Treasury officials dodge basic questions about Australian power station coal prices while claiming they “monitor” them for inflation forecasts. Despite promising to get back to me on notice, the officials refused to provide how much coal for generating electricity costs.
Australian coal prices for our power stations remain stable under long-term contracts, yet Treasury keeps pushing the narrative of high international prices to justify soaring electricity costs. Why hide the real numbers? Because cheap domestic coal exposes the true cost of the renewable energy transition to Australian families.
Time for transparency, Australian families deserve to know the real cost of their electricity and it’s not because of Ukraine.
Transcript
Senator ROBERTS: This is for the Treasury, on coal pricing. The Treasurer said in March, regarding Australian power station coal prices, that thermal coal burned in power stations in Australia was ‘more or less tracking’, according to Treasury’s December forecast, to be down about a third from a year ago. Do you track the price of thermal coal burned in power stations in Australia?
Mr Yeaman: We look at overall market movements in coal prices both for export and for generation, yes, as part of our CPI forecast.
Senator ROBERTS: How do you get that information on thermal coal prices in Australia for domestic use?
Dr Heath: In tracking coal prices on a regular basis, the most publicly available coal prices tend to be shipped coal. So if you’re looking—
Senator ROBERTS: Exported coal?
Dr Heath: Exported coal—that’s what is publicly available. The arrangements that individual coal-fired power plants have to access their coal means that the prices they pay could be quite different to those public prices. That’s not publicly available information, so we would have to basically go directly to the coal-fired power stations to find that information.
Senator ROBERTS: I understand the local price is much lower because they’re locked into long-term contracts. So it’s a vague process. When you’re talking about power stations, is it only power stations that buy their coal or is it also the power stations that are at the mine mouth—where it just goes straight from the mine into the power station?
Dr Heath: I think that’s getting to a level of detail that I don’t have.
Senator ROBERTS: Could you take that on notice, please?
Dr Heath: We can take that on notice, but I’m not sure—
Senator ROBERTS: I’d like to know how you get that price—or, if you don’t get that price, that’s fine.
Mr Yeaman: I am aware that we have in the past. Our colleagues at the department of climate change and also the department of industry, along with our colleagues at the Australian Energy Market Operator, look at prices by facility, and I think that does include those that get coal directly from the mine.
Senator ROBERTS: So you get that information from those other agencies?
Mr Yeaman: I’m not sure how systematised that is, but I’m aware we have in the past drawn information from those sources.
Senator ROBERTS: What’s the latest figure you have for the price of thermal coal burned in Australian power stations?
Mr Yeaman: If it’s that specific a question, I’ll take it on notice, if that’s okay.
Senator ROBERTS: Thank you. Are you aware that the CSIRO uses a coal price of $11.30 a gigajoule in its GenCost studies to say that wind and solar are cheaper than coal?
Mr Yeaman: We generally look at the GenCost report, but, for our purposes, we don’t tend to go down to that level of detail around their assumptions.
Senator ROBERTS: So you’re not aware that CSIRO uses the coal price of $11.30 a gigajoule in GenCost?
Mr Yeaman: I haven’t been aware of that and I’m not sure that my colleagues would be.
Senator ROBERTS: Okay, I can accept that. Are you able to provide the aggregate figures for coal prices over the last five years, please?
Mr Yeaman: We can certainly have a look and see what we can provide.
The Greens’ war on coal is fuelled by misinformation. Modern coal is particulate free, and gas recovery technology on new coal fired power plants captures and converts steam stack gas into essential products like fertilizer, AdBlue, ethanol and even explosives, resulting in zero gasses being released into the atmosphere.
Coal mines are remediated to return the land to its original state. Many Australian mines have already transformed into productive pastures. In the long term, coal mines do not damage the country; rather, it’s industrial wind and solar that do. Blasting the tops off mountains to install industrial wind turbines is permanent environmental destruction.
Coal is essential for the health of our grid, for providing breadwinner jobs and to ensure prosperity of rural communities.
Transcript
The Greens misinformation on coal has gone on long enough. Fifty thousand Australians rely directly on the coal industry for their livelihood. Given the services to coalmines, add another 50,000 people that coal keeps afloat in mining communities—actually, it’s much, much more than an additional 50,000, with a reported multiplier across Australia of six times the number of jobs directly from mines. They’re communities that, if this unscientific rubbish from the Greens goes on much longer, the Greens will decimate.
