Speakers: Senator Susan McDonald, Jenny Wilkinson

Transcript

Senator Susan McDonald

So I understand that, but we live in the world of reality of what we export and what we can bank as a nation. So the data that underpins this, so you've got this this net zero targets and and goals, but we have two Treasury documents here, the modelling that Treasury is using to underpin its plan for the net zero economic transition and the 2026 intergenerational report, both of which continue to claim that our national exports, which coal and gas make up approximately a quarter of the export value, will be overtaken sometime in the 2030s by green exports, but there is no data that supports that because that would highlight export earnings dropping from almost 140 billion in 2025 to around 20 billion in the 2040s. So that's an annual revenue decrease of 120 billion dollars, 1.2 trillion over a decade of lost revenue. So as an alternative, Treasury claims that these green exports will not only replace but exceed fossil fuel exports. So again, I'm trying to understand, apart from the climate change modelling, which is not based on ores out uh tons of ore out of the ground. Demand from overseas markets. This is purely based on an emissions target. This is really serious. 1.2 trillion dollars over 10 years, and yet there is no data that supports this climate change projection, which is not I think it's not flagging the revenue cliff that we're looking at. Because there's also no data that supports that the green export income source, particularly for revenue for the for treasury, is going to in any way offset that.

Jenny Wilkinson

So Senator, there might be two different questions here. So one is what is the framework, the modelling framework, and what are the assumptions around the transitions that are likely to occur based on assumptions about what other countries are doing, based on uh understand or assumptions about technological changes going forward. So there's a whole range of assumptions which feed into the modelling that Dr. Grant's talked about, which is the modelling that we've we published next year. Sorry, last year in September. Um we've been so we've been pretty explicit in that report around what all of the assumptions are. As I say, there are key assumptions around other country transitions and around technology which which underpin any any scenario modelling of this nature. So I think we've been very explicit about that. We we were um we certainly consulted extensively in the development of that modelling work. Um but we were also open about the fact that different people can have different assumptions about you know some of these technological developments. So we can so that's one question, which is the modelling and and and whether you agree or don't agree with the modelling projection. The second question is that what flow on effect does that then mean for the for revenue? Is that the set that's the separate question?

Senator Susan McDonald

So Ma just put put a pin in that because three weeks ago in uh October, ASEAN's Energy Minister endorsed a new energy outlook. The report was in part funded by the Australian government, and it paints a very different picture. Under its baseline scenario, South East Asia's coal supply more than triples by 2060. So even if member countries implement their stated energy policies and targets, coal remains a major part of their energy supply for decades. Under ASEAN's most ambitious transition scenario, the region's energy related emissions are still higher than in 2060 than they are today, but yet Australia is modelling that our fossil fuel exports would have declined and declined to a point that they would be exceeded by green exports, which is kind of a side issue. I guess really my concern is that we are modelling a transition away from a major export earner that is not supported by our nearest neighbours in their energy outlook.