Press conference, Bondi

AUNTY MAXINE RYAN: Nagangbi, nagangbi, nagangbi, which means welcome, welcome, welcome in Dharawal language. My name's Aunty Maxine Ryan and I'm from the Aboriginal community of Botany Bay, and I belong to the Dharawal Nation. But I would like to acknowledge the Bidjigal and the Gadigal clan, the land we're meeting on today, and acknowledge my elders, past, present and those emerging, and any Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people that are with us today, I welcome you all here.

And I do have a beautiful Aunty here today from my community, and I do welcome her here, and I welcome everybody else too. And I'll tell you a story why we're still here. It's we're still here because of my Aunties, my ancestors, my elders, for the care they do, the caring that they have done for 60,000 years. We are the oldest culture in the world, because they care for the land.

Not just the land, the water too, the water is very important to me as I did grow up on a mission, and we got our rations and that, but we still had our food, we still had the land and the water to make us keep on surviving, and that's what my elders done. They cared for the water and the land, they fought hard for us to get our education and where we are today. Some even went to jail for us.

But I do thank them for where we are today, because the living back then was different to what it is today, and today here in Waverley, it's just beautiful, lovely weather. So I do thank them for that.

And caring for the land is very important to my people, because what we take we give back. She's our mother. Our mother feeds us, feeds our plants, feeds our animals, makes our medicine, and that's who keeps us keep on surviving.

And the young generation today, all the hard learning that they do on how to keep our land and the waters so nice, and we all live together as one, because every year we invite multicultural cultures into Australia. They become Australian citizens, as Australia's a multicultural country.

And the children, they put their hand up, they love telling their stories to me, and I love listening because I love listening to other cultures, and I'm proud to share my culture, I'm proud to be an Aboriginal elder from my community, and that's what we all are, we are all there for our young generation.

So whatever work you do, keep on doing it. They are our future, they're going to be our leaders one day, they will be running my country one day. So whatever you're doing out there, keep on doing it, keep on being the role models that youse are.

And just like Ausgrid, what a role model they are for communities right around, right around Australia.  They are role models for what they do for our country, and what they support, how they support our communities. They are a good company who support communities. And what they have done today here in Waverley, that's all about supporting the community.

So we will be getting more of these around each community, and I would like to say thank you and keep up the good work, what you're doing around our communities.

ALLEGRA SPENDER: Thank you, Aunty Maxine, for that wonderful welcome to country, and I also want to acknowledge the land on which we're meeting and pay my respects to elders past, present and emerging. And, you know, particularly want to acknowledge the incredible work of Shane Youngberry, whose wonderful work you can see on the battery and on the EV charger today. So it's wonderful to have that example of Aboriginal culture and artistry in our community, so thank you very much, Shane, who's also here today.

Welcome to everyone, and thank you so much for coming to the launch of the East First Community Battery, and it is incredible to see so many people here, but frankly it's not a surprise to me, because it was just down the road in Bondi on the promenade there that I met this guy called Shane, I tell this story all the time because it still encapsulates our community, because I asked him, "What's important to you"? And he says, "I care about the environment, it's really important that we take care of it for our future generations". He said, "I want us to be a kind and fair society. I want everyone to be able to work together and support each other, and I'm a business person and I care about business and innovation". And I think today's launch is exactly a symbol of all those three areas.

Wentworth is a community that cares desperately about the environment. We have the privilege of living in one of the most beautiful parts of the world. It is also business focused and innovative and we value fairness and equity.

So let me tell you how what we're launching today fits into those. Firstly in terms of clean energy.  This Bondi battery we're launching and the EV charger that we're also launching today is going to accelerate our community shift to cleaner, cheaper and more reliable renewable energy by soaking up excess rooftop solar on a day like today and distributing it throughout the community during the evening energy peak, and this increasing our use of cheap solar battery includes   and cheap solar power reduces our reliance on expensive fossil fuels and also reduces the risk of over building things like transmission lines.

But it's not just a battery that's being launched today, it's also a new service, a storage as a service product that is being launched today, and that's really special, I think, particularly in this community, and this is an example of the energy innovation which is so critical, I think, to this transition, because it allows local households to buy and sell power to the battery and eligible consumers will see direct financial benefit from a community battery for the first time in Australia straight here in Wentworth.

And it's going to accelerate home electrification in this area, which is an area that   a topic I know so many of us are passionate about.

But the other part, I think, that I'm particularly so proud of that we get to launch this today is that fairness piece, because this community battery will support the renters and apartment dwellers in our community who otherwise haven't had the same access, you know, to solar and batteries as many other communities.

I mean just look around, you know, here, you know Waverley's one of the densest populated communities in the country. We have so many renters and apartment dwellers, but they have been locked out in so many of the benefits, and this is the opportunity in this launch today to accelerate that transition and include everybody in it. So that is a great innovation.

And I particularly want to, you know, pay tribute to everyone standing behind me, because of the, you know, Ausgrid, but also Origin and Energy Australia coming together and working together saying, 'How do we solve problems for our community?  How do we make this transition work for everyone?' Because that's what we need.