Modern coal plants are free from particulates and noxious gases. The only thing that leaves their steam stacks is water vapour and carbon dioxide: nature’s fertilisers. Australian and international firms now offer a process to capture those gases and convert them to productive things like fertiliser, AdBlue and ethanol—some things that the Greens will need so they can keep blasting the tops off mountains for wind turbines; that’s explosives. With this new capture and conversion technology, coal uses fewer resources and has a smaller environmental footprint than any nature-dependent power the Greens can advocate.
Coal is not damaging to the environment. To those who post photos online of coalmines, alleging environmental vandalism and that the planet is boiling, please tell the whole story and please tell the truth. Coalmines are rehabilitated after use. A few moments ago I posted a link to the New Hope Group’s website, showing the remediation of their coalmines that I’ve personally inspected. It’s beautiful green countryside supporting thousands of cattle and in turn supporting rural communities. Mines remediate; that is fact. And damage from wind turbines and their access road construction is permanent; that is fact.
Under current legislation, mining must pay into a bond fund to pay for remediation. No such provision exists for the net zero madness. Once this orgy of taxpayer and electricity-user subsidies is exhausted, these solar and wind companies will sell their installations into a shell company and scoot on back to whatever foreign tax haven in which they’re based. On humanitarian and environmental grounds, One Nation opposes this reckless, destructive Greens motion. Taxpayers will be left to clean up the mess. Communities will be destroyed, and it will cost electricity users and taxpayers tens of billions of dollars more to clean up after this insane green nightmare.
I talked the Middle East, Misinformation, COVID Royal Commission, the Immigration Housing Crisis and Net Zero Madness on ADH TV.
As the middle east descends into war again my concern is making sure we don’t send Australian sons and daughters to another conflict in far away lands again.
Chris Smith: Well, the federal government’s latest stance on Israel’s war with Hamas, Hezbollah. And now Iran has put Australia at odds with its number one ally, the United States, as well as with Israel, the United Kingdom and Canada. It seems as if labor is redrawing Australia’s military and diplomatic position in the world. And, as I mentioned earlier, does taking such a solo stance no longer guarantee reciprocal support from those countries?
If or when Australia is faced with aggression from, say, China or whoever in the Indo-Pacific? Let’s bring in Queensland One Nation Senator Malcolm Roberts on that and more. Senator, welcome back to TV. Thank you Chris. Good to be back. Thanks for the invitation. Israel’s most recent attacks on Hezbollah were aimed at preventing a repeat of the October 7th massacre.
Is Peter Dutton right to say the Prime Minister should be condemned for falling out with our allies?
SENATOR ROBERTS: This is a big escalation on Israel’s part. It’s almost all at war, but it’s something that I think that Israel has a right to defend and defend itself. The history of this, this area, this region of the world is rife with lies, complexities, contradictions. And, you know, the first casualty in war is the truth. So we’ll never know.
But Israel has a right to defend itself, but we must keep Australia out of it. We must keep Australia out of it. We followed the Americans into just about everything, without question. They’re an important ally of ours. But we must hold them accountable as well.
Chris Smith: Do you sense that Anthony Albanese is trying to appease voters in those Muslim concentrated seats in south western Sydney?
SENATOR ROBERTS: Yes, without a doubt. Anthony Albanese has shown a distinct, lack of respect for Australia’s position in in his deliberations. What he wants to do is promote the Labor Party that the the national interest is not in Anthony Albanese’s calculations.
Chris Smith:There are some good signs among crossbenchers, Malcolm, that Labor’s information, misinformation and disinformation bill will struggle. That’s a sign of good news.
SENATOR ROBERTS: It’s a very good sign of good news. We put, a motion out, matter of urgency thus Monday of the sitting in the Senate. And there were quite a few signals coming across to us that people wouldn’t support it. So that’s why we did that. That matter of urgency had forced a vote on it. But just remember, it’s not labor’s, misinformation.
Disinformation bill. The Morrison Liberal National’s with Morrison Littleproud in charge introduced it into the into the parliament. Labor brought it back and and he’s now putting it into the voting regime process. And now the liberals are saying they will come up with their own before the next election. The liberals just don’t get it. No one wants this bloody censorship bill.
And One Nation makes a promise they will never introduce such a bill. The best, best defense of truth is to let debate happen. And then we’ve got the largest perpetrators of misinformation and disinformation is the government. This Albanese government takes the cake. It’s all about control and censorship and they haven’t got the guts to do it themselves.
