Day 242: Better than nothing at all
An introductory weekday newsletter from Schwartz Media. Counting the days since Australia had an energy policy.
Good morning and welcome to day 242.
Today in summary: Labor rejects costings of its energy policy at A$25 billion; Queensland won’t be rushed on evaluating Adani’s environmental credentials; and jobs in renewables surged in 2018.
— Sophie
Today’s policy spin level: 🌬️💨💨
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Questions persist about the financial impact of Labor’s climate policy. Last night, the AFR reported Bill Shorten said the cost of Labor’s 45% emissions reduction target wouldn’t be more than the Coalition’s 26% target, based on modelling by Warwick McKibben from 2015.
This morning, the Australian reported “Australian businesses could be forced to spend more than A$25 billion on international carbon credits”, based on the assumption that 500 million tonnes of emissions would have to be offset via carbon credits and/or preventing land clearing, and that those offsets would cost A$50 per tonne.
Shorten has said this morning that A$25 billion is “a lie” and “so intellectually dishonest it doesn’t deserve to be talked about”, The Guardian liveblog reports in its post tagged 09:39. The same liveblog is also reporting Scott Morrison rejecting the BAEconomics modelling of the Coalition’s policy - the modelling Labor has also rejected as inaccurate - as Morrison says BAEconomics modelled “a different set of measures” to what the Coalition is proposing.
Jackie Trad, Deputy Premier of Queensland, says the government is “not going to be bullied” over environmental approvals for Adani’s proposed coal mine, The Australian reports. The Australian says the lack of state approvals is:
“damaging Bill Shorten’s campaign in the state’s regional seats”, but
“the looming poor performance in regional Queensland could be countered by bigger-than-expected gains in Brisbane and its fringes”.
Meanwhile, the ABC reports it has obtained notes taken by participants in a phone call between officials from the Department of Environment and Energy and staff from Geoscience Australia earlier this month, which show that Adani “refused to accept key scientific findings and recommendations about its water management plans”. When Environment Minister Melissa Price gave federal approval for the mine, she said Adani had “accepted in full” advice from CSIRO and Geoscience Australia.
Jobs in large-scale and rooftop solar surged in 2018, with the total number of jobs in the renewable energy sector up 28% from a year earlier, according to the Australian Bureau of Statistics. The biggest increase was seen in Victoria, where renewable energy employment rose 47% to 3,180 full time-equivalent jobs in 2018, while Queensland still has the largest renewable energy workforce at 5,080 FTE jobs in the latest year.
The Commentariat
The Australian Institute of Company Directors has put out its director sentiment survey for the past six months, where it says director sentiment is at a two-year low and its members saw climate change as the most important long-term and second most important short-term issue for the federal government to address. The SMH quotes AICD chief executive Angus Armour as saying:
“We’ve reached a point where a second-best option that was agreed on a bipartisan basis, that would carry forward the next five or 10 years, would still be better than no policy certainty at all.
It’s not just business. It’s non-profits, it’s small business - everyone is calling for certainty around climate change police and energy policy.”
Three more things
WA’s Carnegie Clean Energy has its second creditors meeting in Perth yesterday, where creditors accepted a restructuring plan which will see the core business remain following a capital raising, while two businesses are wound down. The company will raise at least A$3 million and up to A$5 million and relist on the ASX, the SMH and the ABC report.
Genex Power’s Kidston pumped hydro project is preferred by some energy experts to the government’s multi-billion Snowy 2.0 scheme, Reuters reports. However, EnergyAustralia - which has a deal to negotiate an offtake agreement for Kidston’s output, along with an option to buy half the project - says “more work is needed before it can commit to the project”, Reuters reports, though it “believes Kidston has good potential”.
Westpac Group will get 45% of its energy from renewable sources by 2021, after signing a deal to buy 26% of the electricity from the yet-to-be-built Bomen solar farm, the AFR reports. The farm, owned by Spark Infrastructure, is set to come online in June 2020. In its press release, Westpac says it is committed to “source the equivalent of 100% of its global electricity consumption through renewable sources by 2025”.