Doorstop interview, Harrisdale, Western Australia

MATT KEOGH MP: Welcome everybody to sunny Harrisdale here in Perth’s southeastern suburbs in the great electorate of Burt. And we're here in Harrisdale because this is one of the most rapidly growing areas in Perth, and as we've seen so much new housing development come into this area, we've seen a lot of people take up solar panels, not just because they're committed to the environmental benefit, but because having solar panels means that people are able to save money on their cost of energy. And that's why we see uptake in solar panels, it's why we've seen uptake in batteries at people's homes as well. 

And here in Harrisdale, we've had 500 people as part of Project Symphony, really leading the way in how we manage the energy transition here in Western Australia, and in fact here in Australia. Being part of a pilot program to understand and to work on how we can best use those solar energy resources, for individuals in their homes, but across the network as well. And it's been a great initiative that the people of Harrisdale, here in the city of Armadale, have been very proud to be a part of. And it's been great to see them part of this pilot that has been pushing forward the development of our energy transition. And it's on top of this pilot with Project Symphony, that we're moving now to the next stage of that program, being able to expand that out. And I'm really pleased to have Josh Wilson, the Assistant Minister for Climate Change and Energy, here today to talk more about the expansion of that program and what comes next from this very important pilot here in Harrisdale.

JOSH WILSON MP: Kaya, good morning, everyone, and thanks, Matt. It's great to be here in Harrisdale with a great friend and a colleague, the Member for Burt, of course, the Minister for Defence Personnel and Veterans Affairs. And I acknowledge that we're here on the traditional lands of the Whadjuk Noongar people. I pay my respect to their elders, past and present. 

I'm really pleased to acknowledge as well, the representatives and/or CEOs from Western Power, Synergy, the Australian Energy Market Operator, and Energy Policy WA, and I want to congratulate all of those organizations and their representatives for what they've contributed to this really important and pioneering initiative. I also acknowledge the Mayor of Armadale, who's here with us today. 

This morning, I'm pleased to announce the commencement of Project Jupiter, a very significant co-funded collaboration with all those key energy partners, and a project that's been made possible with a $20.8 million contribution from the Australian Government through the Australian Renewable Energy Agency. 

Project Jupiter will see the creation of a virtual power plant that supports and enables what's become a remarkable and world-leading feature of Australian life, namely distributed household solar energy generation. We expect that that will continue to increase, and we know it will, and we know that it will be increasingly accompanied by distributed battery storage. 

In the last two decades, we've already moved a long way from only relying on centralised fossil fuel power generation. Indeed, one in three Australian households now feature a solar PV system, and WA it's two in five. That means 40% of WA homes benefit from solar power, and they feed excess power into one of the world's largest standalone grids, the South West Interconnected System, or SWIS. The remarkable uptake of home solar continues to grow. We know that batteries and vehicle-to-grid systems will be part of that in the future, and that allows energy households to store energy more efficiently with even lower costs and greater whole system benefits. 

And that's what VPP technology, virtual power plant technology, enables. It basically means that households can aggregate and coordinate their energy generation and storage in the way that they contribute it into the grid. That's a greater benefit to the grid, and therefore greater rewards can be returned to households. It does that in a way that our existing system wasn't designed to do, and that's why this particular project is essentially introducing a new arrangement that sort of harnesses and unleashes those benefits for the system as a whole, but specifically for households. 

It does build on the award-winning pilot Project Symphony, which occurred right here in Harrisdale and proved up the sort of essence of what now becomes Project Jupiter. It deploys software and communications technology that will provide the flexibility and function at the household level that we'd normally see only associated with a much larger power plant. And as a Western Australian, along with Matt, you know, I'm really glad to see this being pioneered here. Today is a perfect example of our nation-leading solar resources. And it's great to see that we will be pioneering a new initiative that means households get a better return from their solar PV and in future, from their battery resources as we contribute to a more resilient, cleaner and cheaper energy system as a whole. 