So I also want to pay tribute to Minister Bowen. I know you've been incredibly passionate about community batteries from the get go, and proud that Labor is doing so much in this area across the country. To Marc England and the Ausgrid team for everything you've done. And particularly to Waverley Council, to the Mayor, Paula Masselos, who has been a real leader in community but also in energy innovation. And also Tim and his team, and Sam and the team for making this all happen, because today's launch shows what's possible when business, community and different levels of government work together for the benefit of our environment and our community. So thank you everybody for coming.  I'll just hand over to the Minister. Thank you.

CHRIS BOWEN: Thanks everyone. Thank you Aunty Maxine for the welcome to country, and I just want to say that First Nations people are playing a vital role in helping us in our national journey to reduce our emissions, we have savanna burning which reduces emissions very substantially, which is based entirely on the learnings of 60,000 years of stewardship of our country.

And I also want to say that our renewable energy revolution is an opportunity to help close the gap of Indigenous disadvantage in Australia.

First Nations people did not benefit from traditional energy from oil and gas and coal by and large. I'm determined they will benefit from renewable energy, and the First Nations Clean Energy Strategy that I'll be releasing soon will make sure that that's the case, and First Nations people have equity and ownership and stakes in this renewable energy revolution.

Thanks Allegra for welcoming me to your electorate today. It's a great day, and I'm delighted to be here with your community to celebrate your community battery.

You know there's plenty of "all too hardism" out there. There's not so much climate denialism out there   there's a bit of that   but there's a lot of "all too hardism". It's all right, but this is going to be all too hard. The sun doesn't always shine, and the wind doesn't always blow, it's all too hard.

Well, the rain doesn't always fall either. We all drink water, it can be done. And the key storing that renewable energy.

As others can tell you who are about to speak, we have plenty of energy during the day. We've got more electrons than we know what to do with during the day. We need to store it for the evening. And to do that we need lots of batteries. We need household batteries. And when we came to office one in 60 Australian houses had a household battery, now it's one in 40. Making progress, long way to go.

We need grid scale batteries, big, huge megawatt scale batteries, which are important for the grid. But we also need community batteries, and that's why we're rolling out community batteries in a government program right across Australia.

Now we promised 400. I do have to tell you we're going to break that promise, because it's under budget and we're going to deliver 420 instead with that spare money.

Yes and this is a really important part of a community coming together, because to get this job done, this decarbonisation job done, it's not all   it's not whole of government, it's not whole of governments, state, federal and local, it's all those things, but it's whole of society. It's industry, communities, workers, all of us, unions, all of us on this journey together getting this job done, otherwise we'll fail.

And I know, and everywhere I go in Australia, from Bondi to Bundaberg, the communities are all in to get it done. And so this is an important day, the opening of our latest government supported, government funded community battery in partnership with Ausgrid who are doing a great job working with the government to roll these out across the country. So thank you.

And it comes at the end of a pretty busy week of progress. You know, on Tuesday I was in Brisbane announcing the first   the development of the first low carbon liquid fuels refinery in Australia. 60 per cent of the energy of the emissions in Australia are not actually electricity, they're liquid fuels. We need to get those emissions down. That was a good day, good step forward.

The next day I was in Gladstone with Orica where they have reduced their emissions by 50 per cent, and a very big plant in Gladstone, because of our industrial reforms, our industrial safeguards reforms.

The next day I was back in Sydney with Splend, who with government support are providing 500 more EVs for car share drivers, ride share drivers, because they get the real benefits. Uber drivers and others spend four times the amount of time on the road than we do, so their emissions are higher, and their costs are lower with EVs. That was a good day.

And yesterday I joined with Ampol to announce we're supporting 200 more EV chargers at Ampol service stations across the country. And here we are ending the week in Bondi today to open your community battery. So it's been a pretty good week of progress.

I just want to acknowledge Allegra's support and work in ensuring that there's a majority in the House of Representatives for real decarbonisation. It shouldn't be a question in 2024 after decades of argument about whether climate change is real, but it is still a question, and of course Allegra and her colleagues play an important role in the Parliament, which we understand and respect, and appreciate your work, Allegra. Thank you.

Again I also want to acknowledge Mayor Paula Masselos. As I said before, it's got to be whole of governments, and we need local government all in as well as state and federal, and I know under Paula's leadership you are. She's a regular interlocutor with me on how we can work together, so thank you, Paula, for your leadership on climate matters.

And of course Tim Murray. It was actually Tim and I who announced this battery was coming, I think, right on Bondi Beach, literally on Bondi Beach. I came over at Tim's request and announced that Bondi would get a battery if the Labor Party was lucky enough not to come second in the upcoming Federal Election, and we didn't come second, so I'm able to deliver this battery today, so that's great.

And the Chiefs. We're about to hear from the Chiefs. You have a collection of energy Chief Executives behind you. You have a great deal of Australia's energy industry leadership standing behind you   behind me, sorry   and they've all been integral in working together, because community batteries are great for the energy system, great for the grid, soaking up that extra power.