They’re trying to intimidate the, search engines and platforms into doing it for them and putting them in a position where, as someone said recently, they’ll be fined if they if they don’t exercise enough control, enough censorship, but they will not be fined if they if they exercise excessive censorship. This is just about getting government control over the over the debate in this country and suppressing free speech.
That’s all it is. One nation will never, ever introduce such a bill.
Chris Smith: I couldn’t agree more. As a matter of fact, if an opposition or a government wants to do anything about what we say freely, I think they should win back the restriction that exist right now, because the Esafety czar is out of control. I agree with you. And this this compounds the the problem.
SENATOR ROBERTS: As I said, the best the best defense of truth is to let open free debate continue. That’s the best way of finding out the truth. And you can never take responsibility for someone’s opinions. That’s their responsibility. They formed it. This will just make more victims in society and suppress free speech. It’s just a road to tyranny. That’s all it is.
Chris Smith: Okay. Another subject. Labor has delayed the public release of its Covid 19 review. What is the government afraid of to show, do you think?
SENATOR ROBERTS: Review? You’d hardly call it a review. Chris, I think you’re being very, very kind. Look, the panelists were biased. They were lockdown supporters. They’re not allowed to look at the state responses. They’ve got no investigating powers. Investigative powers. They’ve got no compare to compel. Compel evidence, compel documents, compel witnesses. This is just a sham. It is to get at Morrison and Morrison should be got out.
He deserves to be really hammered on this. But he’s no more guilty then than, he’s just as guilty rather as the state premiers who will mostly labor. This is a protection racket for the labor premiers and the labor bureaucrats. We need a royal commission now
Chris Smith: Now you say, I would have thought the Royal Commission needs to look at two things that that so-called review is not even touching the states, as you mentioned, and their role when it came to lockdowns and all kinds of freebies that were handed out to the public. But also on top of that, the deals that were done with big Pharma over those, those damn vaccines that have proved to be a con themselves.
SENATOR ROBERTS: I agree with you entirely. There are, in fact, there are many, many areas that need to be looked at. Chris, we, I moved a motion to get one of the committees, two in the Senate, to investigate and develop, a draft terms of reference for a possible royal commission. And that that was passed through the Senate, that the committee did it.
And I want to commend former barrister Julian Gillespie for he pulled an enormous team together and developed a phenomenal submission, 180 pages. I think it was 46,000 signatures. It was the people’s submission. And they covered it. Was it it turned it into a de facto inquiry into Covid. And it covers everything. And the royal and the, the chair, Paul Scott, I must say, the committee did a phenomenal job, along with the Secretariat, of pulling that into something that’s very, very workable.
A draft terms of reference ready to go. And they’re completely comprehensive, cover every topic imaginable.
Chris Smith: Let’s get on to energy. Now, a report from the US Energy Department is saying that with nuclear electricity, prices will drop 37%. Chris Bowen says renewables will always be cheaper. This is basically a blatant lie, isn’t it, Malcolm?
SENATOR ROBERTS: Well, you stole the word right out of my mouth. It is a lie. It is fraud. Fraud is the presentation of something as it is not for personal gain. Chris Bowen has been pushing this bandwagon the lies fraudulently to get political capital. He is telling lie after lie. Solar and wind are the most expensive forms of energy that’s repeated everywhere. You know, AEMO doesn’t even cost the lowest price system.
What they did with the relying on GenCost in the first place was false assumptions underpinning their calculations for solar and wind to make them look favorable and negative assumptions, and under coal to make it look unaffordable. That is completely false. And now we’ve got a circular argument that’s baked in, that’s beaten back to us all the time.
Now, it doesn’t cost the lowest price systems. It’s forced to exclude the cost of calculating coal or nuclear disaster. Rubbish stuff that comes out of the south end of North Band bull.
Chris Smith:Yeah, well, the CSIRO should be condemned completely for their reliance on that gen cost report. Malcolm.
SENATOR ROBERTS: That is fraud as well Chris. That was a deliberate misrepresentation of the energy structure. It was politically driven to achieve a political objective the same as their climate. The CSIRO has admitted to me the politician’s quoting them as saying that there’s a danger in carbon dioxide from human activity. The CSIRO has denied ever saying that and they said they would never say it. They admitted to me that the temperatures today and not a not unusual, not, unprecedented.
So the whole thing is based on the stuff that comes out of the south end of North Bound book. The CSIRO is guilty of misrepresenting climate science, misrepresenting nature and misrepresenting climate presenting energy. It’s just a fraud to extract money, to make billionaires richer, and to make, foreign multinationals richer.