And to conclude what Project Jupiter represents goes to the core of the work of the Albanese Government. We're trying to make life easier for households at a difficult time. We're trying to do that while we make Australia stronger and fairer in the future with a cleaner and cheaper energy system. So, I'll now hand over to Andrew Blaver as a spokesperson for Project Jupiter, who can speak to more of the technical details.

ANDREW BLAVER: Well, good morning. It's a very special and proud moment for the project team here in Harrisdale. I would just like to start by thanking and acknowledging the local member for Burt, the Honourable Matt Keogh, as well as the Assistant Minister for Climate Change and Energy, Honourable Josh Wilson. Also, a special welcome to the Mayor of Armadale, Ruth Butterfield. Ruth and her team were active participants in the predecessor to Project Jupiter, which was Project Symphony. Their assets actively participated in providing services, not only to the energy market, but to the grid, and testing that capability so that we could come here today and with confidence, look at scaling what we learned in Symphony and bring that to the wider South West Interconnected System here in WA. I'd also like to really thank and acknowledge the senior leadership of the likes of Western Power, AEMO, Synergy and EPWA, whose vision and support has really made this program come together and able to launch today as well. 

First and foremost, Project Jupiter will be successful because of the collaboration between those project partners, which is a whole of energy system, whole of energy industry collaboration, to deliver on something that will ultimately benefit the owners of rooftop solar and battery energy storage here in Western Australia. We are also, obviously, incredibly grateful to ARENA for providing $20.8 million in funding. This is about a $100 million program, $20 million of that, together with the state of Western Australia, AEMO and the project partners, will deliver on this program over the next three years. We will have four mainstreams of work, it's really important that we build the technical capabilities to better manage the energy system by being able to work with and partner with customers to get assets, not only get greater economic benefit from using those assets for themselves, but also at times and at different times when the system needs it, or when the local neighbourhood network needs it, being able to call on those assets, coordinate them, better, manage the power flows at peak time, and obviously work with those customers to return more value to them for participating in that service.

We're doing this because nearly 50%, so over 40% of all households in Western Australia, have rooftop solar, and as was mentioned earlier, a lot more customers are now bringing on battery storage. We found in Project Symphony that battery storage at a community level, such as that we see behind us, as well as within customer homes, that in aggregate, that can form a virtual power plant, it can deliver those economic benefits as well as environmental benefits to customers, but now can, as proven in Symphony, provide a service to the market at a system level, as well as to Western Power to do things like reduce peak electricity demand at the times when that network really needs it.

I think the key today is to get a message across that customers will now be partnered with to be part of the energy systems. By partnering with customers, who can now sign up to the new products that will provide additional benefits and value for them, by orchestrating and combining all that rooftop solar together with the energy stored in batteries as a single virtual power plant. 

It's a fact that the largest generator connected to the distribution network is all the rooftop solar and batteries in combination. It's three or four times the size of the largest coal-fired power generator. Further, there's a tremendous amount of abundant excess renewable energy at times when there's not a lot of demand. We call that system load. With all that abundant energy flowing into the network, the key is to store it in community batteries and customer batteries, and release it later at night, when it is of far more value to the energy system. Customers can access products that will enable their assets to support the network and the energy system more broadly, and for signing up to that product, they will obviously get greater benefit than using as well as using the asset for their own benefit.

By the end of the program, all new rooftop solar and battery storage, will have the opportunity to participate as early as next year and later this year, in those products that will have those four major benefits. It will not only help us to connect more renewable energy to the network. It will also help us to better manage the energy system, both at a whole of system level and locally. It will certainly contribute a greater proportion to decarbonisation. And the benefit of all, that we must stay focused on, is that the owners of those assets, the customers here in Harrisdale and in the broader network, will get more value from investing in and owning those assets in the first place. Thank you very much.

REPORTER: So, customers can start signing up. So then when and where are those customers, anywhere in WA or more locally? Who can sign up?

