‘Gas is great’: Victoria’s fracking ban means they don’t have ‘reliable power’

Renewables arent working and we're getting reports also that Renewables weren't working too well yesterday because it was too hot the solar panels weren't working as planned and when it's too windy apparently that's an issue as well for wind power I mean how does that work they don't work when it's cloudy they don't work when there's no wind and they work when there's too much yeah well look they've had to the wind turbines have had to put in new settings when it's too windy to shut down cuz that's played a role it contributed to the South Australian black event you might remember back in 2016 where the whole state went off a big part of the reason the whole state went off was because the wind generators didn't operate properly and it caused the system to trip and so that's changed in recent times and that means that when it gets too windy some wind turbines don't run I just checked the figures uh right now today that uh right that today only 5% of the wind turbines are working in Victoria right now so 95% are not now even with L Yang being out even with that large Coal fire power station not being able to produce power could because of the transmission line fold uh Brown Coal fire power stations are still working for 50% of them so the brown coal sector in Victoria is working half the time even with that large Power Station out whereas the wind industry the wind sector is is failing across 95% of them so I mean we're going to hear a lot of the the green zealots over the next few weeks blame cide power for these this this result but it's actually the renewable energy that once again has not been there can't be relied on during a crisis we've got to get back to building power stations that we can rely on we haven't done that for more than a decade we're seeing the consequences of that now it's only going to get worse the longer we delay building a new Cal Fire Power Station building a high efficiency low emission Cal Fire Power Station this country so that we can get back to having not just reliable power but affordable power too for you to pay your bills and afford them and for to keep our manufacturing industry in Maintenance Australia now you talked about not having new coal power plants being built but are we even maintaining the existing ones properly uh and one can understand why perhaps that maintenance isn't happening when they're all planning to close them why would you invest tens of millions maybe hundreds of millions maintaining an asset that is uh set to close well exactly right rer just think about your own circumstances if the government told you that hey look that car you've got we're going to ban it in a few years time you w't better use it you w better drive it in a few years time you're probably not going to change the oil that much you're probably not going to get the big Services done because why bother uh pay for that if the the whole machine's going to be scrapped within a few years and that's the situation facing cified Power Station owners now where the government saying we're going to uh we're going to forcibly uh take your station off the market why would they spend sometimes hundreds of millions of dollar dollars doing the over Halls that that are usually needed now we see we it seems like this lack of Maintenance probably caused the cide explosion a couple of years ago we still don't have a report from the Queensland government they're the owners or part owners of that power station we still don't have a proper report on what happened at that power station but I know the union speaking to the unions up there they believe uh that there hasn't been the maintenance done on the cified power stations in Queensland that contributed to this incident and why is it that we've got labor governments putting workers putting union members at risk in massive power massive machines these turbines if they're not maintained properly we may get even the worse outcome where something explodes and people die it's an absolute Gas disgrace what role is gas going to play in our energy strategy uh is that a solution if we don't have nuclear power if we're determined to self harm and close down coal could gas be that backup uh because we are sitting on Plenty of gas reserves some suggest hundreds of years worth of gas reserves well gas gas is great and and gas can provide reliable power there's a a key problem with gas key key one key issue when it's in the ground it can't generate power you've actually got to bring it up from under the surface for it to be any kind of solution and of course in Victoria not only did Victoria ban uh fracking in their state they've actually made part of their constitution to not have fracking so it's in the Victorious Constitution now it's habius Corpus equality before the law and no fracking that's that's their that's the principle on which Victoria is being destroyed right now they're losing businesses we saw this week businesses are fleeing uh Victoria it was the manufacturing Heartland of our nation it's just so sad to see it be destroyed before our eyes and so we've got to develop our gas but even then I would say it's it's important about how expensive that gas is so gas prices now in Australia are typically over $10 a gigle the brown coal the Detro Valley can be mined for 50 cents a gigle a 20th of the price and and and this is the detail that unfortunately gets missed a lot in our in our superficial discussion on energy that people don't understand that just switching to different Technologies can have enormous impacts on how much it costs for you uh to pay for your electricity and of course in the case of a state like Victoria how much factories pay and if the factories aren't competitive if we can't get cheap Energy prices we will lose those manufacturing jobs they'll go overseas and we'll just have to import more things from Solutions China and the sad thing is in this state there really isn't much of an option for for voters because we went to the last state election with the liberal opposition having emission targets uh that were Bolder than the albanesi government they have completely signed up to this Net Zero Madness so Matt canavan what is the solution for victorians I know you up in Queensland look down here and mock us sometimes but I think most victorians are sensible we're just let down by our politicians well look it's happening all around the country and perhaps the most disa dispiriting thing about this is the lack of leadership uh from uh those that should be uh leaders uh our politicians have become spineless cowards in the last few years they just followed polls they do a poll on energy and and let that decide what their their policy uh should be but it's about time we we do demand some leadership uh from our elected representatives and that we stop telling lies to the Australian people I mean I can tell you right now most of the politicians that have signed up to this Net Zero Madness know that it's a big fat lie they know there's no way of delivering Net Zero missions they just want to protect they think it's a way of protecting their jobs they think these politicians these spineless politicians think that they need to to Parrot this Net Zero nonsense because it will help them stay in a job uh uh now I don't think that's my job I don't think it's the job of your elected representatives to put their jobs first they should be putting their country first their state first and they should have the guts to actually tell the Australian people the truth and we're not being told the truth right now you should demand better uh you should hold these politicians to account because they're totally our whole political class is failing this country and it's being destroyed before our Renewables eyes well we are being light to because uh we are told over and over again that Renewables are cheaper Renewables are cheaper and I think if you ped Australians they would repeat that because they have heard that lie so many times but as we have seen with the experience overseas and even locally when you look at the total cost mat Renewables are not cheaper they're not only unreliable they are a very expensive option well as not it's been a Relentless propaganda machine uh funded by a lot of the investors in the in the green energy space a lot of those investors are foreign and over overseas almost all of the uh the the the equipment that's used to install renewable energy comes from overseas is made in countries like China and so it's a big campaign to to repeat that message as no doubt that's had a big impact on people's views but look I I just would would remind people of the experience of the last year in Australian politics and and that does demonstrate the power of leadership I kind of put us put a put a pale over all my colleagues just before but I I will make an exception for the likes of jenter price and also Peter Dutton who bravely last year stood up against the voice uh stood in opposition to it despite the fact that at the time because people have been fed this propaganda at the time over over 60% of Australians supported the voice but when those politicians when Peter D when just Enterprise showed leadership within just a matter of months those polls had completely turned around and there's no reason with an issue is Salient as Energy prices and the cost of living that a similar thing won't happen uh courage uh is contagious and I do think the first time that a political leader in this country has that courage on energy policy they will be rewarded because I believe in the common sense of the Australian people we should be a lucky Nation but we are not making our own luck right now by making very poor decisions on energy policy courage is contagious indeed Matt canavan thank you so much for your time this evening