Press conference, Brisbane
JOHN GRIMES, SMART ENERGY COUNCIL CEO: Well, good morning everybody and welcome. We're at the Smart Energy Conference and Exhibition today in beautiful Brisbane. Queensland has the most to gain in Australia's energy transition, we're delighted to be back here for the fifth time. We know that the Cheaper Home Battery Program is going off. Australians collectively are building a Hornsdale ‘big battery’ plant every single week, over a thousand new batteries being installed nationally a day. We also know that the emphasis to move and to change is definitely with us. We know that by 2035, 90 per cent of coal will be out of the system. By 2037, coal will be entirely retired from the Australian energy market. And so, there is a real pressure to get on with the transition and to build. The climate science also tells us that it is time to act. The UN says that we are on track collectively for a 3.1 degree rise in temperature. If all countries do what they said they're going to do under their UN commitments, that comes down to a still frightening 2.6 to 2.8 degrees. In Australia we have an ambitious plan, one that we strongly welcome by the Albanese Government to achieve 82 per cent renewables by 2030 and a 43 per cent emissions reduction target.
That's why the announcement by the Minister today is so important for our industry. Finally, friends, we have a map. A map that says, build here because the environmental impact is negligible or manageable. Don't build here because there are environmental concerns. Nobody in industry wants to waste time and money developing proposals that are then ultimately knocked off. That's actually very inefficient in terms of the opportunity cost and it's really going to slow the transition down. So, I'm really here to welcome the Minister's comments this morning and the actions of the Albanese Federal Government to actually put in place a practical, sensible, deliverable plan that actually speeds up the transition, gives certainty, unlocks investment, helps us achieve our climate ambitions but doesn't create a local environmental problem. So, with those comments I welcome the Minister to make a few remarks.
MURRAY WATT, MINISTER FOR THE ENVIRONMENT AND WATER: Well, thanks very much John, and thanks to the Smart Energy Council, not only for hosting today's conference, but for being such a tireless advocate in support of the energy transition that Australia needs. What we've seen today is hundreds of representatives of businesses who are making money and creating jobs out of the energy transition, and that's something that the Albanese Government is determined to support, as well of course, as gaining the environmental benefits that we will get as a result of this energy transition. As the Federal Environment Minister, my role in this space is both as an approver of projects when they're put up to us, sometimes with conditions, sometimes with a rejection, sometimes with a straight-out approval. But also of course my role is to overhaul our national environmental laws which are so crucial to achieving this transition. John has already taken you through why it is so urgent for our nation to make this energy transition happen and what it comes down to is without renewable energy being built and storage capacity we will not reduce our emissions, we will not reduce power bills and we will not spark the heavy industry that we want to see right across Australia, especially in regional Australia. Now, I've said before that our national environmental laws are fundamentally broken and that's what Professor Graeme Samuel found in his review nearly five years ago which he presented to the then environment minister and now federal opposition leader Sussan Ley. So, Graeme Samuel has outlined a blueprint for reform of those laws, which we are now tackling, and you will have seen me say that we will be introducing these laws to reform our environmental laws before the end of this year.
And one key component in those reforms, which I've announced today, is a step up and amendments to see much more regional planning than what we see right across the country. Now, the point of that regional planning is to do the work up front in a particular region, whether it be South East Queensland or Central Queensland or somewhere in Western Australia, anywhere around the country, to do the important work up front to establish where are the likely environmental impacts in that region going to be and where are the areas that are suitable for development, whether that be for housing, for renewables or other types of development. And the benefit of that is that it then actually provides go zones and no go zones to industry and the environment about where development can occur and where the environmental impacts would be so severe that development should simply not happen. Providing investors with that kind of certainty is an important way to make sure that we can deliver much more quickly the renewable energy projects that we need as a country, but it will also be really important for delivering the housing that we need as a country as well. Giving people really clear roadmaps about where development can occur and where the environment must be protected. And this is an example of the approach that we're trying to take with these reforms, which is to deliver a win-win for the environment and for business. We want to make sure that these regional plans strongly safeguard areas with high environmental value, while also facilitating much quicker development for the type of housing and importantly renewable energy that we need. I'm happy to take some questions about this but we've got a couple of other speakers first and the first is Steven Miles.