Chris Smith: Spot on.
SENATOR ROBERTS: We pay for it
Chris Smith: You’re not wrong. I think it’s fair to say to Malcolm that Australia’s immigration program is now officially out of control, and the worst it has ever been.
SENATOR ROBERTS: Without a doubt. Completely agree with you. We have more than 2.4 million residents, excluding tourist million residents who are not citizens. Excluding tourists. Rent is up 52% in five years. Now, just remember that, the Albanese promised a after the last financial year where we got 518,000 net immigrants, by far the largest ever, almost double the previous record.
Albanese comments. Yeah, yeah, yeah, we’ll cut it. Immigration is coming in this year is higher than the record from last year. Higher. These people are just telling lies after lies. Lies. And the thing is they’re hiding over a per person per capita recession. That’s what they don’t want to be.
The government that was in place when the recession occurred. They would rather see people sleeping under bridges, in tents, in cars. I mean, working families. Kids are going home at night to their kids and sleeping in cars. Where do they shower? Where do they toilet? I mean, we got the richest state in the world, potentially in Queensland, and we got people living under bridges, families, working families.
And because the government, it just wants to look good by by lifting up GDP to make sure we don’t have a recession, we would be in a recession now without large scale immigration fudging the numbers.
Chris Smith Fudging the numbers. That’s exactly what large scale immigration does. It’s terrific to have you on the program. Senator Malcolm Roberts, thank you for your time.
SENATOR ROBERTS: You’re welcome Chris, any time. All right. Queensland Senator Malcolm Roberts,
https://img.youtube.com/vi/XzcmSYBROY0/maxresdefault.jpg7201280Senator Malcolm Robertshttps://www.malcolmrobertsqld.com.au/wp-content/uploads/2020/04/One-Nation-Logo1-300x150.pngSenator Malcolm Roberts2024-10-03 16:19:082024-10-03 17:41:43Middle East in Turmoil, Misinformation Bill doomed to fail? ADH TV with Chris Smith
The argument about nuclear is overshadowing an inconvenient truth.
Coal remains the cheapest form of baseload reliable power and nuclear is a better alternative compared to wind and solar.
I support nuclear power and believe it should be part of our energy mix, but there’s no need to eliminate coal to make it happen.
Transcript
Labor, the Greens, the paid-off media and climate activists are all fighting tooth and nail against nuclear. You can hear them screaming so loudly because reliable baseload power is a massive threat to the billionaire solar and wind cartel. Both sides of politics have, for more than two decades, mismanaged energy so grossly that we’ve caused an energy crisis that Australia is now facing down. One Nation congratulates the coalition on agreeing with One Nation’s longstanding policy to remove the ban on nuclear energy and have a debate about where it sits in our energy needs. We can only hope that One Nation’s full policy is adopted one day: remove all the subsidies and let the cheapest form of power win so we can put more money back in Australians’ pockets.
There’s no reason that we need to forcibly shut down coal to put nuclear in the mix. The coalition plan is to forcibly acquire coal-fired power stations, shut them down and replace them with nuclear. Let’s do nuclear, and let’s do coal too. One of those coal-fired power stations the coalition wants to shut down is at Tarong. I visited there on Friday. It sits right on top of a coal mine. Coal is dug out of the ground and put on a conveyor belt straight into the power station with minimal transport costs. What more could you ask for? We’ve got 40 years of real-world costs on the Tarong stations, and it’s as cheap as chips. It uses high-energy-density fuel. Why tear down Tarong and replace it with nuclear based on projections—or worse, solar and wind based on unicorn farts? Instead, just build another coal-fired power station right there at Tarong beside it and use the same power.
The coalition can’t do that, because it’s fully committed to the United Nations net zero madness, a catastrophic nightmare in the making, and we haven’t seen anything yet. We’ve got these people in the government putting on benefits to energy policy because of the rising cost due to their policy. Only One Nation will say, ‘up yours!’ to foreign unelected organisations telling us what to do and instead use Australia’s coal and uranium resources for the cheapest power possible.
https://img.youtube.com/vi/_Na0Tmylo70/maxresdefault.jpg7201280Senator Malcolm Robertshttps://www.malcolmrobertsqld.com.au/wp-content/uploads/2020/04/One-Nation-Logo1-300x150.pngSenator Malcolm Roberts2024-08-13 12:58:002024-08-13 12:58:04Coal Still the Cheapest Reliable Power Source
The media, Labor, Greens and lobby groups are scared of Nuclear power because it threatens the massive subsidies wind and solar billionaires like Mike Cannon-Brookes, Simon Holmes à Court and Twiggy Forrest are getting from Australians.
