Press conference with Sen Anne Urquhart in Railton, Tasmania

ANNE URQUHART: So thanks, everyone, for being here today. I’m Anne Urquhart, Labor senator for Tasmania, and I’m really excited to be here with Chris Bowen. Chris is the Minister for Climate Change and Energy. And I’m really happy to be here with Rob Davies, who is the Chief Executive of Cement Australia.

We’ve made a brilliant announcement, which I’m – will pass to Chris in a moment to let you know what that is up here at Railton and other places around Tasmania, particularly Savage River and Bell Bay. And these sort of initiative that the government have been involved in really give the opportunity for places like Cement Australia moving into the future to reduce their emissions and provide long-term opportunities for jobs here on the north west coast, which is fantastic – my local patch. And I’m really pleased to be here today. So I’ll hand over to Chris.

CHRIS BOWEN: Thanks very much, Anne. Well, I’m here today delivering a big vote of confidence in Tasmania’s industrial future. And a vote of confidence in the ability of Australian industry to reduce their carbon emissions and compete in a decarbonising world.

So I’m back at Railton today – good to be back at the very impressive Railton cement facility. It’s been operating for more than a hundred years. And I’m confident it can operate for many generations to come. Cement is what we call a hard-to-abate activity. It’s hard to reduce carbon emissions from cement. But we need a lot more cement. A lot of people wouldn’t realise, for example, that there is more cement in a wind farm than there is steel holding the wind turbines down. And I want to see that cement made in Australia. I want to see the cement made in Tasmania.

And today I am announcing the latest funding under our Powering the Regions Fund. The regions are essential to Australia ‘s decarbonised future. And we are partnering with businesses and industries like Cement Australia to ensure they can compete in a decarbonising world. Consumers and investors increasingly will demand to know a company’s plans to reduce emissions. And Cement Australia, for example, like the other companies, has made and is making substantial investments in decarbonising themselves. But it’s also in our country’s interest that they reduce their carbon emissions. And so we’re partnering with them.

So today I’m announcing more than $70 million of support across three companies and four facilities in northern Tasmania to see emissions reduced. Here in Railton at Cement Australia more than just on $53 million to see alternative sources of energy other than coal be used to make cement. And Rob will talk in more detail about that.

This will help Cement Australia lock in Railton’s future. And, as I said, I’m very confident that this facility will exist for many generations to come in a changing world and a changing economy where consumers and investors demand less carbon. Also announcing today support for Grange Resources, electrifying their Savage River facility and also a separate grant for one of their other facilities in northern Tasmania, and a smaller grant for Liberty Bell Bay to help them decarbonise. There are projects we are supporting across Queensland, Western Australia, South Australia and Tasmania. $90 million to the Gladstone QAL facility – and other support through Murrin Murrin, Kwinana and Adbri in Adelaide.

So this is about governments and industry working together. Last year we introduced our safeguard reforms which require companies like Cement Australia to reduce their emissions. Built on a lot of consultation, many meetings between Rob and I and his counterparts across industry working out how we can make this work for Australia and work for individual industries. And it’s appropriate that we ask a lot of big industrial emitters, and we’re asking them, requiring them, to reduce their emissions by 5 per cent a year. But we’re also partnering with them to help them do it. As I said, complementing big investments from companies themselves and the Australian Government, the Albanese Government, working with industry to see emissions come down, jobs go up and a bright industrial future.

I’m going to ask Rob to add from a Cement Australia point of view, and then we’ll take questions.

ROB DAVIES: Thanks very much, Minister. And, again, welcome Senator Urquhart and also Minister Bowen. It’s our pleasure to have them here today at Railton to announce this important support for critical heavy industry right across Australia. So very, very pleased to be here.

Cement Australia is the largest domestic manufacturer of clinker and cement, so we have a significant – in Australia, so we have a significant emissions profile. And it’s very important to us – in fact, critical to us – that we work to continue to reduce our emissions but also provide and enable our customers to reduce the amount of embodied carbon in the concrete that they provide to builders in the country here.