STEVEN MILES, LEADER OF THE OPPOSITION IN QUEENSLAND: Thanks so much Murray. It's great to be here with the Smart Energy Council. When we were at this summit just last year there was incredible optimism within Queensland's renewable energy industry. Lots of projects advancing to financial close, lots of investors looking for new projects to create jobs here and deliver cheaper energy here. What you've seen since then is an incredibly chilling effect driven by Jarrod Bleijie and the LNP's ideological war against renewables, particularly their hatred of wind projects. And their decisions to cancel these projects at very late stages is sending shockwaves through those investors, shockwaves through all of those companies who have spent their money getting these projects ready to deliver cheaper power for Queensland. And that's a real shame. What we need is a clear direction, a clear plan to deliver renewables here in Queensland because that's how we will secure the heavy industry jobs that Queensland has always been so proud of. I think Dave Copeman from QCC is next.
DAVE COPEMAN, QUEENSLAND CONSERVATION COUNCIL DIRECTOR: Yeah, g'day. Dave Copeman and I'm the Director of Queensland Conservation Council. We strongly welcome the Federal Environment Minister's announcement today that the regional plans will be embedded in the new reforms to the Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Act. This is the right step. Queensland Conservation Council has been pushing for this kind of regional planning because we need to have renewables built, we need the approvals to be way quicker than they have been, but we need them to be in the right place. When I talk to local environmentalists on the ground, they feel conflicted sometimes because they're like, we know we need to transition, but is this where it has to go? Because if it is, maybe that's what we've got to do, and I honestly can't answer them because the planning hasn't been done and instead what we're seeing is cumulative impacts as time and again people are choosing to put renewables in whatever space they can find instead of having the clarity that these regional plans will provide. What they should do is protect areas of irreplaceable habitats. They should protect the areas we can't restore, that we can't protect, so that we don't see new extinctions. And instead, they should give guidance to companies, if you go in these areas, you'll get faster approval in the places we need. We know that our laws are broken. It took 10 years, as an example, for the previous federal environment minister to reject Toondah Harbour, which should have been able to be rejected in a month because it was being proposed on a Ramsar wetland. This is the kind of certainty we need, and that's why we need new laws and we need these regional plans. So, we welcome this announcement. We're going to work with the Federal Government to make sure that the standards for this regional planning deliver for nature, but this is a really strong first step.
JOURNALIST: Minister, the Deputy Premier when he is withdrawing these applications or calling them back in, he's saying that the legislation is allowing communities to be steamrolled. Does your announcement today provide any certainty or comfort for communities who don't want renewable projects in their backyards?
MURRAY WATT: I might just first address the comments of the Deputy Premier before directly answering your question. I mean, I think the unfortunate thing we're seeing from Jarrod Bleijie and the LNP here in Queensland is that they're very happy to listen to opponents of renewable energy projects, but they don't seem to want to listen to the supporters of those projects. I don't know if you caught what I said in my speech today, but you'll remember the Courier Mail ran an opinion piece from a grazier in Central Queensland, Tracey Richards, who was going to be hosting the wind farm that was cancelled by the LNP Government, and she made the point that that project had strong support from her neighbours. There were no homes anywhere near the wind farm, but the LNP Government chose to listen to the people opposing the project rather than those who were supporting it. And that's where Steven is right in what he says, in that this seems to be an ideological approach that we're seeing from the LNP here in Queensland, just as we're seeing from the Federal Coalition down in Canberra, that they want to block renewable projects rather than listen to the supporters of those projects that are springing up right across the country.
In answer to your question about regional planning, of course it's important, whether it be an individual project or for regional plans, that we do community consultation, and I'm on the record saying that renewable energy companies always need to do more to be consulting communities and earn that social licence. But one benefit of this regional planning approach, and why you've seen support for it today from industry and environmental groups, is that it does that kind of consultation work upfront. So at an early stage, federal governments work with state governments, local governments, and communities to identify areas that have strong conservation value and shouldn't be developed to take into account community input about where development should occur and shouldn't occur. And that allows everyone to understand the rules of the road at a much earlier stage so that investors can have confidence when they're going to be making an investment, and the communities have confidence that their environment is going to be protected as well.
