90 second statement – Energy prices

Mr PITT: Give me a two, give me a seven, give me a five—put them all together and what have you got? You’ve got another broken promise from the Albanese government. There’s no $275 reduction coming for electricity prices—none at all. In today’s Australian there were a couple of columns about it—one by Judith Sloan. The true cost of renewables has long been hidden in the small print—yes it has. No-one in their right mind thinks it’s going well—that’s correct. Let’s not forget about the trampling of property rights—absolutely, particularly in regional areas. But a really important one is the loss of ancillary services associated with the uptake of renewable generation, voltage and frequency control, and system strength. These actually matter; there are inherent in traditional generators, they haven’t been costed, they have to be replaced, they have to be installed and they have to be paid for, and they are not included in the costs by those opposite. Who is going to pay for it? It is the electricity users. What is coming? It is the reality train, the blackout train. The reality train is not on the horizon; it’s right here.

Speaking of blackouts, in the same paper today—the Australian—on the same page and in the same location, is Minister Bowen railing about nuclear energy in Germany, the dead horse. The minister forgets there are interconnectors to nuclear energy in France. Saudi Arabia—there’s no nuclear power there, just distant whispers. The reality is that Saudi Arabia has an oil-and-gas industry and, guess what? They use gas—lots of it. They generate electricity at under $10 a megawatt hour. Imagine what we could do in Australia if only we could match it.