KIERAN GILBERT:
Let’s return now to politics. Joining me is the Assistant Minister for Competition, Charities and Treasury, Andrew Leigh. Thanks for your time. A big focus this week on electoral reform. The crossbench, the Teals – not happy. They’re saying that the big parties are ganging up on this reform and trying to rush it through. What do you say to that?
LEIGH:
Kieran, this is about trying to get our democracy as healthy as it can be, ensuring that big money doesn’t dominate. I think that all Australians want to see elections decided by who’s got the best ideas, not who’s got the deepest pockets. But increasingly we’re seeing billionaire donors around the world influencing election campaigns. We don’t want to see that happen here.
GILBERT:
But their argument is for an independent, without a profile, sometimes, like the Teals, they might need to spend more than a million dollars to help build their profile up against an incumbent Labor or Liberal candidate. Why not allow that if they can generate that sort of support in a seat?
LEIGH:
Well, because ultimately, we need elections to be decided on one person, one vote – rather than one dollar, one vote. We need the elections to be a contest of ideas, not a contest of cash. And we’re seeing increasingly around the world the influence of deep pocketed donors on elections. This has been a reform that’s been a long time coming. Labor has been very consistent. The way in which we’ve argued for these spending caps, they’ve existed here in the ACT for quite a while and I think they’ve worked very well.
GILBERT:
On the ACCC inquiry, it’s not as fiery as, say, the Senate hearings, but when it comes to the Coles and Woolies, but what are they – what’s the latest on that front? Can you give our viewers a sense of what that’s going to achieve, that ACCC inquiry this week?
LEIGH:
We’ve seen a range of pieces of evidence coming out. The ACCC’s barrister Naomi Sharp has drawn out some of the evidence around land banking and some of the concerns that the major supermarkets are holding potential supermarket development sites for what they call strategic reasons. In some cases, they’ve been holding sites for more than a decade. This means that you get less competition in the market than you would otherwise see.
GILBERT:
So, does that not reinforce the Coalition’s argument for divestment?
LEIGH:
No, it reinforces Labor’s argument for National Competition Policy, which engages with states and territories on those critical planning and zoning reforms. There’s nothing in divestment that would stop land banking, but there’s everything in the way in which Labor has systematically approached supermarket policy. And you’ve also heard the supermarkets claiming that their sector is highly competitive, which I think led many Australians to think ‘price check on aisle one’ – this one doesn’t seem to be checking out.
GILBERT:
I know as an economist and someone who’s been arguing the case for renewables, I want to ask you about my colleague – Chris Uhlmann’s got a documentary tonight on Sky, ‘The True Cost of Net Zero’. And in it, AEMO, the regulator, is quoted. And they said the same thing in Senate estimates recently. But there’s no guarantee the government’s race to renewables is going to drive down power bills. In fact, Chris’s doco showing the massive cost of transmission and various other elements with intermittent energy. Is the government misleading consumers and voters about this issue, saying it’s the cheapest cost of energy?
LEIGH:
It simply is, Kieran. If you look at the 750,000 Australians who’ve installed solar panels since we came to office, they’ve done so because they understand that that brings down their household power bills. The sun doesn’t send an invoice. The wind doesn’t ask you to pay.
GILBERT:
But it’s not – the sun’s not up all day. You need those other firming capacities. And that’s the problem, isn’t it, that when you shift, have such a massive structural shift, the transmission lines, the various other costs do flow through to people’s power bills because they’re certainly not feeling it right now, are they?
LEIGH:
What we’re seeing is a big investment in interconnection, in batteries, in pumped hydro – which is a form of wet battery. All that sits around the renewables ecosystem. We understand the importance of making that steady glide path down and so households get access to cheaper energy but also –
GILBERT:
Will it be cheaper, though? That’s the thing.
LEIGH:
Absolutely.
GILBERT:
If you can give a guarantee, eventually we’ll get cheaper power bills.
LEIGH:
Look, you look at all of the serious reports that have been done, the Stern Review, the Garnaut Review, all of that is pointing towards Australia having a future as a renewables energy superpower. This is a future which allows us to create clean energy jobs.
GILBERT:
But what makes it cheaper because you’ve still got to build the transmission infrastructure, you’ve still got to get all that out there. As Chris’s report shows tonight, that’s putting massive upward pressure on bills at the moment.
LEIGH:
It’s the very nature of it being renewable, Kieran, that brings down the costs. So, what we have in moving to renewables is a system which will ultimately be cheaper. We understand that the coal fired power stations are approaching the end of their useful life. We know that Peter Dutton’s madcap plan for nuclear in the 2040s would only cover at best 4 per cent of Australia’s energy needs. So, we need to move to the renewables revolution as the rest of the world is doing.
GILBERT:
Andrew Leigh, thanks for your time. I appreciate it.
LEIGH:
Pleasure. Kieran.
GILBERT:
Good luck with the fitness contest too. You’re a part of that as well, aren’t you? Raising awareness for fighting diabetes and health.
LEIGH:
Absolutely, yes.
GILBERT:
You won it last year.
LEIGH:
Indeed. I was able to pip Angus Taylor on the finish line there. I congratulated him this morning on his second prize and hoped that he might be able to replicate that result at the election next year.
GILBERT:
You’re not very competitive, Andrew! Thanks for that, appreciate it.
LEIGH:
Thanks Kieran.