This is a debate we should have had some time ago—not just a year ago but probably more like three years ago. I heard the member for North Sydney talk about how timely the legislation was, coming in the same week the Morrison government released its pamphlet on net-zero emissions by 2050. But actually it is years overdue, as was that so-called commitment to net zero. When you have a government that pretends that the need for climate action isn't urgent and that the existing policy settings are enough, what you end up with is lost opportunities, and we had a lost opportunity with this. It's taken so long for this to come to the parliament.

We also had a lost opportunity when the COVID economic response ignored any investment in renewables. By contrast to Australia, the Italian government's national COVID recovery plan allocated a total of 196 billion euros to six key areas, and one of those areas was renewables. The plan included 74.3 billion euros earmarked for a green revolution and ecological transition. I'm not even going to try to translate those figures in euros to Australian dollars, but it's a whole lot more. Proportionally, it's more than we have looked at investing, and that's shameful. It is a terrible lost opportunity. That's what we're talking about here with this legislation, the Offshore Electricity Infrastructure Bill 2021.

Instead of being the renewable energy superpower that we had the potential to be by now, we are way behind. The UK already has the world's largest offshore wind generation capacity, and in October 2020 the UK government announced a target of 40 gigawatts of offshore wind capacity by 2030, up from its original target of 30 gigawatts by 2030. It's good at increasing its targets, particularly its 2030 targets. UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson said to the Conservative Party conference this time last year:

… in ten years' time, offshore wind will be powering every home in the country …

This isn't some socialist government in Scandinavia; this is a Conservative British Prime Minister. He's obviously talking about a country that is not blessed with endless sunshine, but they have seen the opportunity that wind gives. We are really lucky: we have not only sunshine but wind. The global development of offshore wind resources has sped up as part of the broader shift to lower-emissions energy, yet we haven't. The EU is targeting 60 gigawatts, the US 30 gigawatts, South Korea 12 and Japan 10. All of this is expected to drive the addition of 200 gigawatts of offshore generation. I'd like you to keep that 200 gigawatts in mind.

Let's turn to Australia. In Australia we have one of the longest coastlines in the world, thanks to being a pretty big island, which gives us so much potential for offshore wind. We have some of the best wind resources in the world, especially along our southern coast. Conditions along a lot of that coast rival those of the North Sea, an area which we all know has dozens of windfarms already servicing places like Denmark and Germany. We have more offshore wind resources than we could ever possibly use ourselves. Recent research by the Blue Economy CRC indicates that feasible wind resources in Australia could be around 2,233 gigawatts in capacity. That compares to what I mentioned earlier, the 200 gigawatts that the combined global capacity is targeting. So there's a massive opportunity for us. Our energy market is around 55 gigawatts, so we have a whole lot more than Australia needs, and that's why there's so much potential for exporting to South-East Asia. Yet, in spite of that, not a single offshore project has been developed in Australian waters.

But, fortunately, not everybody has had their head in the sand, as the Morrison government and previous Liberal leaders have, on offshore wind. There are 10 projects that are currently being blocked by the government because we haven't had this legislation to allow the construction of offshore wind farms. The combined projects have a generation capacity of more than 25 gigawatts. For the first 10 projects, that's a significant amount. One of the key ones is the Star of the South, in Gippsland, which, when complete, will produce enough energy to cover 20 per cent of Victoria's current energy needs. It's partly because these turbines are so much bigger than the ones along Lake George, which I drive past on my way from the electorate of Macquarie to Canberra. One single turn of an offshore wind turbine can provide as much energy as a whole day's worth of rooftop solar, just because of the size and capacity of it. The turbines can turn 15 times each minute. When you add in floating turbine foundations, which can operate in very deep waters, you open access to a lot more windy, offshore locations.

For us, some of the best resources are located just off the coast of regions that have traditionally been the powerhouses of Australia—Gippsland, Latrobe, Newcastle, the Hunter, Illawarra, Gladstone and Central Queensland. The positives are that these regions already have strong electricity grid infrastructure. They've got the ports and the railways, and they've got the populations for new energy and new industry. Most of these 10 proposals are situated near traditional energy regions because of the strong connections to the electricity grid. Of course, under Labor, we want to see that grid expanded. That rewiring of the grid is so that things that need to be developed away from those traditional areas can be, but these are a great place to start.

It's not just that the energy created will benefit Australia; these communities and their workers will have the most to gain from a new, thriving offshore wind industry. They're going to get the jobs. The turbines need maintenance, and there's a network of ships and ports required for that maintenance. Twenty-six thousand people already work in the offshore wind industry in the United Kingdom, and 70,000 are expected to by 2026. It's a lot, isn't it? Oceanex is looking at spending $31 billion to build 7.5 gigawatts worth of offshore wind and to significantly upgrade ports, so there's investment there that will generate jobs. Green Energy Partners have two projects they're looking to start exploratory work on, off the Illawarra and off Newcastle, and they want to use Port Kembla as a construction hub.