BLAVER: So, anyone in what we call the South West Interconnected System, so Western Power’s network, anyone connected to Western Power’s network, will be able to sign up. They will have, obviously, that opportunity with rooftop solar as well as battery storage. And we are seeing, still, about 30,000 rooftop solar systems connecting every year, and we're starting to see about five or six hundred batteries every month starting to connect. We are going to now offer those that are connecting to the grid a product for them to be able to participate in a program such as this.

REPORTER: What are the connection costs? I guess there’s modelling to show how much can be saved through the increased tariffs?

BLAVER: Well, customers connecting rooftop solar and batteries, they don't pay an application or connection fee. That's part of our contribution to the energy transition. But ultimately, customers really have been able to offset their own energy bills. They don't, by generating their own electricity and using it for their own benefit, they don't draw from the grid. I think the key now is, when customers aren't home, they're at work, or that excess energy, if they have a battery, or a community battery, such as the one behind us, that excess energy, instead of flowing into the network and not having a lot of users for that energy, it can now be stored locally. It can meet the needs of that neighbourhood at night, when the system is under a bit of stress, on a very hot day like today. We can use those assets in combination to reduce peak and then that has an additional benefit for the wider community, because an organisation such as ours as a network operator, we don't have to augment or build more poles and wires for those few times of the year when the network's under stress. We can now partner with customers and use their assets to help us manage the network better, for which they get additional value through rebates, incentives, etc.

REPORTER: The statement that joining the VPP will put down pressure on a household, yes, by how much?

BLAVER: Well, I think it's, it's two things. Customers, by signing up to a product, will earn an amount of money for signing their product up. We expect that to be in the hundreds of dollars per year, per asset. But I think the key here is going back to the fact that when we build more infrastructure, that puts upward pressure on electricity costs, because everyone has to pay for that, that cost is distributed to all customers. By avoiding that capital intensive investment, by using or partnering with customers to get access to their excess energy at the right time, that puts downward pressure on the price of electricity tariffs they don't have to rise as they normally would, and that collective ability does put that downward pressure on tariffs.

REPORTER: I mean, not rising isn't downward pressure.

BLAVER: Well, I think the key is that customers who are benefiting from offsetting their electricity costs now will earn even more money from participating in the program.

REPORTER: So, has the sign-up payment been set? Do we know how much?

BLAVER: We had a sign-up payment in Symphony. We trialled that, we've learned a lot from that. Synergy will and other aggregators will now be designing the products, learning from Symphony to see exactly what that value proposition needs to be for customers. I think the most important point we found in Symphony, this has to be attractive to customers to participate. For customers to have the trust and understand it in simple terms, is really key, and that value proposition really is important.

REPORTER: So, it's a one off, sign onpayment? It's not ongoing, like an ongoing increase to like tariff payments? [Inaudible]

BLAVER: We are designing it, and at this stage, it'll be a combination. There'll be one-off payments, there'll be annual payments. That product design, in partnership with customers learning from Symphony, is going to occur over the next six to eight months. And then next year, we'll start to be able to sign up customers with those products. 

REPORTER: The reason I ask is like, you know, tariff payments to solar users sort of escalated to the point that it became, you know, too much due to the rapid take up of solar when you and so then the tariffs got scaled back. [inaudible] Have we reached our peak of you know, solar panels in Perth, the WA [inaudible] almost maxed out. There's no danger at the cost of this becoming, you know, and then the bonuses having to be scaled back?

BLAVER: I think that's a really good point, that when a customer connects rooftop solar today, they get what's called [inaudible] So they get three cents for a certain time. And then that's right, and then, and then they get 10 cents a bit later. That's been an excellent transition measure, because that really communicates to customers the value of energy at different times. Today, the value of energy when the sun's shining, there's not a lot of demand, such as 11am to two or three pm, there's really not a lot of value to energy in the system. In fact, some market prices go negative at that time. But the key is that building on that 10 cents, we know that if we access, or get access to, stored energy at times of peak, the value of that energy is a lot greater than 10 cents, and it's a lot more than 10 cents that we will return to customers for their energy at that time. So, things like the three cents and the ten cents, we know we have to beat them. We also know we have to beat the 26 cents that customers pay their tariffs by getting more by participating. That's the crux of it. 

