PRIME MINISTER:
Well thank you very much ladies and gentlemen. I would like to acknowledge the presence of Louise Markus, who is the local Federal Member, Federal Member for Greenway. I'd like to welcome Mr Gerry Heuston, the President of BP Australasia, Karen Waldman, the General Manager of Regulatory Corporate Affairs, Integral Energy, Mr Scott Reid, the State Chairman of the ANZ Bank and Mr Gavin Gilchrist the Managing Director of Big Switch and Barbara Gapps, representing the Mayor of Blacktown.
I am here today to announce that Blacktown has been chosen as the site for the first Solar City trial in New South Wales. Back in 2004 when the Government brought out its Energy White Paper, it said, as well as investing hundreds of millions of dollars in clean coal technology, it would also invest some $75 million in a series of Solar City Projects around Australia. We have already announced one in Adelaide and one in Townsville and today I announce that the Federal Government will contribute some $15 million to promote a Solar City project here in Blacktown. And we expect, as a result of that investment, to leverage about $22 million of investment in the project from the partners in the consortium.
Blacktown has been chosen for a number of reasons. It is a young part of Sydney. The average age in Blacktown is 32, which is a bit below the national average. The potential for expansion of the district is very great indeed. You have already seen from the quick inspection you would have undertaken of this childcare centre that there is already a willingness on the part of the community here to engage in energy efficiency projects and to use solar power.
Solar power is part of the solution to the problem of challenging and responding to greenhouse gas emissions. It's not the only solution but it is part of the solution. And it's been our view now for a number of years, and it was enunciated in the Energy White Paper, that we should adopt a number of responses to greenhouse gas emissions. We need to embrace clean coal technology.
We're very lucky in this country, we have lots of cheap coal, but it's very dirty, and it emits a lot of greenhouse gases in the process of generating electricity. So we have to try and clean it up and as we clean it up it becomes a bit more expensive to use. And that makes other things more competitive price-wise. And all the while there is a contribution that can be made by solar energy, there's a contribution that can be made by wind energy and there is a contribution that can be made by other energy sources.
I am told that the consortium estimates that the Blacktown community can save $3 million in electricity bills if they take advantage of the Solar Cities packages. I'm told that the Blacktown Solar City and Solar Cities announced in Adelaide and in Townsville will assist more than 230,000 residents and businesses learn to reduce energy use and save money, install 3,000 solar voltaic panels in private and public buildings, conduct 6,000 energy efficiency consultations and reduce greenhouse gas emissions by 64,000 tonnes a year, 25,000 tonnes a year alone here in Blacktown.
The announcement that I have made today will include the installation of 860 Australian solar voltaic panels on homes and commercial buildings and that will increase the use of solar voltaic panels in New South Wales by at least one third. And it will be possible under the arrangements I have announced today for consumers to purchase solar, using special discounted loans. There will be kits offering two sets of solar panels, one to heat water, and the other to create electricity. And it will be offered to the market for the first time and this new combined installation takes up less roof space and is cheaper to install than conventional individual systems. We are going to allocate 4,000 smart meters that will be provided to homes and businesses which will allow you to more accurately and economically measure your use of power, and an opportunity for a thousand customers to adopt electricity pricing structures to allow them to save money by changing the times that they use energy.
Now all of these things are available as a result of this consortium and it's designed to display to the community as well as allowing this community to use in a more efficient and effective way, the benefits of solar power. It's a demonstration that solar power does have a role in the energy future of this country. I want to thank the consortium for its willingness to be part of this and also for its investment of money. Many companies in Australia see the value of renewable energy and they are investing in that energy and taking risks and getting a good return as a result of the risks that they are taking.
The Solar Cities trial was announced some two and a half years ago and this is the third of the individual projects that have been chosen from a large number of bids that were made over that period of time and there will be one or two more announced in different parts of Australia. I do want to again thank the Blacktown City Council for its cooperation, its involvement and all the other members of the consortium who are represented here today. And I thank the Local Federal Member Louise Markus, who is doing a wonderful job representing this part of Sydney in the national parliament, for having me along today. I will be happy to try and answer any questions. If they become too technical, as inevitably they do, I will call in aid, the experts who represent the consortium here.
