Page 1672 - Week 05 - Thursday, 5 May 2016
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The decarbonisation of the electricity supply sector is a critical measure to reduce our city’s greenhouse gas emissions, and we have demonstrated it through policy measures that are well understood and applied internationally and that can deliver tremendous results locally, in our city, both in terms of environmental outcomes and also in terms of economic outcomes and jobs outcomes. And they have been endorsed from across the political spectrum.
As my colleague Minister Gentleman pointed out, the current federal environment minister, Minister Hunt, has said on the record that if states and territories want to take action to support and be complementary with national renewable energy policy, they should adopt the ACT-style reverse auction for a renewable energy target. He is on the record as saying that. For Ms Lawder to assert that we are somehow contradictory to national policy flies in the face of the comments made by her own federal colleague.
I note Ms Lawder’s concerns about process and I would draw to her attention that I sent an exposure draft of this legislation to the opposition and to the Greens when I wrote to them a few weeks ago. I am sorry that Ms Lawder did not get a copy of that but it was provided to her leader, Mr Hanson. Perhaps she should take up her complaint with the Leader of the Opposition’s office.
The point to be made around all of this is that now is the time to act. It is the time to act in terms of the environmental imperative but it is also the time to act when it comes to the opportunity our city has to secure investment and to secure renewable energy at an affordable price.
Let me turn to the question of price. I know that those opposite raised a concern about the impact on electricity consumers. Yes, there is a pass-through cost to consumers associated with making the transition to 90 or 100 per cent renewable electricity. But that cost is a modest one and, more importantly, is a cost that has remained constant over time and consistent with projections the government has put out going right back to 2011.
I draw members’ attention to the analysis the government made in 2011 when we first established the 90 per cent renewable energy target. We estimated that the cost of making this transition would be between $5.18 and $5.87 per household per week in the year 2020 as the maximum pass-through impact. That was back in 2011. Now, with the analysis that I released as part of the government’s announcement a couple of weeks ago to make the transition to 100 per cent renewables, we confirm that the cost per household would sit at around $5.50 per household per week, maximum pass-through cost in the year 2020.
We have a very clear projection that has remained constant and consistent over time, and that price impact is now sitting squarely in the middle of the range we anticipated over five years ago. That is a great outcome in terms of the consistency and the reliability of our projections.
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