With reliable baseload power, there’s little need to tip billions into the wind and solar pipe-dream and that’s the reason they are scared of nuclear and coal.
https://img.youtube.com/vi/zR_-p3lFNJk/maxresdefault.jpg7201280Senator Malcolm Robertshttps://www.malcolmrobertsqld.com.au/wp-content/uploads/2020/04/One-Nation-Logo1-300x150.pngSenator Malcolm Roberts2024-06-27 13:30:002024-06-27 15:20:19Chris Bowen Says the Quiet Part Out Loud on Nuclear
Senator for Queensland, Pauline Hanson’s One Nation Party c/ AUSPIC
This report details extensive calculations that demonstrate casual coal miners across the Central Queensland and New South Wales Hunter Valley districts are being ripped off on average $30,000 a year of potential earnings under enterprise agreements negotiated by the union.
This report was summarised in a speech to the Senate here.
The economic and environmental cost of wind generated power is becoming clearer to investors as they back away from more projects, both overseas, on Australian soil and off-shore.
Following on from my speech last week drawing attention to financial losses in the wind energy scam, I speak about what’s behind these unravelling, expensive Net Zero operations.
It’s time to look again at clean coal.
Transcript
As a servant to the many different people who make up our one Queensland community, it has been only a few weeks since my last speech drawing attention to financial losses and failures in the wind energy scam. Today, we have more. Europe’s largest onshore wind turbine installation, Markbygden, has filed for bankruptcy protection. If completed, it would have consisted of 1,101 wind turbines and 750 kilometres of access roads. Escalating construction costs meant the project can no longer bid electricity into the grid at a price the grid operator can afford.
As I explained last week, there are not enough mines to mine the materials, not enough steel mills to make the steel nor enough special-purpose ships to bring them across the world. This is just economic cost. The environmental cost no longer factors into the equation. As an example, the Clarke Creek Wind Farm west of Rockhampton hit the news in the last two weeks, when their environmental impact study caused real environmentalists, like One Nation, outrage. The environmental impact statement admitted that the most severe impact of the proposal will be on the skulls of any koalas beaten to death for trespassing on the project’s land.
Offshore wind in Australia has had a bad week, too, with BlueFloat withdrawing their plans for offshore wind in the Shoalhaven area of New South Wales. BlueFloat’s proposal was for a 359 square kilometre area with 105 turbines located 14 to 30 kilometres of the Illawarra coastline. Each turbine would have a diameter of 275 metres and feed into three offshore substations. What an insane idea. One strong storm, and the whole lot winds up on the beach. Saltwater corrosion repair now accounts for 30 per cent of the levelised cost of electricity from offshore wind turbines. Offshore wind is unprofitable from the perspective of construction and maintenance costs.
It’s time to have another look at clean coal before the green movement has us all sitting in the dark with a fridge full of inedible, spoiled food.
There has never been more wind and solar in the grid than we have now, and yet power bills have never been higher.
Coal power is still the cheapest form of electricity we can make on demand, so we should be building more of it.
We need to abandon the UN net-zero pipe dream before it sends the country completely broke.
Transcript
This Greens motion complains that the government has approved five new coal projects this year, yet the government is not approving enough coal projects. We need to get these mines rolling. Australia need this government to approve coal-fired power stations. The Greens like to cherry-pick, so let’s look at what else the International Energy Agency said in July:
Coal consumption in 2022 rose by 3.3% to 8.3 billion tonnes, setting a new record — a new world record. So much for the death of coal. Instead the Greens would have Australia miss out on the tax revenue from this boom, which funds our hospitals, roads and schools and saved our economy in the last budget.
It’s always important to debunk the myth of cheap wind and solar in these debates. Today we have the highest proportion ever of wind, solar and batteries in the grid—more accurately known as unreliables, not renewables. Just ask any Australian. These are facts. Our power bills have never been higher. While the government sits on its hands about nuclear, building cheap, coal-fired power is the only solution we have for the cost-of-living crisis. The UN net zero pipe dream is already sending Australians broke and, if we don’t stop it now, the UN net zero nightmare will send the entire country broke. Unreliables have increased to only 36 per cent of Australia’s electricity needs, and look at the damage they’re already doing. If you think it’s bad now, this government wanted to get it to 82 per cent in 2030. That’s madness.