This diversification into these areas is going to allow so many new, high-skilled jobs. Paddy Crumlin, who's the national secretary of the Maritime Union, sees this opportunity to create a huge number of high-skilled jobs in Australia. He notes that we already have 'highly skilled seafarers and offshore oil and gas workers capable of constructing offshore wind projects' and that these projects can:

… provide the opportunity for these workers to transition into the important work of delivering Australia's clean energy future.

Labor has always known that there were jobs in renewables. The Morrison government has denied it, and they've created fear around it. They've created the fear because that is what they do best. We know that there will be jobs. In fact, one of the things that will be needed in these jobs is young workers coming through. Labor is focused, very much, on the apprentices that we will need in this renewable sector. I want to take a moment to outline the plan that we have. It isn't just a plan that says it's a plan; it actually has key steps that allow something to be implemented. There might be a good lesson in this for the government. What we know already around new-energy jobs is that three in four solar companies are already saying they're having difficulty recruiting electricians, for instance, because there are not enough candidates with specific experience. In spite of that, they're still booming, but they need more support to do even better.

What Labor would like to see is a dedicated commitment, and, under a Labor government, that's what we'll have. We'll invest $10 million in a new-energy skills program. There'll be 10,000 new-energy apprenticeships available over four years. We're very specific about how many that will be each year. There will be 2,500 commencements each year from 2022-23. It's not just a hope. It's not a horizon. It's not an ambition. It's a target and a plan to achieve it.

We know that there have been cuts to TAFE which have severely reduced the availability of training pathways for these new skills—particularly those which are not yet in the market at scale. We know that's another area which needs to be addressed so that there are those training capacities; that's where the extra $10 million in a new energy skills program comes in. Those are tangible things that we want to do, and we've laid out those steps for how to achieve that; that's what will be needed to really make the most of the opportunities we have for offshore wind.

These bills are useful: they provide a regulatory framework for electricity infrastructure and they allow the construction, installation, commissioning, operation, maintenance and decommissioning of offshore wind and other electricity infrastructure. But we do need to move fast on this. It is a race; we need to go from it being a piece of legislation to being enacted. In their submission to the Senate, the department responsible for this area noted that there's no provision in the legislation that mandates or sets a time frame for declaring an area. Several submissions from the business community have noted that this whole thing is long overdue and stressed the importance of moving quickly to declare zones and award licences so that they can get on with the job. This government—the Morrison government—has been stopping business from being able to get on with the job in building offshore wind farms. It's time that changed.

In the time I have left, I want to touch on a couple of things that we would like to see added to these bills. We will support these bills; they're necessary and they're overdue. They'll open up the potential for renewable industries. But there are a couple of things that we'd like to see, and one is to amend one of the clauses to better incorporate electricity transmission and exports. The capacity that we have here means that this isn't just renewable energy for us—for Australians. This is for export as well. Australia can be the battery of South-East Asia, especially after we harness this opportunity with offshore wind. We need to make sure that this legislation allows that.

One of the other concerns we have is about work health and safety not being expressed in this bill. The committee that held the inquiry heard substantial evidence that the government has not adopted the harmonised national work health and safety law into the bills. Without harmonisation, we might end up with the situation where a worker would be subject to one regulatory regime onshore, a second one while they're travelling out on a vessel and then a third one while they're working on the offshore renewable project. That's a terrible confusion for workers and it's terrible for employers to have to operate in that environment. Labor's national platform is very clear: we will improve and harmonise the WHS regulatory framework covering workers in offshore clean energy. Australia has had some years to get this right. During the whole feasibility period we can do this going forward and get it right so that employers and workers are not paying the price for it—and it's crucial that we do.

We also need to make sure that the benefits of these offshore wind farms flow through to the onshore communities linked to them—the local businesses and the entire community should see the benefit of it. There should be something that's positive, not just something that's sucking away from a local community. But that doesn't seem to be an issue which has been addressed by the government, and it should be.

We know the views of those opposite, that they think wind farms on land are ugly, that solar doesn't work in the dark and that batteries are only as useful as the Big Banana. But people out in the real world actually know what the opportunity is to have renewable energy. They want renewable energy and that's why people have put solar on their roofs. What we in this place should be doing is everything possible to make it easy for people to access renewable energy. We welcome these bills—they're well overdue and we certainly won't hold them up. But they could do with amendments and I would urge the government to support the changes that we have put forward.