E&OE….
Topics: Renewable Energy Target review, Great Barrier Reef
STEVE AUSTIN:
The Federal Environment Minister Greg Hunt joins me now. He was in Europe over late last week and the weekend for the International Whaling Commission and to talk up what the Federal Government was doing to protect the Great Barrier Reef.
Greg Hunt is the Federal Minister for the Environment. Minister, good morning to you.
GREG HUNT:
And good morning Steve.
STEVE AUSTIN:
I know or understand you did not hear any of Senator Larissa Waters’ interview with me earlier on this morning. I just want…
GREG HUNT:
I heard part of it just as we were moving into the studio.
STEVE AUSTIN:
Okay. Look, I just want to get a reaction from you. Just one thing: Queensland now leads the state in terms of the number of solar power homes with 400,000, and they’re predominantly in Liberal Party electorates.
Why do you think this is? Can you interpret the figures from your side of politics please?
GREG HUNT:
Well, look, the first thing is that we support the Renewable Energy Target. The statements made by Senator Waters were just plain wrong and false. The current Renewable Energy level is at fifteen per cent.
We have a long-standing bipartisan commitment to twenty per cent. Because of an unintended element in the legislation, we’re heading to twenty six per cent. That’s the actual figure.
STEVE AUSTIN:
Okay.
GREG HUNT:
And there’s been a significant uptake of renewable energy around the country, and you have really two schemes: the large-scale scheme which includes wind, hydro, waste landfill gas, waste coal mine gas all being used, and then you have the small-scale scheme which is the solar scheme.
Around the country there are different rates of pick-up and it varies electorate to electorate. I think it’s – you know, to say that one party has a monopoly on it over another is a little bit silly. The bottom line is…
STEVE AUSTIN:
Well, Wyatt Roy’s electorate in Longman has almost a third of his homes are solar homes, the highest in the country here in Queensland.
GREG HUNT:
I think it’s simply a case of where are the installers who are the most active. That’s really the driver of it, but the…
STEVE AUSTIN:
So it’s just economic decisions, from your point of view?
GREG HUNT:
Look, people will have different reasons. To claim that there’s a monolithic view, that some are doing it for – that all are doing it for economic or all are doing it for environmental reasons obviously just doesn’t sit with the reality of human intent.
There are a variety of reasons and most of them are very, very good reasons for doing it. But the key point here is the law which the Greens helped bring into being mandated a review this year, and they were the ones that demanded the review every two years.
Now that a review has been held, there’s this curious position of denying their own role and their own hand in having set up that review. They created a discussion…
STEVE AUSTIN:
I think they were more concerned about Dick Warburton being the man who headed the review, rather than the review itself, weren’t they?
GREG HUNT:
Well, he was the person appointed by Penny Wong from all of Australia to be Labor’s chief adviser on the first incarnation of the carbon tax, so in all of Australia he was the person hand-picked by Senator Wong, who was then the Climate Change Minister and at that stage, the Greens were in lock-step with the ALP.
They were warmly welcoming of the way in which that first carbon tax was being put forward, and so it’s one of these things where when he’s appointed by the ALP, they love him. When he was appointed by the Coalition, same person to a very similar role, they demonise him.
Look, I would much prefer Senator Waters to attack me rather than to attack a citizen with a distinguished record who’s had bipartisan support and indeed tri-partisan support when he was appointed by the ALP. I think it’s a soft target and it’s much better to be critical of people such as myself.
STEVE AUSTIN:
I’ll get to the reason why we invited you onto the programme in just a moment, but I just want to make sure I’m very clear on this: we’re exceeding our renewable energy targets, which is good news in anyone’s language, so cross-party support for this. She says twenty eight per cent, you say twenty six…
GREG HUNT:
Twenty six is the correct…
STEVE AUSTIN:
…but the target was actually 20 per cent, so either way that’s good news in terms of domestic Renewable Energy Targets. Australia is going to exceed its targets significantly.
GREG HUNT:
So obviously what we’re doing now is we are conducting the review and we really want to achieve three things. One is to reduce emissions, two to ensure that we are – we have a sustainable renewable energy system, but three, that we are not adding undue costs to electricity prices.
