PETA CREDLIN

 

Today more calls, urgent calls to keep Liddell open. When Liddell goes, if it does shut down, that's 10 per cent of existing New South Wales’ baseload power that will go from the grid. The new New South Wales Energy Minister, Penny Sharpe yesterday said, and to be fair, she inherited this mess from the Green Liberal Matt Kean. She warned that Liddell's closure will impact New South Wales energy supply. Now, if that wasn't bad enough, in two years’ time Eraring, which is near Port Macquarie’s Liddell near the Hunter Valley will close.

That's 25 per cent of New South Wales power. So that's a third of the baseload in our country's most populated state. Gone in just 24 months. Now, one of those national voices saying, Liddell must stay open, is Federal National party leader David Littleproud, and he joins me now. David, you are calling now for urgent intervention and I'll say to people at home, this is not a new call from the Nats. You've been saying this consistently ever since AGL slated Liddell’s foreclosure. What do you want to see happen?

 

DAVID LITTLEPROUD

 

Yeah, look, I think this is where the New South Wales government has an opportunity to intervene. AGL'S made a commercial decision. You've got to respect that they've got their own right to do that. But we've got to look at the practical reality of what's happening and the reckless pace that we're going down, this renewable path. We're not against renewables, we're just saying the path that you are going down, this route and the speed in which you're doing it is not understanding that you need this thing called firming. If you don't have firming power to support renewables, renewables won't work. And this is being exacerbated by the fact that the new federal government has demonized gas.

They demonized gas for 10 years, didn't talk to gas companies. And in fact, we are drawing down on our gas supplies every day because they've taken away the confidence, the investment confidence in increasing gas supply.

I've seen a billion-dollar investment in Senex in my own electorate gone that would put 120 petajoules, that is over 10 per cent of the East Coast gas market at the moment. So if you want renewables to work, you need to firm it, either with the existing coal fired, bringing on more gas, and even looking and peeking over the Pacific about long-term solutions of small scale modular nuclear. We're saying let's have a sensible conversation, a mature conversation about our energy mix. The great thing in this country is we have sovereign ownership of all our resources.

We're not like Europe, where we're worried about Vladimir cutting off a tap. We actually own our uranium, we own our coal, and we own our gas, but we've got to put the investment signals there for gas companies to do the right thing. When we were in government, we now have this problem.

We've always made sure that the gas companies are there to put more in. But we've got to make sure if that's not there and the investment signals have changed by this new federal government, then those coal fired power stations need to serve until we get to a point that we have that firming. But we've also got to have a conversation about the social licence of some of these renewable projects, the amount of native bushland and prime agricultural land that'll be taken up by solar panels and by wind turbines. We will hit a precipice where we need to have a conversation about food security in this country.

I saw in Wagga Wagga the other day, just one project, 1,020 acres of solar panels going across cultivated area of canola plantation, that that will take away a productive landscape that will add to your cost-of-living pressures on your food.

So let's be sensible about this. When I became leader, I wrote to Anthony Albanese and said, let's have a National Energy Summit. Let's put all our energy eggs on the table and work out what we put in the basket. And let's think about those new emerging technologies like small scale modular nuclear, but knowing that we've got to increase our gas supply. Make sure that we don't put policies on price caps and the safeguards mechanism that takes away that confidence and making sure that we can give that firming energy to make sure that we have affordable, reliable power.

If we don't do that, then we have more costly power that's less reliable. That's not common sense. The Nats are just saying, let's bring some common sense to the conversation. Enter the national conversation.

 

PETA CREDLIN

 

I think it's all pretty galling though that, this rapid transition plan in New South Wales to transition to basically no power. If you haven't got the renewables working, you have power failure or supply failure happened under a Coalition government. I think that's particularly galling. I don't think you're going to have much success in relation to it. I think it's important that you keep raising the issue.

But surely now we can see what that cliff looks like, particularly with Eraring. We've got two years to come up with a plan to keep Eraring open. Of course, it's, it's a much newer facility. It's a much cleaner facility in terms of coal power. Are you having those conversations as well?

 

DAVID LITTLEPROUD

 

Yeah. Look, the lessons need to be learned from this. And this is where the ideology doesn't match the practical reality of what's coming out of people's wallets at the moment. And this is because of this reckless pace. So what we've got to do is make sure that we use common sense in not just having that conversation about Eraring staying open, but also making sure that we're increasing gas supply to supplement that firming energy through coal and gas. And you’ve got to understand it'll be challenging for coal in the future, but gas is going to continue to come on. And there is an opportunity for that with carbon capture storage.

But to actually compliment your firming energy sources with SMR technology that actually looks at generation of actually reprocessing waste, reduces emissions, gives us firming power. Why wouldn't you have those conversations now? So the only reason we're not having your conversation on this, you only have to look at what's happening with submarines at the moment. It is blowing the Labor party up because they can't agree on nuclear submarines and they don't want to have a conversation about a civil nuclear industry here because they know that it'll be more about the political harm to their own party than about common sense and about opportunities for Australia to have cheap, reliable energy.

 

PETA CREDLIN

 

All right. SMRs for people at home, small modular reactors that's what he mentioned there. I’ve got to pick up those acronyms when they come in from the politicians. Sorry, just before we go, the announcement today on the Chinese trade sanctions likely to lift on Bali and wine, Beijing said they'll have an expedited review of the sanctions. We haven't had a win yet. We've put on hold, obviously the WTO decision, also the action, give us your take?



DAVID LITTLEPROUD

 

Fantastic news, particularly for wine. They lost $1.2 billion overnight, barley found other markets, were able to go and find their markets overnight. Wine, we haven't been able to, this is a real game changer for the wine industry, but they deserve it. They were the ones that stood up to China with the last Coalition government and told China, we won't be bullied. So they deserve this and we hope that this comes to fruition. It's a great thing for Australian agriculture and we hope that the Chinese come through with it.

 

PETA CREDLIN

 

All right. Just quickly, Julian Leeser resigned today. That means the position of Shadow Minister for Indigenous Affairs is there. I think there's a lot of support around Australia for Jacinta Price to take that job. And will she get it?

 

DAVID LITTLEPROUD

 

Ah, look Peta, I'll have a conversation about that. Jacinta is a pure talent that we're so lucky to have. She's focused solely at the moment on getting that ‘No’ case up, that we are behind her as The Nationals. We've been behind her for six months. We were the first ones to come out and make a principle position of lived experience of what The Nationals see and feel every day. We'll work through this and make sure that, obviously through the Coalition agreement where we sit, obviously it's a Liberal that has lost their position. So that obviously adds a lot of complexity. But I'll be talking with Peter Dutton and we'll have mature conversation about that.

 

PETA CREDLIN

 

Well, I hope you went out. I will make the point. Julian had two roles there, Attorney-General and the Indigenous Minister's brief. Of course, if you split the roles, the Libs can still have the Attorney-General's position, so they haven't lost a position. And we can get someone who is a bit of a warrior in that Indigenous Affairs job, but I'm sure you've already thought about that. David Littleproud, thank you.