Coalition will be out of job if it keeps head in sand on renewables

Queensland energy minister Mark Bailey has accused the federal Coalition government of scare-mongering about renewable energy, and warned that it would find itself out of a job unless it took climate change and emission reduction targets seriously.

Bailey was speaking after the release of a report from a government-appointed panel that suggested the cost of taking Queensland to a 50 per cent renewable energy target by 2030 would be around $6 billion in extra large-scale generation.

This compares to the $27 billion that federal energy minister Josh Frydenberg released to News Ltd on the morning of last week’s CoAG energy minister’s meeting, which was enthusiastically quoted by numerous Murdoch journalists and commentators.

RenewEconomy asked Frydenberg’s office for the calculations and modelling supporting that claim, but was not given it. According to Bailey, the state energy ministers asked for it to at the Melbourne meeting, but were also refused.

“I think it is a bit embarrassing for the federal government, given that they have been running around for weeks …solar scare mongering, effectively,” he told RenewEconomy in an interview.

“We’ve done the hard yards, and yet the federal government …say they’ve done a preliminary report that shows $27 billion cost for Queensland, but they didn’t even present that to the energy council last Friday.”

Asked to speculate as to why the Coalition – in the federal sphere as well as most state and territories – were against renewable energy, Bailey said:

“It’s a very old-world way of thinking, a 20th Century way of thinking and it doesn’t take into account what is going on worldwide in terms of the transition to clean energy, the technological opportunities that are there, that this is all very achievable.

“If Germany can do 32 per cent and California can do 30 per cent today, why can’t Australians do equally well? I have faith in the Australian industry and the Australian community to achieve what’s being achieved elsewhere….”

Bailey says that the state government, which will get its final report later this year, will choose its preferred path and put it into action early in the New Year.

“We’re very committed to this, as you can see from this piece of work. This is a substantial piece of work with not just Queensland implications but national implications.

“We’ve got three choices to make and there’s flexibility in this. So if we do choose one of the pathways with (no) strong national action, and we have a change of federal government or a change of policy, then we can adapt.

“But can I say, that if the federal government continues to put its head in the sand on renewable energy, they won’t be there for much longer.”

Opposition from the Coalition is a given, even if the Liberal Party in the ACT has grudgingly signed on to the 100 per cent renewable energy target championed by the current Labor government (the territory goes to the polls on Saturday).

The biggest challenge for state targets such as Queensland’s and Victoria’s (40 per cent by 2025) will be overcoming adverse commentary and reporting in the mainstream media.

Most media outlets have been happy to go along with the federal Coalition’s scare campaign after the South Australia blackout, and the antipathy to renewables was revealed in the media conference held by Bailey in the gardens of the state’s parliament house building.

Nine Network’s state political reporter Shane Doherty said it was obvious that rooftop solar had “whacked up power prices for everyone” in the state, and he expected the same would happen with this target, despite the detailed modelling conducted by the inquiry.

“I don’t buy it. I just don’t believe it.” Doherty declared.

Part of the problem is the complete lack of knowledge about the electricity sector. “What’s a megawatt,” asked one TV journalists in a briefing with the Queensland panel. It’s going to take quite a bit of educating.