Meanwhile, as Australia annually mines 560 million tonnes of coal, China produces 4.5 billion tonnes, almost nine times as much, and on top of that China imports additional coal from us. I congratulate the government on approving some coal projects and criticise them for not approving more.
Before we all go broke, Australia needs more mines so we have coal on the ground, on ships, in power stations and in steam wheels, serving humanity.
https://img.youtube.com/vi/M-is63IfJwo/maxresdefault.jpg7201280Sheenagh Langdonhttps://www.malcolmrobertsqld.com.au/wp-content/uploads/2020/04/One-Nation-Logo1-300x150.pngSheenagh Langdon2023-09-05 13:37:022023-09-05 13:37:18Only Coal Can Fix the Cost of Living Crisis
The Australian National Audit Office (ANAO) is thorough and does some fine work. Its audit of the National Emergency Management Agency (NEMA) and the National Recovery and Resilience Agency (NRRA) found performance accountability missing.
At Senate Estimates the ANAO audit of Disaster Recovery Funding uncovered several reporting deficits with NEMA and NRRA that need to be addressed, vindicating my previous call for a Senate Inquiry into the administration of Disaster Relief Funding Arrangements to expose the misuse funds.
I called for an ANAO audit of Coal LSL (Long Service Leave) after Chartered Accountants KPMG’s concerning report of Coal LSL revealed many governance problems and the non-paying of entitlements to Hunter Valley coal miners.
I’ve been raising these issues for the past four years and will keep raising them on behalf of Australians until these identified problems and governance issues are resolved.
ANAO has agreed to examine this so watch this space.
https://img.youtube.com/vi/M3xFslaCp58/maxresdefault.jpg7201280Sheenagh Langdonhttps://www.malcolmrobertsqld.com.au/wp-content/uploads/2020/04/One-Nation-Logo1-300x150.pngSheenagh Langdon2023-09-02 07:09:142023-09-04 16:23:25Pursuing Accountability Among the Agencies
Australians are constantly told that banks, electricity markets and buyers are all turning away from coal and gas because it’s too expensive or the buyers just don’t like it anymore. It’s bullshit.
It is the Government that is applying direct pressure on coal and gas while it gives wind and solar a free ride. There is a sneaky, hidden piece of legislation called the Renewable Energy Shortfall Charge that is enforced by the Clean Energy Regulator (CER).
It forces your electricity company to buy a percentage of all of their electricity from wind and solar complexes. If your electricity company buys too much coal or gas fired electricity, they have to pay to buy green credits (generation certificates) off wind and solar generators or they will be fined.
Like slowly boiling a frog, the percentage of wind and solar your electricity company is forced to buy has been ratcheted up from 0.65% in 2001 to 18.64% this year. The increases are only accelerating.
So remember when anyone tells you “the market” is abandoning coal that it’s a lie. It’s only the government that’s choosing to abandon coal.
Transcript
Senator Roberts: I want to get help with an issue that constituents want to understand and so do I; I don’t understand it. It has relevance to the primacy of energy costs in the budget. I’m hoping to get into a relatively complex area and get your evidence or confirmation on how the renewable energy shortfall charge, under the Renewable Energy (Electricity) Act, works. Perhaps you could bring anyone to the table who has expertise in that.
Mr Parker: Sure. Mark Williamson has the expertise.
Senator Roberts: Thank you, Mr Williamson. I will try to step my way through the legislation here, and you can pick me up where I’m wrong or missing something. The renewable energy shortfall charge applies to liable entities?
Mr M Williamson: Correct.
Senator Roberts: Which is defined in sections 35, 31, 32 and 33, and essentially talks about entities that make a wholesale acquisition of electricity.
Mr M Williamson: Yes. For simplicity, these are typically electricity retailers.
Senator Roberts: Retailers.
Mr M Williamson: Yes.
Senator Roberts: Wholesalers?
Mr M Williamson: The electricity retailers are typically the liable parties.
Senator Roberts: Okay; they are the liable parties because they sell it to the end user.
Mr M Williamson: Correct.
Senator Roberts: Okay. Thank you. That’s great.
Mr Parker: Or large users, people directly purchasing electricity.
Senator Roberts: So large users who buy direct can also be facing these charges.
Mr Parker: Correct.
Mr M Williamson: Correct.