The safeguard mechanism, as Chris mentioned, was implemented last year, and that great – that provided certainty for our investments going forward. So it provides us with a big challenge but also the opportunity to make investments knowing that we can rely on that legislation as it’s set out.

We’re also engaged with the government on the work that’s underway to look at the competitive landscape to ensure that domestic manufacturing remains the primary supplier of these sorts of products here in Australia. And we welcome the support in terms of the financial grant that’s being announced today. It’s certainly a very important component of our overall program.

In Cement Australia we have a decarbonisation road map, and we’re progressing along that pathway very favourably. We’ve developed new technology that enables our customers when they make their concrete to use less cement, to have lower embodied carbon in their concrete that they put into the community. We’ve increased the use of electric trucks, introducing for the first-time prime movers to pull our tankers around in Melbourne and in New South Wales. We continue to change and increase the use of alternate fuels, both here and at our Gladstone operation. And, again, we’re very, very pleased with the announcement made today that secures the future here at Railton.

As Chris mentioned, Railton is 100 years old and has faced many, many challenges in the past. And I think those of you who know Tasmania well know that when a Tasmanian sees a challenge they really see an opportunity. And over those last 100 years they’ve taken those opportunities to look forward and to build a safer, more productive and a more sustainable outcome. And that’s what the fundamental premise of this project is as well.

We’ll be looking to change the amount of coal we use in our operation and transferring that into an alternate fuel system. We will be bringing in around 30 per cent of our fuel as wood-based fibre and 5 per cent as shredded tyres. Here in Tasmania there has been a longstanding issue with the stockpiling of tyres, and working the State Government we've been able to find a sensible, environmentally friendly and sustainable solution to that.

It's certainly a great opportunity for us to look to the future here in Railton. And we’ll continue to work with our customers and to ensure that we can supply lower embodied carbon, reducing our emissions by 107,000 tonnes per year when the project is complete. That is scheduled for March in 2026. And in doing so, we’ll be able to provide lower embodied concrete for use in infrastructure and hospitals and commercial applications and in our homes right across Australia. So thank you all very, very much.

CHRIS BOWEN: Over to you guys.

JOURNALIST: What – I’m not sure what wants to answer this, but how will the 53 million here be used? New kiln?

ROB DAVIES: So the Railton kiln and process was built on using coal as its primary fuel. Since 2008 we’ve begun the transition of using alternate fuels, and today we use about 15 per cent alternate fuels to coal. And as we move forward into this new project we’re going to increase the use of alternate fuels. So we’ll see the commencement of building supply chains for collecting wood fibre, for bringing those to the site, the storing, for processing and handling and also for drying. So one of the large components of the project, apart from the storage process, is to extract the waste heat that comes off our process and use that to dry the wood fibre before it goes into the process itself.

As the process and the kiln was designed specifically for coal, we need to change that so that effectively it breathes easier. So we’ll invest a significant amount of money in the process itself, replacing fans, enlarging the particular process equipment so that it can easily uptake the 15 per cent – sorry, the 50 per cent of alternate fuels we’ll be using in the future.

JOURNALIST: Will this mean any new jobs?

ROB DAVIES: Yes, it will. So really excited on that. So we think at least 10 new jobs from a permanent point of view. But that’s I’d say our low estimate because we’ve yet to develop our supply chain for wood fibre. That’s been in flow, but we need now to put in place, so we’ll work our way through that. During the construction phase in the first quarter of 2026 we’ll probably see an additional 250 people working here on the plant for probably a little bit more than a month. The noise you can hear in the background is what we call our major maintenance shut. So the plant is currently shut down for 28 days, and we have on average about 350 people here per day extra working on changing and maintaining the operation.

Over those 28 days we’ll spend about $25 million, and then as we look forward into our planning process, it now moves into ensuring we bring in this new technology into the Railton process and so when we start up in the second quarter following the shut in 2026 we’ll be consuming not 15 per cent but 50 per cent alternative fuels in our process.