JOURNALIST: What if the state government doesn't play ball? So we've got this renewable energy zone process in Queensland, New South Wales, a bunch of other states, which takes years and years and years, and at the end of it, the government pulls the rug out from under a proponent. Is this not the same process? Is this not a similar regional planning process?
MURRAY WATT: No. My understanding of what's happened with the projects here in Queensland, and Steven would know more of the detail than me, but my understanding of what's happened here in Queensland, is that individual projects have been put forward by the proponents seeking approvals, in some cases have gained state approvals, and then the rug has been pulled out from them so that they can't go ahead at a very late stage of that development. What we're talking about doing through regional planning is working all of these issues out upfront so that everyone, as I say, understands the rules of the road and where development can occur and where it can't. And that's a way of avoiding these kind of disputes in the future where you have these late attempts from governments who are ideologically opposed to renewable development. It's a much clearer way to go. It provides a lot more certainty, and it protects the environment.
JOURNALIST: Except the state government already says this is a renewable energy zone, right? This is where it should go, and yet it won't be approved.
MURRAY WATT: The challenge that we're trying to solve through this process is putting together the federal and the state processes in a way that hasn't been done before. So it's one thing for a state government to designate areas for renewable energy development, but if those projects have still got to go through federal approval processes, that's where we can find that delay in them actually occurring in the first place. If we can streamline the process to bring the different regulatory processes of federal and state governments together at an earlier stage, that opens the door for these renewable developments to be happening much more quickly and without the late intervention of state governments.
JOURNALIST: Will the Federal Government be able to override state government decisions?
MURRAY WATT: Through regional planning? No. The whole idea is essentially to come to an agreement with state governments and local governments and local communities as well. And again, the point I made inside in the speech was that the process we have at the moment too often depends upon individual projects seeking approval, which requires the proponent to go and do all sorts of environmental studies, go through a process of assessment and approval, never really knowing what the outcome is going to be, to looking at a landscape as a whole to identify where is appropriate for development and where is not. So if you can have that kind of regional plan put in place by agreement between different levels of governments, that removes the opportunity for governments to come in at a late stage and make ideological decisions that block development from occurring.
JOURNALIST: So even if the plan is in place, the state can't come in and revoke after an approval's been granted?
MURRAY WATT: Well, all of the details of that need to be reached with individual state governments, but certainly, our intention as a federal government would be to remove that kind of ideological, inconsistent approach that we see too often here now in Queensland to ensure that people can have confidence when they're wanting to build renewable energy projects or housing, which we desperately need as well. They could have confidence that that's going to gain approval because people have worked out in advance where are the appropriate areas for development without having to start from scratch.
JOURNALIST: Do you think it's good politics to be anti-renewables in those regional areas of Queensland?
MURRAY WATT: I think there's really mixed views about renewable energy in Queensland. I spend a lot of time in regional Queensland, and I've met the people who are working to build those projects and to maintain those projects in places like Rockhampton, in Gladstone, Biloela, other regional communities as well. And also, the National Party in particular and the LNP here in Queensland have tried to paint an image where every farmer in Australia is against renewables, and that is simply not true. You might remember, in my time as the agriculture minister a couple of years ago, I met any number of sheep farmers and cattle farmers were very keen to host renewables on their properties because it provided them with a stable income flow to cushion them when they were going through drought. Everyone understands that farming is an uncertain enterprise. It depends very much on the weather, on commodity prices. There are farmers all around the country who are making good stable income from hosting renewables projects on their properties and with community support. So I think the story is a lot more complex than what's often told.
JOURNALIST: Minister, we're going to learn this month the Government's 2035 climate target. In the EPBC reforms that you're discussing, do you think there needs to be some way for the act to consider greenhouse gas emissions from projects that come up for approval?
