ALP told by Joel Fitzgibbon: ‘Get the gas out of the ground’

Senior Labor frontbencher Joel Fitzgibbon says an ‘urgent­’ transition to gas rather than renewables is needed.

Labor frontbencher Joel Fitzgibbon. Picture: Kym Smith

Senior opposition frontbencher Joel Fitzgibbon has sounded a warning to Labor colleagues about the planned closure of four coal-fired power plants in the NSW Hunter region, claiming an “urgent­” transition to gas rather than renewables is needed to avoid an energy crisis for jobs and manufacturing.

Breaking ranks with Labor policy, the member for the seat of Hunter raised his concerns in the Labor caucus two weeks ago as the opposition faced pressure from the government over its 50 per cent renewable energy target and support for an emissions intensity scheme.

Mr Fitzgibbon, the opposition agriculture spokesman, said Labor could not afford to “get ahead of the public” on the issue of renewable energy or engage in “overreach” on climate change.

While backing plans for greater investment in renewable energy, he appeared to take a veiled swipe at state Labor colleagues over moratoria on the extraction of onshore gas reserves, claiming “we need to get more gas out of the ground”.

“The energy sector has had four years of policy uncertainty and, as a result, investment has fallen away. Malcolm Turnbull has now made the situation worse by talking about clean-coal opportunities that sadly don’t exist,” Mr Fitzgibbon told The Australian.

“Labor had a transition plan that encouraged investment in cleaner sources of energy. Malcolm­ Turnbull has no plan.

“We need to restore investment confidence in the renew­ables sector while urgently laying the groundwork for a gas transition. In the Hunter, our four coal-fired generators are reaching the end of their commercial lives.

“We need investment in gas-fired baseload generators and the Hunter is the logical place to build them. The transmission lines are there, the workforce is there, and the land is there.

“But we need the fuel. We need to get more gas out of the ground and we can’t continue to sit back and allow gas prices to rise on the back of export contracts which are pricing our manufacturers out of the market.’’

A report from the Australian Energy Market Commission last year revealed that an EIS scheme would bring forward the close of coal-fired power plants across the country, with the potential to take more than 4000MW hours out of a nation­al market of 48,000MWh.

Mr Fitzgibbon said radical measures needed to be taken to address an energy crisis and suggested a policy of shipping gas from the nation’s northwest to the east coast, with construction of a liquefied natural gas plant at the Newcastle coal-loading terminals.

“In any case, we won’t secure the volumes we need without tapping the abundant gas reserves off the coast off Western Australia and in parts of northern Australia,” Mr Fitzgibbon said.

“It seems we have the wit to ­export gas to Asia but not to ship it to Australia’s eastern seaboard. An LNG receiver terminal in Newcastle would make perfect sense; fuelling the Hunter’s new gas-fired generators which would have peaking capacity and providing our manufacturers with the competitively priced energy they so desperately need.

“We have to also do more to get domestic gas out of the ground. The planned Queensland Hunter Gas Pipeline will track near to both Santos’s Narrabri CSG project and the Upper Hunter’s existing coal-fired generators. But the pipeline project doesn’t stack up economically without sufficient gas supply.’’

“The government could also act immediately by putting an end to “third party contracts” which allow big exporters experiencing a temporary shortage of gas from their own projects to buy gas from the domestic market.”

Energy Minister Josh Frydenberg said an EIS would be a disaster for energy ­security and prices. “Labor’s EIS is one leg of a quadrella of policies that will drive up electricity prices, cost jobs and deter investment,” he said.

“Not to mention the then Labor Climate Change Minister Penny Wong describing the EIS as a ‘mongrel’ and a ‘smokescreen’.

“After the failed experiment in South Australia surely it’s time for Bill Shorten to drop his quest for Green votes in the city and focus on the fundamental issues of ­energy security and affordability.”

Mr Fitzgibbon recently told parliament that he believed parties should resist “overreach on ­climate change” to ensure the public could be convinced of the policy responses needed to address it.

“ ... I have devoted a very large part of my political life resisting overreach on climate change, which is very topical in this place at the moment,” he told parliament.

“I believe our climate is changing and I think it is very, very likely that human activity is making a contribution So we do need to ­adjust our behaviour.

“Now, avoiding overreach is important. But in the six years of the last Labor government, sadly, we achieved less than we would have liked on climate change and energy transition because we opened ourselves to the mother of all scare campaigns — a deceitful campaign, but a campaign which was ultimately successful.”