JOURNALIST: Why was this plant picked?

CHRIS BOWEN: I could probably answer that. There was a very competitive process with companies around Australia bidding for this money. I had an independent panel assess all the applications and give me advice about the best value for taxpayers’ money. I weighed up that advice and made the decisions about which projects to support and chose nine across the country. A combination of strategic importance for the economy, cement is very important strategically for our economy, and emissions reduction.

Across these nine projects we’re seeing 800,000 tonnes of carbon a year come out – 800,000 tonnes of carbon a year reduced. That’s equivalent to taking a quarter of a million cars off the road. This is a big deal for emissions reduction across the nine projects. I’m very happy with the return to the taxpayer for the emissions reduction.

JOURNALIST: Is there any concerns that power generation might be an issue in decarbonisation? We had some businesses tell us that they might have issues having enough power to lead to decarbonisation?

CHRIS BOWEN: No. We are obviously – a big part of what we’re doing is electrifying across industry and even with households. One of the best things you can do to reduce emissions is to electrify whatever you can. And also we are converting the electricity generation to renewable. That’s a challenge but an enormous opportunity for our country as well. So that means we do need more renewable energy generation. Two days ago I announced the details of the Capacity Investment Scheme supporting 32 gigawatts of new renewable, including dispatchable, across Australia. A separate auction across the NEM, and that will include Tasmania. So, of course we’ll continue to work with the Tasmanian Government on renewable energy generation here in Tasmania. But we’re doing that right across the country as well.

JOURNALIST: How vital is industry here in northern Tasmania do you think?

CHRIS BOWEN: Well, this is – it’s vital for jobs. We want to see more good-paying jobs for Tasmanians and in the north. So imagine the world in which this facility couldn’t operate any longer. That’s a lot of jobs out the window. We don’t want to see that. Well, we wouldn’t see that. On the contrary, we are cementing the future of this facility and cementing the industrial future of Tasmania as well.

JOURNALIST: Maybe last time you were here – or it could have been the visit before that – we were up at Temco talking about a wind farm proposal. How is that all going?

CHRIS BOWEN: Well, I mean, I’m not going to comment on individual proposals. But I’m a regular visitor to Tasmania. I work very closely with the Tasmanian government on Tasmania’s renewable future and will continue to do so.

JOURNALIST: It was a wind farm proposal off the coast. You were announcing a feasibility study closing in January.

CHRIS BOWEN: Sorry, that’s the Bass Strait offshore wind zone?

JOURNALIST: Yes, yes.

CHRIS BOWEN: Yes, that has closed to consultation. I am currently weighing up the submissions. I recently declared Southern Ocean. I have declared Portland – sorry, I’ve declared Gippsland and the Hunter. Illawarra and Bass Strait are closed for consultation. Western Australia is still open. So I’ll declare – or make my decision about declaring Bass Strait in the not-too-distant future. It's a great – again, another renewable energy jobs opportunity for Tasmania, particularly the north.

JOURNALIST: How many submissions did you get during that process?

CHRIS BOWEN: I’d have to check exactly. Not a huge number for Bass Strait compared to some of the other zones. And obviously a mix of views.

JOURNALIST: And some of the photos online, you can see little – what it is proposed to look like. Do you think that is appropriate?

CHRIS BOWEN: Yes.

JOURNALIST: That that’s what you were hoping for?

CHRIS BOWEN: Well, I mean, if it’s a factual representation – because a lot of people, very understandably, have trouble imagining what would it look like if there’s a wind turbine 20 kilometres away or 30 kilometres away. Would I see it? You know, and there have been – in some other zones there have been misrepresentations. You know, people putting up pictures of a wind zone saying this is what it will look like when they would be 1 kilometre aware - you know, really in your face. At 20 or 30 kilometres on many days you won’t see the wind turbines. On clear days you might see them off in the distance. You think about a cargo ship that’s 10 kilometres away, you can sort of see it going past. And wind turbines, if they’re 20 kilometres away are just that much further out. So my department does do visual representations to help people understand what it would look like if they were 20 kilometres away, and that does help people work through how they feel about it.

