Shorten to outline Labor renewables vision at clean energy conference

Opposition leader Bill Shorten will outline federal Labor’s vision for renewable energy next week in a speech at the opening session of the 2015 All-Energy Australia conference, to be held in Melbourne next week.

This year’s All-Energy Australia will be the first since its merger with the Clean Energy Council’s annual national solar conference, making it the country’s largest renewable energy conference and exhibition event.

The strategic partnership between the CEC and and Reed Exhibitions Australia – which stages the All-Energy Australia conference each year in Melbourne – was orchestrated by the two groups late last year, to deliver scale and quality for the renewable energy sector at a time of ongoing policy uncertainty.

According to Reed Exibitions executive director, John Gorton, the presence of state and federal politicians at All-Energy conferences has helped shape future debate around Australia’s energy mix.

“We are pleased to announce the Hon. Bill Shorten MP will be attending All-Energy Australia this year, and look forward to hearing his vision for Australia’s energy sector,” Gorton said in a media statement on Monday.

But according to the conference program, there will be no representation of the federal Coalition government at the conference – continuing its notable absence of a number of years now.

Indeed, the last time a senior Coalition politician addressed a major clean energy conference in Australia was in 2013, when the then deputy environment spokesman Simon Birmingham promised no change to the renewable energy target, not even its then 41,000GWh target. Of course, we know how that turned out.

There will be a representative from the Victorian Liberal Party, however, with the shadow minister for energy, David Southwick, slated to give a plenary address at the opening session on Day 2 of the conference, right before the international keynote address from UK Conservative turned environmental activist, Lord Deben.

The former minister from the ultra conservative Thatcher government last year described the Abbott government’s quest to scrap Australia’s carbon price as “reckless” and “deeply shaming.”

Lord Deben, who served in Margaret Thatcher’s government as John Gummer, also told various Australian media outlets last year that the Australian Coalition government was out of step with centre-right politicians around the world on the urgency of tackling climate change.

“Conservatives around the world are taking action on climate change, including Britain and Germany. It’s in the DNA of conservatives to hand on a better world to your children and I hate that Australia is letting down conservatives around the world,” Deben said, describing Abbott as someone who “clearly …refuses to accept the science of climate change.”

All-Energy Australia will be held at the Melbourne Convention and
Exhibition Centre on 7 and 8 October 2015.