Senator Roberts: Can I get you to explain who the liable entities for the renewable energy shortfall charge are in simple terms—again, retail or large users?
Mr M Williamson: I need to frame and explain the renewable energy target for you. It sets an obligation on these retailers or large users who are buying direct to surrender to us each year a certain number of large-scale generation certificates and small-scale technology certificates. Those amounts are based on percentages set each year in regulation by the minister. Effectively, if you’re an electricity retailer, you take your acquisition of electricity in megawatt hours, you multiply it by those percentages and that tells you the number of certificates that you need to surrender to us. If a liable entity does not surrender the certificates or surrenders fewer than they should, that makes them liable for the shortfall charge.
Senator Roberts: So it’s not power generators and not wholesalers; it’s just retail and large consumers, as Mr Parker said.
Mr M Williamson: Correct; and they’re only liable for the shortfall charge if they do not surrender enough certificates to us to meet their renewable energy target liability.
Senator Roberts: Can you talk me through the large-scale generation certificates that you just mentioned. What are they and what is the effect of surrendering them for that company?
Mr M Williamson: Large-scale generation certificates are issued for each accredited power station that’s from a renewable energy source.
Senator Roberts: Solar or wind, for example?
Mr M Williamson: Correct. Hydro, as well, is quite common. They get a certificate for every net megawatt hour of generation. Those certificates can be used on the demand side to equip liability, so they can be sold to electricity retailers or big users, or they can be voluntarily cancelled to prove the use of renewable energy. For example, you may have heard of the GreenPower scheme. That operates in a way that businesses who want to have more renewable energy use proven, other than just the statutory renewable energy target, can buy and cancel large-scale generation certificates.
Senator Roberts: So a coal-fired power station would not get them?
Mr M Williamson: That’s correct.
Senator Roberts: Definitely not. Solar and wind would. And purchasers must buy at least 18.64 per cent right now of solar or wind power or hydro.
Mr M Williamson: Effectively, that’s the case. I think that percentage you’ve mentioned is the renewable power percentage and so, yes, those electricity retailers or big users multiply their electricity acquisitions by that percentage. That tells them the number of certificates that they have to cancel to us.
Senator Roberts: I’ve got some figures in front me about the renewable power percentage. I’ll just go through them. In 2001, it started—so that’s 22 years ago—and it was just 0.24 per cent, about a quarter of one per cent. Then it went up in the following year. You mentioned that this is a ministerial directive.
Mr M Williamson: The minister sets these percentages, based on calculations that we do each year, but the actual targets are set in the Renewable Energy (Electricity) Act. A certain number of gigawatt hours of generation each year was set in the act. That got to the target, which is 33,000 gigawatt hours, which is set in the legislation from 2020, and that same number continues to 2030. That 33,000 gigawatt-hour target was reset in mid-2015 by parliament. In the early stages of the scheme, there was a table in the act that set the numbers that dictated where that percentage would be set.
Senator Roberts: Is that table in section 39(1) of the act?
Mr M Williamson: I’d have to ask the general counsel to try to find the right part of the legislation.
Senator Roberts: While we’re waiting for confirmation, in 2001 it was 0.24. In 2002, the following year, it was 0.62, and it had slow increments, mild increments, until 2010. It took 10 years to get to 5.986 per cent. Then, from 2011 onwards, it rose, in 11 years, to 18.64. So it was 5.6 per cent in the first 10 years and there was a 13 per cent increase in the next 11 years.
Mr M Williamson: These were legislated increases. That was the way that the scheme was designed.
Senator Roberts: I want to understand this. First of all, I’ve focused mainly on the climate, because I haven’t found anyone who can give me the science that proves the need for this. But I haven’t focused on the energy, and that’s where I want to go in the future. That means resolving some of the complexities. I want to no-understand this because we always hear that it’s the market that’s forcing coal-fired generators out and that one likes coal. Yet it appears to me, with this renewable energy shortfall charge—a fine, if you like—that it’s actually the government forcing the retail sellers and the end users to buy wind and solar energy or, essentially, they’ll be faced with this fine. Is that correct?
Mr M Williamson: The construct of the scheme is that the retailers should buy the certificates. The shortfall charge is only where they do not choose to or are unable to get the certificates that they need. So it’s the default mechanism. But the way the scheme works is that the retailers should get in and be buying renewable energy. That should bring through more renewable energy, and that’s the way the scheme works.