REPORTER: So essentially, customers will be rewarded but we don’t know exactly how much by?

BLAVER: We don't know exactly. We learnt a lot through Symphony. We know sort of the order of magnitude of what attracts a customer. But this isn't just about a value transaction. The partners will be working together, as led by Energy Policy WA, and we will have a community awareness program, there'll be lots of information about this, how and when customers can sign up, as well as that value proposition. I think we found in Symphony, when customers understand that they can act locally to help their whole neighbourhood from an electricity management perspective, or help the grid or help the environment, they do get on board. They do understand that this is something bigger than their own household, but the fact that their household, the households in the neighbourhood, and the households across the SWIS combining their assets into a single virtual power plant, can stand alongside things like the big generators, the big renewable energy generators and compete with them in the market for capacity, but also to help the local network and the local neighbourhood at those times of peak when there's a bit of stress on the network. 

WILSON: Happy to take some questions about the project.

REPORTER: Right now, the SWIS, 20 percent powered by [inaudible], 25 percent gas, 27 percent coal. So, is turning off coal by 2030 in WA still a bit of a mirage?

WILSON: No, I don't think so, and I think the Western Australian government has the management of the SWIS and those elements of it well in hand. We are making rapid progress, particularly at the national level, if you think we've increased renewable energy by 25 per cent just in the last two years, and we're doing all the other things that are required to carry Australia towards a cheaper, cleaner and more resilient system, by investing in grid upgrades and transmission, by supporting the capacity investment scheme, storage and all of those things. 

And Western Australians are seeing the benefit. I mean, two in five Western Australians get the most direct benefit from solar, it’s just that you are generating your own energy that you don't have to pay for. And I think that that's the important thing to hold on to when you consider the relationship that tariffs and other incentives might play, the primary benefit is that more and more of your own energy is literally being created for free by the sun, and you're not having to pay anyone for it. And then, of course, it delivers system benefits that go to the efficiency and the cost of the system and to our efforts to tackle dangerous climate change. It's really remarkable to think that just in the last 10 years alone, the costs of solar PV have decreased 85%.

What's the alternative? The alternative is what the Coalition proposes nuclear power plants for everybody. We had David Littleproud, extraordinarily, yesterday saying that they will start building nuclear power plants in Australia on day one. I don't know what they'll be using, magical nuclear plasticine? It's just bizarre. And that proposition would do so many dangerous and risky things. $1,200 extra per household, $600 billion out of the Commonwealth budget, money that goes to schools and hospitals aged care, disability pensions, our Defence forces, all that gets sucked out, $1,200 extra per household. And one thing for sure you get – nuclear is it's going to dislodge solar. People who have solar right now should know that if Peter doesn't have his way and inflicted that dangerous nuclear fantasy on Western Australians, people with solar would effectively be prevented from making a contribution to the system and deriving those benefits.

REPORTER: I realise it's kind of conflating two issues. Bear with me. You would have heard Peter Dutton in Perth this week and talking about that, you know, the anti-nuclear stance is hypocritical, given, you know, Labor's on board for AUKUS to, you know, dock nuclear powered submarines off the south. There's a lot of anti-nuclear sentiment in your [inaudible]. Is there an anti-nuclear backlash that is of concern in your electorate?

WILSON: Well, I think Jess, you said it right at the start. I mean, Peter Dutton wants to pull the wool over Australians’ eyes. This is the outfit that never had a national energy policy for nine years, they don't have a national energy policy now. They want to pretend that there's some nuclear fantasy that could make a sensible contribution, when the opposite is true. Nuclear energy would inflict massive additional costs on every household and suck $600 billion out of the national budget. Energy policy is a serious matter, and it should be dealt with seriously, not in a kind of childish, scaremongering way, as Peter Dutton seems to prefer. Nuclear technology has a role to play. We all benefit from nuclear medicine to the extent that inevitably, some part of our friends and family network will benefit from that. So, it's not about nuclear technology. It's about this bananas concept of building nuclear power plants in Australia that would take 20 years, that for which we have no details other than the extraordinary eye-watering costs that they would present to the Australian community. 

