Coal to Stay in Energy Mix for Foreseeable Future, Says Australian Deputy Prime Minister

 

 

June 18, 2017 - Australia's Deputy Prime Minister Barnaby Joyce says coal-fired power needs to remain in Australia’s energy mix for the foreseeable future and he has not ruled out the Turnbull government either indemnifying or funding a new power plant.

In an interview with the ABC on Sunday morning as the government is considering its response to the Finkel review of the national electricity market, the deputy prime minster and Nationals leader said if coal was phased out “then your TVs should go dark and the lights go out”.

Australia should look to refurbishing coal-fired power stations nearing the end of their life, he said, and if there was a proposal in Queensland to construct new plants then “we wouldn’t rule out discussions” about Canberra indemnifying or financing the plant.

“We’re not going to rule ourselves into something but I’m not going to rule it out because to do so would be to fall into the alternate church where somehow we’re going to keep poor people in power without having the capacity to actually deliver the power to them and we’re just not going to do that,” Joyce said.

But during a separate television interview on Sunday morning, the energy minister Josh Frydenberg declined to support government funding for a new coal fired power station.

While noting coal would be part of Australia’s energy mix for “decades to come” Frydenberg said he wouldn’t “jump the gun” on government financing of a coal fired power plant.

He said he would have no issue “if somebody out there in the market” wanted to build a new plant, because that would add to Australia’s baseload power supply.

“As for government decisions, you are asking me to jump the gun there,” he said – pointing to the government’s internal deliberations on the Finkel review.

Given the debate currently playing out in Coalition ranks about the Finkel review, it is clear the Turnbull government is going to have to propose a higher baseline for the proposed new clean energy target which allows coal to be in the mix – even though the Finkel review modelled lower baselines.

The LNP backbencher George Christensen has already signalled he won’t vote for any new scheme which penalises coal.

The backbencher’s public declaration of opposition followed an extraordinary Coalition party room meeting on Tuesday night in which several government MPs ventilated their concerns about the Finkel recommendations and their impact on energy prices.

While industry stakeholders have been pushing for a bipartisan solution to Australia’s decade long climate wars, the Coalition insisting that coal be in the mix could trigger a fracture with Labor, because Labor has been signalling it can’t accept a clean energy target with a high baseline that would include coal.

Joyce was asked on Sunday if he was cognisant of the risks of losing Labor’s support if the Coalition insisted on backing coal into the system.

He said Labor’s position on coal was “religious” rather than practical. Asked whether he was being similarly religious in insisting that coal be in the mix at a time when the world is decarbonising, Joyce claimed he was “agnostic” about how dispatchable power was delivered.

“Now, the difference between us [and Labor], if you want a demarcation line, is we’re not scared to say that if coal-fired power [delivers dispatchable power], then we will use coal-fired power,” Joyce said on Sunday.

Ignoring gas, pumped hydro, and the technological advances in battery storage, the deputy prime minister then suggested if that baseload power did not come from coal, then it might come from “the fairies at the bottom of the garden”.

“I flew in this morning, it was a beautiful day, not a puff of wind and if memory serves me correct, it was dark last night, so you switched off your coal-fired power stations, how do you turn on the lights?”

Joyce claimed if Labor didn’t adopt a more flexible attitude on coal, that meant the Labor leader Bill Shorten “doesn’t believe in blue collar workers anymore”.

He also said Australia would lose its manufacturing industries unless the national electricity market could deliver reliable power. “You will have a nation totally reliant on things such as the service industry and we know that’s a false economy”.

Joyce was also asked about the behaviour of the former prime minister, Tony Abbott, who has been most vocal in his public criticism of the proposed clean energy target.

The Nationals leader said his job as deputy prime minister was to support the prime minister. “I believe the job of the deputy prime minister in this instance is to look after the leader and I’m going to make sure that I – I want stability in this nation”.

“Malcolm Turnbull is a very good prime minister, he is doing a very difficult job and I’m going to make sure as a deputy that I do everything in my power to make sure we do not undermine the balance that Australia expects of us, that we go through our full term and we deliver good government to the Australian people”.

“Now, if other people have other ideas that’s for them to explain themselves”.

Joyce said Abbott had his moment in the top job, and he now needed to learn the art of compromise.

“Tony has occupied one of the highest offices, or the highest elected office in our land, the prime ministership. He has his photo on a wall.

“There are so many other people that would love to be there even for 12 hours because it is an incredible honour.

“With that honour comes a contract, a contract in how you make sure that the people who gave you that job are maintained in a job, they’re maintained in their job by working for a common purpose.”

He said in a Coalition, Nationals sometimes compromised with Liberals and Liberals with Nationals. 

 

“It is a very complex relationship but it’s not about us, this is never about what happens in this crazy boarding school, it’s about the Australian people and we will focus on there and make sure they have stability”. 

 

Barnaby Joyce