The Government's Bill to establish a new $1 billion Grid Reliability Fund is both extremely important and deeply flawed. I just spoke in the House about the need to invest in our grid infrastructure and what my concerns are with this Bill. Here are the key points of that speech

First, it's critical that we invest in our electricity grid. For too long we have seen a lack of investment in this critical regional infrastructure and that lack of investment is costing jobs, slowing down the integration of renewables, and driving up power prices.

This issue is important to Indi because we have several solar farms that are ready to go, but cannot proceed because of weaknesses in the grid. These projects would create hundreds of construction jobs, dozens of ongoing operations jobs, and generate new income for our region.

Last year, @AEMO_Media forced 5 solar farms in regional Vic and NSW to cut back their production by 50%, for 7 months, because the grid was not prepared for them. That's 7 months of lost income for those regional communities. All because we didn't invest in our grid.

It’s well overdue that the Government looks Australia in the eye and is honest about the fundamental transition we are facing in our energy system, and planning properly to ensure it happens smoothly.

And yet the National Party’s big vision to solve our energy problems in regional Australia is to build more coal stations. Well the National Party has been around 101 years and it’s about time they got some new ideas.

The places renewables will boom are places like the Mallee, New England and the Riverina. All these electorates are held by the National Party. At the moment. Instead of fighting back the tide, I invite the Nationals to make this boom really deliver for their constituents.

But I have some deep reservations about this Bill. The Bill expands the circumstances in which the CEFC can invest in gas projects. And because those projects are unlikely to be economic, it also changes the rules to allow the CEFC to invest in loss-making projects.

The CEFC is a bank – owned by the taxpayer – that so far has invested billions of our dollars into clean energy projects that have made money. And this Government is trying to change the rules to allow investments in fossil fuels that lose money – that lose *your* money.

Right now, the CEFC is able to invest in gas power under extremely restrictive circumstances, specifically if the gas station would have less than 50% of the emissions of the grid as a whole. And the CEFC has to make sure that at least half of their investments are in renewables.

This new fund has none of those safeguards. According to the rules all of this $1 billion could be invested in gas power, even if it is emissions intensive, as all gas power is. The Government is quite literally changing the definition of “low-emissions” to mean “any emissions”.

The Government might dispute this but it's written in black-and-white in the Explanatory Memorandum (written by the Government):

"Item 33 expands the scope of low-emission technology. Certain types of gas-fired electricity generation will now fall under this new definition"

And again, if you ask AEMO what Australia needs to achieve cheap, clean and reliable power, they are crystal clear: it’s more renewables, more storage and more transmission.

Not new gas.

Finally, we need to make sure that this massive investment actually creates lasting prosperity in the regions by creating good-paying, long-lasting local jobs, and by creating new sources of income that actually flows back into regional Australia.

If the Government is willing to underwrite new energy investments, let’s make them locally-owned investments, that are driven by the local community. So instead of the profits going elsewhere, the profits stay where they are made.

I will be moving an amendment to this Bill to make sure that the Grid Reliability Fund can only invest in projects that demonstrate they are delivering significant benefits to the local community through local jobs, procurement and decision-making.

Because $1 billion of new investment in regional Australia should be done with and for us, not to us. I’m all for renewables. But it has to be done in a way that actually benefits regional Australia. That’s what’s missing from the Government’s policy agenda.

It's also why next week I'm tabling the Australian Local Power Agency Bill to set up a new body with a dedicated focus on locally-owned renewables, which will drive billions in investment into the regions. I hope that all my regional colleagues will support me in this.