But it is a team effort, and it's a very important demonstration here in New South Wales of the commitment the Government has and the community has to embracing solar power as part of our response to the greenhouse gas challenge. Thank you. Any questions?
JOURNALIST:
Prime Minister, without being too technical, you mentioned clean coal, solar and wind. You didn't mention nuclear. Does nuclear form part of that...
PRIME MINISTER:
Well nuclear certainly does. The rough economics of this at the moment are that if you want to produce base-load power, the cheapest and most immediate way of doing it is of course to use existing coal, and in some gases gas. Coal produces a lot more greenhouse gas emissions than gas, it's very cheap. But if you want to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, you've got to develop clean coal technology, and as you develop clean coal technology, the use of it to generate electricity becomes dearer, and on that basis nuclear then becomes a more viable option. Because although nuclear is dearer in the foreseeable future than existing uses of coal, as coal is used in a more expensive way, because you reduce the greenhouse gas emissions, the cost of it begins to reach or pass nuclear and that's when nuclear comes into the equation. Now solar and wind power have a significant role, but on all the advice I have, solar power can't replace power stations, it can't provide base load power generation. It can provide peak power, it can provide an augmentation, and a very significant one to the contribution made by coal fired power stations, so it will have a role. But I believe very strongly that if we are serious about this issue, we have to look at the nuclear option. I've made no bones about that. I repeat it here today. We'll have Mr Ziggy Switkowski's report available in the next ten or fourteen days and I invite all of the people who are interested in this issue to give his report as much attention as the Stern Report was given. The value of Ziggy's report, or Dr Switkowski's report, is that it's a report compiled by Australians for Australian conditions and Australian circumstances.
We've got to bear in mind that this greenhouse gas challenge is different for different countries. If you are a European country and you don't rely on coal and fossil fuel exports to generate a lot of your wealth, you are less sensitive to the impacts of changes on those industries and the jobs they generate and the investment they attract.
JOURNALIST:
Mr Howard, would the Government in the Budget next year consider expanding the funding for solar power?
PRIME MINISTER:
Well we are certainly going to keep the domestic solar voltaic program going and the answer to that is we will look very sympathetically at the operation of the program. And I can assure you that the program will certainly continue and we think solar has a very significant role to play.
JOURNALIST:
Prime Minister, how keen are the residents of Blacktown to become involved in this initiative?
PRIME MINISTER:
Well the indications so far are they're quite keen because I think people see the value of the contribution that they can make. But it's got to be presented to them in a way that is financially attractive. They have got to have an incentive and if you can demonstrate to a local resident that by using solar power there is a way of reducing your power bills, and this is an area that uses a lot of air conditioners because it gets warm. And it's another reason why we chose Blacktown because the heavy use of air conditioning is one of the things that has contributed to the sharp rise in greenhouse gas emissions, not only here in Sydney but all around Australia.
JOURNALIST:
Prime Minister, on another matter a Vietnam Veteran Barry Billing has expressed concern over the addition of Private Kovco's name to the Wall of Remembrance on the weekend. His point is that because he didn't die in combat. He raises the question should his name have been added? What's your view on that?
PRIME MINISTER:
Well I haven't heard of that until you just raised it. These are matters that are decided by the War Memorial, which is an independent body. The War Memorial made that decision. I certainly think the War Memorial made the right decision. But it's not something that the Government decides on. It's decided by the War Memorial Council which is run by returned servicemen. The Chairman and Director of the War Memorial both served in the war in Vietnam. They're both Generals of the Australian Army. I am quite sure that they know what they're doing and I am quite sure that they have done the right thing.
JOURNALIST:
Mr Howard, on the High Court decision tomorrow, how confident are you of the Government...
PRIME MINISTER:
Well I am not going to talk, a day before the High Court brings down the decision. I don't know what the High Court is going to decide. When we drafted the legislation we were advised that it was constitutional. We argued our case and we will await the decision. Thank you.
[ends]