The honest answer: if your neighbour is putting on solar panels and you’re not, you’re bearing their cost through higher electricity prices. If you’re putting on solar panels and your neighbour’s not, your neighbour is bearing the costs. It is a cross-subsidy and I think we need to be honest about that.
That’s the way it’s done.
STEVE AUSTIN:
And at this sitting of Federal Parliament you’re going to introduce legislation to scrap or wind back the Renewable Energy Target?
GREG HUNT:
Well, no, we’re not scrapping the target at all. That’s one of these scare campaigns which, for their own political reasons, the Greens have run, but it creates uncertainty and instability within the sector and that’s wrong.
We will have discussions and we’ve invited the ALP in for discussions as to – to ensure that there is long term stability in the sector without adding undue price impacts, but we’re looking at a balanced, sensible middle-path and our starting point is the long-standing bipartisan commitment to twenty per cent.
STEVE AUSTIN:
My guest is Greg Hunt. Greg Hunt is the Federal Minister for the Environment. This is 612 ABC Brisbane. Steve Austin’s my name. You were in Europe last week, you invited Queensland’s Minister for the Environment Andrew Powell to join you there.
You pitched an argument to some delegates or had discussion with delegates of UNESCO about what Australia intends on doing to protect the Barrier Reef. What did you tell them?
GREG HUNT:
I think the message was very simple that we’re taking steps both for the long term and immediately. The long term is – last week we released the Reef 2050 plan which is a plan for the next 36 years. So it’s a generational plan to protect, enhance and improve the quality of water and the quality of the reef itself.
The reef is the size of Italy and more and that’s an amazing thing to Europeans when they hear and understand that because to have a single national park the size of a major European country is quite surprising.
The second thing is what we explained to them is we, between us, received five major dredging projects as a legacy from the State and Federal ALP Governments, which would have seen significant spoil deposited in the marine park.
We have now taken those five and we’ve reduced them to nil, and when we’re able to show them the documents that we’ve gone from 100 years of practice, an inherited legacy of five major projects which caused the marine park to be put on the UNESCO watch list in 2011, ‘12 and ‘13 under the previous Federal Labor Government, there was this sense of wow, you’ve listened, you’ve responded, you’ve turned things around, you have stopped the practice which we raised and I would say in the countries that we visited there was a very, very significant and positive response.
A sense of you’re planning for the long term but more importantly you’re walking the walk right now that the five projects have become nil.
STEVE AUSTIN:
So when will you know which way UNESCO is leaning on a decision to list or not?
GREG HUNT:
Look they will make a series of recommendations first in draft and then in final form from round about March and April next year through to the end of May. We’ll just keep working with them. But I’ve got to say I am very encouraged. One thing I would…
STEVE AUSTIN:
Can I just ask you some – it was the wrong move to approve the dumping at sea of dredge spoil for the Abbot Point coal terminal. Well you know the moves in Queensland here by the State Government to try and get an economic incentive for the company to change that and dump on land, do you now concede that was the wrong move?
GREG HUNT:
Well we were the ones that received 33 preliminary approvals of a 34 approval process. So from day one I looked for alternatives with the Queensland Minister Andrew Powell. At that stage there were no alternatives.
There’s no questions that what was occurring under the law was absolutely within the bounds of safety but we set out, Andrew Powell and myself, to find an alternative to end 100 years of practice and we worked with the company, we worked with North Queensland Bulk Ports, we worked with the Great Barrier Reef Marine Park Authority and Russel Reichelt, the head of it, did a tremendous job and we didn’t just turn around one project, we turned around five projects and also preserved Balaclava Island, in my view, forever.
So one of the great estuarine areas for the breeding of marine life up and down the coast, that’s now in my view preserved forever and then the five projects have – five ALP projects have gone to zero. Strangely enough, the Greens that made a lot of noise after the election, on our research did not ask one question in Parliament when they were in power with the ALP as the five projects were put forward in relation to Abbot Point.
There’s no reference in any research which we could do to the best of my ability for a question on notice, without notice, in the House or in the Senate, so they were the Marcel Marceau of Abbot Point during the last three years of government. We’re the ones that took it, turned it around and I’m really pleased that 100 year practice has been changed again in my view forever.
STEVE AUSTIN:
Minister, thanks for your time.
GREG HUNT:
It’s a pleasure.
STEVE AUSTIN:
Federal Environment Minister Greg Hunt.
(ENDS)