We've been determined from the time we designed this program; it's got to be great for consumers as well. The people who sign up to use this battery and are in this community, they have to benefit as well, and there's been a bit of a journey just to get those details right, but because of the leadership of the gentlemen standing behind me, they've got that right. We have a collection of Chiefs. I'm sure they'll be hanging around for your questions, suggestions and accusations afterwards on a one on one basis. But they've done a great job in getting this done, and I'm going to hand over first to the Chief Executive of Ausgrid, Marc England, and then the Chief Executives of Origin and Energy Australia, for them to update you and everyone else through the media about the new program to ensure that consumers benefit from the cheapest form of energy ever been known to human kind, which is solar energy.

MARC ENGLAND: Thank you, Minister, and thank you, Allegra. So super proud as Ausgrid CEO this morning to be here announcing this battery. It's the latest in a suite of batteries that we've installed across our patch over the last year or two. This is the ninth for us, but the fifth with Federal Government support.

I'm going to explain a little bit about why they're so important, but also how this one is a particularly special one for us because of the collaboration with Energy Australia and Origin.

So this one sitting behind me also has an EV charger with it. That EV charger is plugged straight into the battery. We'll walk over to the battery in a minute to turn it on. That EV charger will be run and owned by the local council, so that's really important too. It allows customers in the local area to benefit with their electric vehicles from the renewable power that's stored at the battery.

Now I like to look at these batteries as sponges in the community. So if you think about a day like today with a lot of sunshine, there's too much, and often in some areas way too much surplus electricity flowing into the local community, and something needs to happen to it, it has to go somewhere.

So these batteries suck it up, a bit like a sponge, and then let it out in the evening when there's no sun and everyone's turned their heating on and they're cooking on electricity. So a really important component of the network.

Now it allows us to run a more efficient network because those peak loads that come in the evening cost. We build our network to the peak load at any point in time during the day. So by having a battery in the local area we can minimise investment in other parts of the network and ultimately offer customers in the local area a lower price, a lower grid charge for their electricity.

And so that brings me to this particular moment, which is this collaboration with Energy Australia and Origin. It's a fundamental shift in one of the ways in which we're engaging customers in this, because what this allows us to do is to pass through to them a lower grid charge for the customers in this area when they engage them in their electricity, and that's a step change in how this industry works, and we're really proud to be part of that.

And I'd like to also thank the local council and the Mayor because not only do state government and federal government and local council play a role in this, multiple retailers, but it is a really important collaboration that can be quite complex, and picking up on the Minister's point, it can sound like it's all too hard, but we're all committed to trying to make this happen in the interests of a lower cost energy transition.

So I will end it there and call on Marc Collett from EA to say a few words.

MARC COLLETT: Thank you, Marc, thank you, Minister Bowen, and thank you, Allegra. At Energy Australia we're an electricity retailer and generator and we know that our job is to provide the most simple and predictable outcomes for customers.

Energy is a really complicated landscape, and our job is to take all the best bits and put them together in the way that gets the best outcomes for customers. So that's making the most use of community assets like community batteries, the solar, the wind, at the large scale and also at the small scale, and coordinating batteries, small, medium, big, with all of the back up generation needed to operate a system. And just as I say that you can see how many pieces come together.

When we get it right, we can deliver the most efficient outcomes for customers by putting that package together in a way that just works the absolute best, and efficiency's important because it means the lowest possible bills.

Innovation is the way we get there, and that's why at Energy Australia are delighted to work with Ausgrid and the Federal Government to launch initiatives such as this with energy storage as a service, because we know that this is a piece of the jigsaw that delivers those best possible outcomes for customers.

So absolutely delighted to be here as part of a team working on giving you the best possible community outcomes and the best possible customer outcomes. Thank you very much.

FRANK CALABRIA: Good morning everyone, and firstly, thank you very much, Aunty Maxine, for welcoming us today. And you've heard from the speakers before me that really we stand here today at a time where we're all working together for a transition, a transition that's going to take multiple decades, but one where technology and innovation is actually thriving.

We're delighted also to be working with Ausgrid. It's taken Ausgrid, ourselves, the Federal Government and Waverley Council to all work together to actually bring this solution, and the solution needs to be to the benefit of customers, it needs to be to the benefit of the community.

There are batteries being installed at very large scale, and Origin is doing that all over the country. There are batteries in people's homes. But I think you heard from Allegra earlier, there are many people that need to be able to participate in this transition that live in apartments, that live in congested communities, and it does require Waverley Council and other councils, alongside innovation in the way the energy system is designed, for us to be able to share those benefits with our customers and work together with the leadership of Ausgrid in this space.

So we are also very delighted to do that, and you will see for customers that wish to register and participate in this, I'd suggest the easiest way to do that is to do that through the Ausgrid site, but there is a direct benefit that comes to customers and for those that participate.

We're very excited to see this is one of many, and you will see the retailers, like Origin, playing a very active role to be able to actually provide those products and services that I'm sure you've all been very much looking forward to.

So thanks very much. It's been a pleasure to be here today. It's the culmination of a lot of work from our organisations and from many government bodies and other people involved. So delighted to be here. Thanks for coming along.