REPORTER: Josh, could you summarise your stance on nuclear energy products. 

WILSON: Better than I've just summarised it? Nuclear energy is an old technology. It's been around for a long time. It's made a contribution in other parts of the world, but it's in decline globally. I mean, nuclear peaked as a proportion of global energy back in 1996. The number of reactors worldwide peaked in 2002. The contribution that nuclear provides globally is half of what it was at the peak. Last year, the world added 440 gigawatts of new renewable energy. Nuclear went back by one gigawatt. I mean, nuclear technology is not new. It has been around. It's made a contribution in other places, at very, very significant cost, with projects that have faced all kinds of issues, as far as delays and blow-outs and all the rest of it. The bottom line is that inquiry after inquiry after inquiry, expert after expert after expert, have made it crystal clear that Australia doesn't need and will not benefit from nuclear energy. And in fact, nuclear energy would impose massive costs on Australians, each and every Australian, and on Australian governments, for decade after decade after decade after decade. 

We have the best renewable energy resources in the world. Renewable energy is the cheapest form of new energy. The globe is moving rapidly towards renewable energy because it is cheap and because it is it is clean. Australia has the opportunity to be a renewable energy superpower, not only benefit in terms of how we use that energy at the household and business level, but how we develop that technology for the benefit of the region and for the benefit of all of the clean and green industries in areas like green metals and low carbon liquid fuels that will be the basis of Australia's export future.

So, if I wanted to summarise nuclear energy for Australia, it's a dangerous, stupid idea that the Coalition are grasping onto because they have never been able to take a serious and sensible approach to national energy policy. 

REPORTER: [inaudible] which shows coal fired power stations failing even more. Is there a greater role for gas to help keep the transition to renewable?

WILSON: Well, we've always said that that gas will play that role. It needs to, and there's lots of reasons. You know, gas is cleaner than coal. It's more reliable at this stage, because coal-fired power plants inevitably are older, and they're starting to show their age with those kinds of issues, and the expense that's attached to keeping them going. We've always said that gas will be necessary as we make the transition to a cleaner energy future. And in addition to the other advantages I mentioned, gas is a kind of a rapid response form of energy generation. We can have it in the system and use it to help provide the firming that Australians want and that businesses need, but we will only use it when there aren't sufficient renewables. And as we add more and more renewables, our system gets cleaner and cheaper with every passing day. And there is also the opportunity, in future, to have power generation that, at the moment, might use traditional fossil fuel gas but in future may use green hydrogen. 

REPORTER: Are Nature Positive laws on or off in the Senate?

WILSON: Well, we'll continue to advance the important cause of national environmental reform, whether they are ‘on or off’ in the Senate. You know, the government doesn't control the Senate. And I think people saw last year that while we have tried to move forward in that area, and in lots of areas, in keeping with the mandate we had from the Australian people in 2022 to undertake a set of positive changes, we can only hope that members of the Senate, the Coalition, the Greens and independent senators and other groups, will respect what the Australian people said in 2022 about wanting sensible environmental reforms at the national level, recommended to the previous government by Graham Samuel, and those reforms will deliver better environmental and biodiversity protection. They will also deliver a system that is clearer and administratively more usable. There are lots of parts of the development world and the resources world that have been clear in saying that they want to see that.

REPORTER: What Labor said in 2022 was a compliance model. This legislation has the ministerial approval to the new EPA. It’s different.

