporting the most expensive ones, that’s a matter for you.
CHAIR: Okay. Thank you, Minister.
Senator ROBERTS: Let’s take the word of the RBA governor this morning. She said the key factor is supply and demand. When you add electrification to this, what the hell are we going to do with prices? Are you aware that higher electricity prices cascade and multiply throughout the economy, devastating manufacturing, devastating agriculture, devastating household bills when you remove the subsidies. Are you aware that in every nation in the world, increasing solar and wind increases electricity prices? The real-world data shows that. Within you, does this fact about increasing solar and wind driving increasing electricity prices in every nation across the globe raise any questions and, if so, what questions?
Senator Ayres: Senator Roberts, it’s—
Senator ROBERTS: I’m asking.
Senator Ayres: I’m answering. If you’d approached this issue in a straightforward way, you would’ve explained that the graph that you waved around is the electricity CPI. Right? It’s not the real cost over time; it’s got inflation built into it. If you were straightforward about it, you would pose the counterfactual: what happens if you put more expensive than the—
Senator ROBERTS: I just told you what happens, around the world. Every nation that increases solar and wind increases electricity prices.
Senator Ayres: What the government has to do, serious government that’s actually interested in the future of manufacturing—we will need more electricity.
Senator ROBERTS: The most important factor in the manufacturing cost is electricity, and you’re driving the price up.
Senator Ayres: We’re going to build more manufacturing, and we’re going to drive the price down by delivering more supply and a modern generation facility.
Senator ROBERTS: When you add the demand of—
Senator Ayres: You can hold up your silly graph as long as you like, but it doesn’t alter those facts.
CHAIR: Okay. I’m about to—
Senator ROBERTS: One more question.
CHAIR: Hello, everyone! I’m about to share the call, but I take Senator Roberts’s point that we’ve also had some long answers.
Senator ROBERTS: I’m on my last question.
CHAIR: Ask your final question.
Senator ROBERTS: The federal government says it relies on the CSIRO for advice on energy and future climate. Do you take responsibility for destroying Australia’s position as the cheapest supplier of electricity in the world, with it now being among the most expensive and hurting people and industries, while Mr Mayfield, during a cost-of-living crisis, two years ago was on a total remuneration package of more than $613,000. I’m thinking of people with a median income of $51,000, and half the Australian population is earning below $51,000.
Dr Hilton: I’m always impressed with the quality and influence of the work that our scientists do, but the capacity to directly alter the cost of living for Australians is not one of those gifts our researchers have.
Senator ROBERTS: Thank you.
