Energy policy
Dr READ (Brunswick) (09:45): The people of Europe are experiencing what may well be Europe’s worst ever drought. You can walk across the Loire River, France’s longest river, in places, and Britain has hit 40 degrees for the first time. Lismore was under water a few months ago, and with the fires we had in Australia a couple of years back, we know that we must accelerate our efforts against human-induced climate change. With two-thirds of Victoria’s electricity coming from brown coal from a fleet of three ageing power plants that break down regularly and are expensive to maintain, it is time for governments and all parties to be honest—and to be honest particularly with coal workers and with members of the Latrobe Valley community. Energy analysts and people in the Latrobe Valley understand that the coal plants have to retire, and no-one seriously expects that any of them will be running well into the 2040s, when the last is scheduled to close. So I draw members’ attention to a bill in the other place from the Greens, a private members bill which I am not allowed to present here, which sets an end date for the burning and mining of coal in Victoria for 2030 and increases Victoria’s renewable energy target for 2030 from 50 per cent to 100 per cent.