MURRAY WATT: So this is one of the areas that we are still consulting stakeholders on, and there are a range of views on this point. What I've said about this point so far is that we haven't ruled things in or out, and this gets into the debate about a climate trigger and other sorts of descriptions of it as well. So we haven't ruled anything in or out, but what we have said is that we are leaning more towards the recommendation that Graeme Samuel made in his report, which is that proponents of projects should be required to disclose their emissions and have a plan in place about how they're going to abate those emissions. And he expressly ruled out something like a climate trigger. So, while we are still consulting about this, we are leaning more towards Graeme’s position. His reason for that recommendation, which I think has some merit, is that our government of course has a range of other policies and programs in place to require emissions to be reduced by particular projects, in particular, the Safeguard Mechanism, which requires the heaviest-emitting projects in the country to be reducing their emissions by 5 per cent a year. That is the way that our government has chosen to pursue emissions reductions, rather than including things in the environmental legislation as well, but we are continuing to consult on that.
JOURNALIST: So you think the act should have some consideration for emissions somewhere in some form?
MURRAY WATT: No. Well, what I’ve said is that we’re still consulting about that. I think that Graeme’s recommendation does have some merit, and that would be a new requirement in our environmental laws that doesn’t exist at the moment. But we’re still in discussion with everyone from industry groups to environmental groups about that, and of course when we table a bill later this year, we’ll be able to put our position.
JOURNALIST: Minister, we expect the Queensland Energy Roadmap on 10 October to keep coal-fired power stations open for longer. Have you done modelling on what that means for the 82 per cent renewable energy target by 2030?
MURRAY WATT: I'm sorry, I'm not aware of whether that modelling has occurred on it. That's probably a question better directed to Chris Bowen.
JOURNALIST: Did you personally meet with the recent UNESCO delegation about the Great Barrier Reef?
MURRAY WATT: Unfortunately, I wasn't able to personally because Parliament was sitting in Canberra. But the gentleman who was here, the director of the World Heritage Centre, I have met with him when I was in Paris a couple of months ago for the World Heritage listing of the Murujuga Peninsula in WA, so I spoke to him there about the reef. And also a few weeks ago, I met with the Director-General of the UNESCO body responsible for conservation listings, so I've been meeting with those officials.
JOURNALIST: What arguments have you put to UNESCO about not putting the Great Barrier Reef on the in danger list?
MURRAY WATT: Yeah, so first of all, what we've pointed to is the action that our government and the Queensland Government have been taking to protect the reef and restore its resilience. So of course there's been a lot of work done around water quality, in particular the Crown-of-thorn starfish programs that have been undertaken, a range of programs as well. So, we have been making the case that both at a federal and state government level we are taking serious action, putting serious investment into protecting the reef, and that's our reason for saying that the reef should not be given an in danger listing. Of course, the Great Barrier Reef is a world famous and globally important environmental asset. It's also a really important economic asset here for Queensland with the tourism industry, and we want to do everything we can to protect it.
JOURNALIST: UNESCO released a report very recently around the health of the Great Barrier Reef, stating it's six consecutive bleachings and the pollution of the reef. By UNESCO not deciding to put the Great Barrier Reef onto the in danger list, do you think that sets a precedent for their other World Heritage sites?
MURRAY WATT: Look, I think your question really goes to how UNESCO should approach World Heritage sites around the world, and that's not really for me to say. What our focus is on is protecting the Great Barrier Reef, in making the case that it should not be put on the in danger listing because of the work that's going in to restore it. But I'll leave it for UNESCO to think about how they approach other sites.
JOURNALIST: Just a follow to Hayden’s question from before about coal closure dates. People in the industry say that not having a coal closure date or extending those coal closure dates reduces the, I suppose, incentive, because there's no longer that generation that you now have to produce through another means, right? There's a coal-fired power station in Queensland, as you know, that was due to close this term of Parliament in ‘28. Now, it's not going to. Should the State Government extend even further those coal closure dates?