Senator Roberts: It appears deceptive from one perspective. I’m not accusing you of doing that, but it appears deceptive from one perspective, hidden in the complex legalese. Have you ever advertised to the public that the government, through you, is forcing retail purchasers and large-end users to purchase more and more wind and solar?
Mr M Williamson: We don’t do specific broad community education, but all of this is regularly published; it’s published by other bodies, such as the Australian Energy Regulator and the Australian Energy Market Commission. It is generally well known that there’s an obligation on the electricity retailers. As I said, a lot of electricity users are choosing to buy GreenPower and to go further than the minimum statutory target.
Senator Roberts: What we have is a consumer faced with a choice of buying electricity. If they don’t buy an adequate amount or proportion of solar and wind, they will have to pay a charge in addition to the subsidies that the solar and wind producers are getting.
Mr M Williamson: No. The obligation is set with electricity retailers. There are a lot of electricity retailers. In a competitive market, they should source the certificates at the best price they can and have the lowest level of input cost for the renewable energy target.
Senator Roberts: My point, Mr Williamson and Mr Parker—you can correct me or confirm—is that, in my opinion, now that I’ve had it clarified, this is the most significant intervention in the electricity market that the government has ever conducted, and not just this government but previous governments as well. By ministerial directive via legislation, they’re ratcheting up the percentage of renewable electricity that every electricity buyer has to buy, or face a fine over the course of 20 years.
Mr M Williamson: Let me clarify, again, that the underlying numbers that lead to those percentages are locked in the act, so parliament took a decision to lock those numbers in. We do complex calculations to convert that to a percentage and they are put to the minister. The act sets out the things that the minister must consider. This is all set in legislation that was passed in parliament.
Senator Roberts: Thank you for affirming that yet again. My mistake: I thought I said ‘in the act’, but maybe I didn’t. Doesn’t this confirm that solar and wind are much more expensive? We’ve all been hearing the fluff that says people are going away from coal because it’s more expensive. Solar and wind get subsidies; plus, if somebody buys coal-fired power, the retailers or large-end users can be up for a charge. Doesn’t this really confirm that, without subsidies and without a throttle on the coal-fired competition, wind and solar are too expensive?
Mr M Williamson: Not in my view; I wouldn’t agree with that at all.
Senator Roberts: On what basis?
Mr M Williamson: There are incentives in the form of those large-scale generation certificates that go to the generators.
Senator Roberts: The solar and wind generators?
Mr M Williamson: Correct. Effectively, who benefits often depends on the nature of power purchase agreements between those solar and wind power station operators and the retailers. But, in essence, the numbers—if you look at the Australian Energy Market Operator’s Quarterly Energy Dynamics report, every time that wind and solar are setting the price in the wholesale electricity market, the prices are very low and, in some cases, in negative territory. It’s quite clear that, in fact, wind and solar are driving down wholesale electricity prices, which are also an input to retailers and to all of us as consumers.
Senator Roberts: I would say that’s an aberration. What’s happening is that coal is actually being forced out by the governments—I say ‘governments’ plural—and it’s a direct market intervention in addition to the subsidies. The subsidies enhance solar and wind; the charge slams coal.
Senator McAllister: Senator Roberts, in your questions just now and, indeed, yesterday, you mentioned subsidies. Are there any particular subsidies that you’re interested in? I think it’s been challenging sometimes for witnesses to engage with your questioning, because you don’t name them and I’m just unclear what it is that you’re referring to.
Senator Roberts: Subsidies on solar and wind.
Senator McAllister: Issued by whom?
Senator Roberts: Federal government, state governments.
Senator McAllister: Is there a program in particular that you’re seeking information on?
Senator Roberts: No, I don’t have any one in mind in particular.
Senator McAllister: I see. Please go on.
Chair: Senator Roberts, I’m going to wind you up as well. We can come back to you, if you need.
Senator Roberts: I’d just make the point that the market is not abandoning coal; the government is forcing buyers to not buy coal. That’s the point.
Chair: Thank you for your statement.
Senator Roberts: Thank you very much, Mr Williamson, for clarifying.
https://img.youtube.com/vi/wjltyH6x_rA/maxresdefault.jpg7201280Sheenagh Langdonhttps://www.malcolmrobertsqld.com.au/wp-content/uploads/2020/04/One-Nation-Logo1-300x150.pngSheenagh Langdon2023-05-24 18:42:302023-06-01 08:26:40The market is not abandoning coal, the government is forcing the market to abandon coal