WILSON: Well, I don't agree. You know, the three elements of the Graham Samuel blueprint for reform included an Environmental Protection Agency, and that is part of the reforms that we're currently looking to deliver. We know that will make for stronger environmental protections and biodiversity outcomes, and we desperately need that. Nobody should forget that the reason that Graham Samuel undertook the review is because there's copious evidence that shows that the national network is not doing the job that we need it to do, and that includes here in Western Australia. Western Australia is the biggest state, it's a remarkably strong economy, makes a really important contribution to national economic wellbeing, but it's also a place of remarkable environmental condition and biodiversity. The South West biodiversity hotspot, the Greater Western woodlands, the largest temperate woodland left on the planet, the most threatened mammal species in the form of Gilbert's potoroo. I mean, those are things that we need to do a better job of protecting, and national environmental reforms of a sensible kind part of that. We're focused on that.

REPORTER: So, do you believe the legislation as it’s currently written has the balance right?

WILSON: I believe that the way we've taken that reform through and brought it into the Parliament, passed it through the House of Representatives, is correct, and we've continued to say that we're not going to allow the sensible essence of that reform, that delivers better environmental protections, and a clearer, smoother, more workable administrative set of arrangements. We're not going to be knocked around by others that think we should go down a different path.

REPORTER: So, industry is whingeing too much? The WA industry?

WILSON: No, no. I’m referring to the fact that we could have made progress on those reforms if the Senate had seen fit to support them. You know, as everybody knows, the Senate hasn't supported those reforms, and they've been parts of the Senate that, in the case of the Coalition, have wanted to throw it in the dust bin, because, frankly, they want to wreck and block everything, including all of the very significant support we've provided to households through a difficult cost of living crisis.

REPORTER: It wasn’t the Senate that called off the vote. It was the Prime Minister.

WILSON: No. Jess, I don't agree with that characterisation of it. I mean, it was a busy last fortnight when we passed 41 bills. Before you take, in those circumstances, before you take things to the Senate, you want to be confident of the support exists for them, and that wasn't clear in that fortnight.

REPORTER: And so can I just clarify, you don’t think the legislation needs to be amended at all? As it’s currently written? You’re urging senators to vote it through?

WILSON: It's not my portfolio. I'm not responsible for the reform.

REPORTER: Yes, but you’re a WA senator.

WILSON: I'm not a WA senator. I'm a WA Member of the House of Representatives. 

REPORTER: So, you support the legislation as it currently stands?

WILSON: I've always supported those reforms. I mean, I was a shadow Assistant Minister in Opposition, and I had some involvement in working with Terri Butler to respond to, from the then-Opposition's point of view, the Graham Samuel report. And that's a very sensible report that says, let's get on with, and improve, a National Environmental Protection framework that is now, virtually 20 years old. And so I support reforms that will deliver better environmental and biodiversity outcomes and a more workable, clearer, smoother administrative system. Noting that, and I think this is an important point here in Western Australia, since the Albanese Government was formed, the process for considering and providing responses to applications under the EPBC has been, has been on time to a much, much greater degree than it was under the Coalition. Why? Because the Coalition gutted the environment department, cut 40% of funding to the department, and surprise, surprise, there were all of these administrative complications and delays. That affected the ability of projects in Western Australia to be properly considered. That was not in Western Australia's best economic interest, and the Coalition should and the Coalition should take responsibility for that.

REPORTER: Premier Roger Cook has said that the legislation this is currently written goes too far, and would crush WA industry. Is he wrong?

WILSON: Well, I'm not going to provide a sort of extended analysis of what anyone has to say about the reforms. I'm not sure that's what the Premier said. I agree with the Premier that Western Australia's economic performance is remarkable, and the contribution it makes to net national economic wellbeing is profound, and it should be recognised. And I share with him the kind of task, or the effort of speaking up for what the Western Australian economy provides to the national economy as a whole. I also agree with the Premier when he makes the point that it would be unhelpful if important environmental reforms were distorted by interests in the Senate or elsewhere that frankly, want to pull an otherwise sensible reform in a range of other directions.

REPORTER: I just put to you the Premier's quote yesterday. He said Nature Positive laws are a threat to WA jobs and WA industry, his exact words. Do you agree with that?