JOURNALIST: What’s – can you talk us through what the process is for you now in deciding whether you will declare that project?

CHRIS BOWEN: Yeah, I go through all the submissions. I read my department’s advice. I consult with relevant ministers, and then I make a decision. That’s what I’ve done on the Hunter, Southern Ocean and Gippsland.

On each of the three I’ve declared so far, I’ve made changes. That’s what consultation is. That’s how consultation works. You put out a zone. Under the law I can declare an area smaller than the one I’ve consulted on. I can’t declare an area bigger. And I consider the feedback, take into account legitimate views. If people put in submissions saying, “Look, I don’t believe in climate change and I don’t support renewable energy,” that doesn’t get much consideration from me. But if they put in a submission saying, “I support renewable energy but here’s my concerns and here’s what I’d like you to take into account,” then I look at that very, very closely.

JOURNALIST: Can I ask you specifically about any of the submissions, or you don’t remember what they were for this project?

CHRIS BOWEN: There’s been a range of submissions and, you know, I wouldn’t really comment on – I haven’t commented on individual submissions in other zones. I wouldn’t start that process for Bass Strait.

JOURNALIST: That’s fine. So for the other projects that you have declared, how long did that process take?

CHRIS BOWEN: A couple of months. A couple of months because, you know, I don’t take it lightly. Submissions close and then we work through it. So Illawarra closed before Bass Strait, so in the natural, normal course of events I would make a decision on Illawarra and then Bass Strait and then Western Australia.

JOURNALIST: And if this project is declared, can you give us a rough overview of what that would mean for Tasmania?

CHRIS BOWEN: Yeah, so it means – offshore wind is great for energy, it’s great for reliable energy because offshore wind is actually declared and regarded as the only form of dispatchable renewable energy because it’s always windy offshore. So it’s dispatchable, which means we can put it into the grid whenever we need it, and renewable. It’s the only form, offshore wind. It’s also very jobs rich. Because it’s so windy and constantly windy, the turbines actually need more maintenance than onshore wind. And that means workers. And it's not easy to get to. You can’t just wander out to an offshore wind turbine; you need ships. It's great for ports. So there’s a lot of jobs from offshore wind as well as a lot of energy.

The Bass Strait zone, the proposed draft Bass Strait zone is very large. There’ll be a lot of energy provided for that. But it’s not imminent. You know, this takes years to work through, and we get it right. And we get it – we make sure we’ve factored in all the environmental concerns and everything else as well. And Bass Strait will be no different for that.

ANNE URQUHART: Can I just follow up on one issue that I think Simon asked a question about how many jobs and what did the jobs mean for here. I mean, Chris answered that but from a local perspective I think, you know, the jobs that are provided here at places like Cement Australia at Railton are really good local jobs. They’re well-paid jobs. They’re good, secure jobs.

And we see that resonate right across the coast here and probably right across Tasmania in reality. And I think what that does is the sort of announcements like today have shown that we as a government are prepared to invest, you know, cooperatively with organisations such as Cement Australia to secure those really good well-paid jobs here, which means that we retain services on the northwest coast of Tasmania, we retain good schools. It’s really important for people who want to live in a beautiful place like this. I’ve lived here all my life – why wouldn’t you want to live here? – but it provides opportunities for people to bring their families, bring their kids up in a beautiful place like this but have those services on their doorstep.

And it encourages other investors, I think, to come to Tasmania. And I know that that then sustains other businesses, so other businesses around the local towns here, right across the coast, are beneficiaries of workers who earn good money in places like Cement Australia that prop up their businesses because that’s where they go to spend it. So we talk about jobs but there’s a huge flow-on effect from that right across Tasmania but certainly right across this sort of neck of the woods, if you like.

CHRIS BOWEN: Anything else, guys? All in, all done?

JOURNALIST: All done.

CHRIS BOWEN: That’s a wrap.