MURRAY WATT: Look, I'm not going to get into too many matters of State politics today. Steven may have something to add on that if he chooses to. But I'll make the general point. I'll make the general point that we need to acknowledge both here in Australia and around the world that our coal-fired power stations are getting towards the end of their life. Of course, here in Queensland they're not likely to close as early as we're seeing in other states. But what we need to be doing is preparing for the transition towards renewable energy, and that's why the work of groups like the Smart Energy Council is so important in demonstrating the economic case for moving towards renewables. That's why the work of the Queensland Conservation Council is important in demonstrating the environmental needs to do that. And it's why very soon we're going to be releasing more ambitious but achievable emissions reduction targets, and to make sure that all sides of politics get on board rather than continuing to run this argument that we don't need net zero. The argument being put by the LNP and the National Party down in Canberra is that net zero doesn't matter. The environment will suffer from that, regional economies will suffer from that, and we will be paying more higher power prices as a result, and that is not the way we need to go.
JOURNALIST: Minister, on the section 10 application for Victoria Park, where are you leaning on that?
MURRAY WATT: It's far too early for me to be expressing a view about that yet, but obviously you're aware that an application has been made under federal cultural heritage law about the Victoria Park site. I am aware that my department is in discussions both with the applicant in that particular case, but also the Queensland Government and other stakeholders as well. So it'll take a little bit of time yet before we can express a view, but we're in that consultation phase.
JOURNALIST: The Commonwealth's providing funding for that stadium. What kind of things are you considering as you try and balance the fact that the Commonwealth is contributing?
MURRAY WATT: Well, we're obviously very strong supporters of the 2032 Olympics, putting up billions of dollars to help build the venues, and I think it'll be a great event for not just for Brisbane but for Queensland as a whole. When it comes to any of those sorts of applications, I will always apply the law. It's what I'm doing now in projects interstate and it's what I'll do here in Queensland as well. But as I say, it's a little bit too early to be expressing a view which way we'll be going on that.
JOURNALIST: Just on that, do you have a timeline on when you might make that decision?
MURRAY WATT: No, I probably couldn't put a timeframe. That consultation is going on, but we know there's a lot of interest in that topic.
JOURNALIST: Minister, you mentioned Robbin's Island project in Tasmania which you approved last week. That’s a fairly contested project. One of the conditions you put onto it was about its ability or its requirement to sort of power down at certain times. Have you done any analysis of how much time that would need to be powered down? Because that was a reason - that was a ruling from the State Tribunal and a cause for that developer to throw up their hands and say we can't do this and take legal action against it. And I'm wondering if you can also maybe clarify the starting date, you said it won't start construction until 2031 because it needs to do three years of studies, but they seem to think they're up and running by 2030.
MURRAY WATT: Yeah. So I would probably rely on the proponents' statements as to the commissioning date and the construction date. In terms of the arguments about shutdowns, you're right. With that particular project, the Tasmanian Government, when it originally considered it, required a five-month shutdown of that wind farm which the proponent said would make it unviable. We've chosen to not specify a particular amount of shutdown or even a requirement of a shutdown. What we've said, as you're probably aware, is that the proponent will be required to put in place a bird and bat management plan to ensure that its operations don't endanger those species. It is possible that as part of that plan that a short shutdown would be agreed to by the proponent, but we haven't sort of set any arbitrary timeframes for that. I would not expect that it would be in the order of the five months that the Tasmanian Government originally imposed and was overturned by a court, but all of those discussions are yet to occur.
JOURNALIST: Minister, several months ago you gave Woodside Energy a nominal 10 days to respond to the conditions you'd given them on their North West Shelf extension. Where is that decision at?
MURRAY WATT: Yeah, so this is a very complex project. And you might recall that when I granted a proposed approval of that project some time ago, what I said was that it would be approved subject to very strict conditions, particularly around air emission levels and their impact on 60,000-year Indigenous rock art in that part of Western Australia. What we have been doing ever since is having my department work with Woodside to ensure that the conditions that we put in place will protect that rock art but also are workable from an operational point of view. That has taken a bit more time than I would have liked, but as I say, it's a complex project but I would expect that we'd be finalising that pretty soon. Thanks all.