Tuesday, 16 August 2022

Energy policy

Mr D O’BRIEN (Gippsland South) (12:53:4):1): I am here to stand up today for the communities of Gippsland against the rash Greens plans to mandate an end to coal power production in Victoria. The proposal announced this morning to shut down all coal power plants in Victoria by 2030 is illogical, dangerous and does not help with our transition to cleaner forms of energy. We all know there is an energy transition underway, but as always the radical Greens have to up the ante and, for base political reasons, are selling out the communities of Gippsland and the Latrobe Valley. It is typical of the Greens to demand in full Orwellian fashion that coal power workers be given ‘certainty’. I know many of the workers at Loy Yang A and B and at Yallourn. They might want certainty, but they do not want the certain death of their jobs. We will have a transition to cleaner energy, but there is no chance we can switch to renewables entirely in the next eight years and keep the lights on and electricity affordable. The question is: will the Labor Party rule out this reckless policy?