WILSON: Well, my view is that we need sensible environmental reform at the national level to deal with a clear failure of the National Environmental Protection framework, and when we achieve that in the way that the Albanese Government intends to do, hopefully, with the support of sensible people in the Senate, we will get a better environmental protection and we will get a system that is smoother and clearer and more usable for everybody. And that is as much in the interests of Western Australians, the Western Australian community and Western Australian businesses, as it is in the interests of people right around the country.

REPORTER: Can I just get your stance on nuclear energy in Australia?

KEOGH: Well, the critical problem with nuclear energy in the grid, it's just way too expensive and it creates huge risk. As we were speaking about before, coal-fired power stations are going to be shutting down over the next few years. Nuclear power couldn't come on for at least a decade or more. That leaves a huge gap in energy provision that we need to be bringing on board now. So, there's no solution being provided by Peter Dutton. He's just providing risk on the grid. He's talking about a system that would add $1,200 to people's energy's bills, something that would cost the Commonwealth an additional $600 billion, he's got completely flawed modelling. This is just his way of trying to distract from the fact that they have division within the Liberal Party and the National Party, and so that's why he's thrown the dead cat of nuclear energy onto the table. But it is not a realistic plan, and everyone who looks at it can see that for what it is, just creates risk in the system and it would be hugely expensive for every Australia.

REPORTER: Are the Nature Positive laws, as they’re currently written, a threat to WA jobs?

KEOGH: The Nature Positive laws that are now in the Senate, and obviously the Senate will decide what it decides to progress in the next couple of weeks, and we have a lot of things that we want to move through the Senate in the next couple of weeks, like veterans’ legislative reform, for example. But when we look at the Nature Positive laws, they're about delivering on having a proper regulator, which has been missing at a Commonwealth level, but also streamlining the approvals process. That is something that industry has been calling for. It's something that the state government has been calling for. It's something we worked with the state government on when we were in opposition, and it's what we support now. But I also completely see the problem that we ended up in last year, where you had cross benchers and the Greens in the Senate trying to make these laws do something that people did not want and do not want, and I understand those concerns, and we're only going to support this legislation if it's the right legislation that delivers on those outcomes that continue to support the prosperity of Western Australia and therefore the whole country as well.

REPORTER: So is the legislation that's on the table, the right legislation, or is it a threat to WA jobs?

KEOGH: What the legislation does is exactly what Western Australian industry has been asking for, which is to provide more streamlined processes for environmental approvals. That's about supporting the environment as well as the prosperity of Western Australian industry and Australian industry. That's what we support in the Senate, and we don't support any changes that would detract from that. 

REPORTER: So the legislation, unamended, should go through now?

KEOGH: We’ll see what the crossbench and the Senate to sign. We are supporting…

REPORTER: [inaudible]

KEOGH: We have put forward the Nature Positive reforms to deliver on a proper regulator, and on making sure that we have streamlined environmental approval processes that support the prosperity of industry here in Western Australia and nationally. That's what we're committed to. We know that's what the state government here and its what industry wants to see as well. The streamlined processes. That's something they've been calling for for a long time. But I also understand industry's concerns about the sorts of amendments and changes that other crossbenchers have been pushing for some time now. That's not what we support. We support Nature Positive delivering the right solution to make sure that we provide that future prosperity going forward here in Western Australia and nationally,

REPORTER: Industry had the impression that the laws as they've written now, was not going to be put to a vote, that it was on hold, that there was agreement that more change was needed. Now you're saying that the legislation as it is, Labor is satisfied with, and wants the Senate to vote through.

KEOGH: Industry was very concerned about what, in particular, the Greens were trying to put forward as changes to these laws in order for them to go through the Senate. That's not what we are about. We're about supporting having a proper regulator, which is something the Liberal Party, when they were in government, were urged to do through their own review, as well as making sure that we've got streamlined approvals, so that everyone is clear on where they stand. And that is what industry has been calling for, and that's what we've worked closely with industry, and the WA Government, to be about. But also, we understand the concerns that they've raised about the amendments and the sorts of things that cross bench and the Greens in particular wanted to see added into these laws. That's not what we support.