Interview with Greg Jennett, ABC News

GREG JENNETT: Now, once debate begins in all its intensity in the Senate, it'll fall to Assistant Climate and Energy Minister Jenny McAllister to help shepherd it through and she joins us in the studio now. Welcome back, Minister. Just on the McCallum. When do we expect this to gather pace in the Senate?

JENNY McALLISTER: Well, we've started hearing from senators over the course of today and as you'd expect, Greg, there are a lot of senators who want to make a contribution. So these sort of contributions could take quite a while. That's important. We want to hear from people. But of course, this is a really important bill and we are keen to see it pass. May I make a comment about it? I mean, we have been through nine years where we have no clear energy policy nor any clear climate policy and a) that came at a real cost, it came at a cost to the energy system, but b) it just meant we missed out on so many opportunities. The sooner we can get this legislated, the sooner we can provide certainty to all of those businesses that are ready to take investment decisions, the better it will be for our country.

GREG JENNETT: No, point taken. The Government has said that it will support “good ideas” when it comes to amendments and working in the Senate there, with David Pocock in particular, because it looks like Jacqui Lambie and Tammy Tyrrell are kind of tagging in behind him in a united position. What exactly does that mean? We heard a bit from Chris Bowen there a moment ago, but what sort of extra transparency or reporting is likely to come by virtue of your deal with David Pocock?

JENNY McALLISTER: Yeah, well as you observe, Minister Bowen has led those conversations and you heard him just now talk about how constructive Senator Pocock has been. As I understand it, Senator Pocock is seeking to legislate - I guess make explicit in the legislation - a number of features of the way the bill work. So, the bill requires Minister Bowen, the Climate Change Minister, to provide regular reports to the Parliament. It requires the climate change authority to provide advice to the Minister. And as I understand it, the amendments that Senator Pocock intends to move just provide more detail about the nature and timing of that advice and the way that it interacts with the decisions of the Minister.

GREG JENNETT: And what gives you confidence that its passage, which looks likely to be this week, does actually mark the end of this decade long climate war because it's a matter of record where the Coalition will be standing and voting on this. And then there's a lot of detail, let's face it, for your own Government to crack on and deliver after this framework, which is essentially what it is, goes through, why do you believe it is actually the end of those conflicts?

JENNY McALLISTER: Look, the problem with the climate wars was not that people were debating the best way to proceed. That is fine. The problem with the climate wars is that those debates were not conducted in good faith. They were conducted for narrow electoral purposes, led by a Coalition that saw electoral advantage in misleading and frightening people about climate action. It is in our national interest to have a stable climate policy, one with a clear direction and a level of certainty. That's what the Business Council of Australia tells us. That's what the National Farmers Federation tell us. That's, of course, what the climate groups tell us. And the thing that has really heartened me is the level of support for the approach we have taken. We're seeking to bring people with us, as many Parliamentarians as want to get involved in this project. We welcome them. We took a very constructive approach in the House of Representatives and we're doing it in the Senate, but with business too, very important to be working with the business community to realise all the opportunities that come with it.

GREG JENNETT: So as you move on from the framework to the detail. I suppose you've got a piece of legislation coming into the Parliament, actually a treasury bill that deals with taxes on electric vehicles as early as this week, you've got an EV strategy coming forward. Is there a target number of market penetration that you want to see from all of that within a relatively short period of time?

JENNY McALLISTER: We are going to need to do work in all of the sectors of the economy. Business understands that the decarbonisation challenge is one that they are going to have to step up and meet. It's not really Government telling them this, it's the investor community telling business that they need to get their house in order. In the case of electric vehicles, our primary objective at the moment is just to give consumers more choice. We know that petrol prices are hurting a lot of households. A lot of households would like access to an electric vehicle and at the moment they don't have one. And we want to make sure as many Australians as possible can get access to an affordable electric vehicle to take the pressure off budgets.

GREG JENNETT: And so some of those taxes come off through this bill that is being introduced. One area of all of this where the government is both regulator but also industry player is of course, Snowy Hydro 2.0. It's had a turnover in its executive ranks recently with Paul Broad's resignation. How much does it imperil the Government's entire strategy on climate if Snowy Hydro 2.0 falls way behind schedule, as it appears to be?

JENNY McALLISTER: Look, we did inherit a project that was behind schedule and I know that Minister Bowen has been working very closely with Snowy Hydro to get some assessment about the extent to which we can sort of repair the timeline for that project. The truth is that during the period of the coalition government, four gigawatts of capacity left the energy system and only one gigawatt came on. There's no single project that can repair that problem. We are going to need a very significant level of investment across a whole range of projects to get the energy system performing in the way that we'd like it to perform.

GREG JENNETT: And on this particular one, more than you might have envisaged - on Snowy Hydro 2.0. More significant investment than you might have expected when you took over.

JENNY McALLISTER: Oh, look, working through the details of what it is going to take with Snowy Hydro, I think that Minister Bowen is establishing a really constructive relationship with that organisation and just working through one of the many challenges bequeathed to us by Angus Taylor and the former Government.

GREG JENNETT: Yeah. Commercially sensitive stuff. You've got Senate duties to attend to. Jenny McAllister, thank you for joining us once again today on Afternoon Briefing.