Labor leader says he will top up Clean Energy Finance Corporation and unveils $5bn fund to modernise infrastructure

Bill Shorten has unveiled a $15bn program for driving the transformation in Australia’s energy system to low-emissions sources, declaring climate change is no longer an emergency, “it’s a disaster”.

The Labor leader unveiled the energy policy reboot on Thursday, repeating an invitation for the Coalition to embrace the national energy guarantee it ditched during the August leadership implosion but also outlining a detailed alternative in the event the pitch for bipartisanship is ultimately rebuffed.

Shorten committed to topping up the Clean Energy Finance Corporation to the tune of $10bn and unveiled a new $5bn fund to modernise ageing transmission infrastructure – the ramparts of a 10-year plan to boost the share of renewable energy in the grid and retire coal generation. The funding is off-budget and does not hit the bottom line.

The Labor leader said he would use the Australian Energy Market Operator’s integrated system plan as the basis for transforming the energy system, with a Shorten government playing a hands-on role creating renewable energy zones, investing in new generation and transmission infrastructure and also in firming technologies, like batteries and gas peaking plants.

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Shorten said if he wins the next federal election, the government will fund the transformation through concessional loans, equity and contract-for-difference auction schemes that are already used in some Australian states, and internationally.

The Labor leader said potential projects to be underwritten or funded included upgrades to interconnectors, a second connection across Bass Strait assisting Tasmania’s “battery of the nation” project and Snowy 2.0. He said he was also interested in new gas pipeline networks for northern Australia.

Labor is proposing an emissions reduction target across the economy of 45% and aims to have renewables achieve a 50% share of the electricity market by 2030.

Eight coal-fired power stations are set to close over the next two decades because they have reached the end of their operating life, and Labor’s higher emissions reduction target will drive a faster rationalisation.

Shorten unveiled a coal transition plan on Thursday, including a $10m training fund to skill workers in the coal-fired power sector to work in renewable energy, overseen by a Just Transition Authority coordinating the eventual plant closures.

There will also be enhanced industrial relations arrangements for displaced coal workers. Labor will insist that power plant operators and coalmine operators participate in pooled redundancy schemes to ensure workers are given offers of employment at a nearby power station or coalmine, subject to enough positions being created.

Shorten said the objective of the plan was to build the essential energy infrastructure to power industry and manufacturing, while helping households cut their power bills with more renewables and storage.

He said too much time had been lost in the climate and energy wars of the past decade and governments needed to act, not only to safeguard communities against the impact of global warming but also create the industries of the future.

“We will only achieve this if we move now,” Shorten said. “You only get one chance to get in on the ground floor. If the politics of the nation gets bogged down for another three or four years of infighting, of inertia … the moment will be missed.

“The world is very unforgiving for nations who do not take the opportunities that are presented to them.”

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Shorten said plans for direct investment in the energy network could “not be hostage to the climate sceptics in the parliament”.

“We will act to bring down power prices and to boost these new blue-collar and green-collar industries. And, in a time of rapid economic and industrial change and disruption, only Labor will make it a priority to help workers and communities affected adapt to the transition.”

The Coalition on Thursday rebuffed the overture on bipartisanship and limbered up for another election fight over climate and energy policy. The energy minister, Angus Taylor, declared the government would never adopt an emissions reduction target of 45% “and we would never adopt the targets”.

Taylor said Labor needed to explain the practical effect of a 45% emissions reduction target in an energy intensive economy like Australia.

“If Labor is committed to those targets, they need to explain which businesses are going out of business in Australia,” he said. “They need to explain which cattle, how many cattle are going to go. They need to explain which aluminium smelters and refineries are going to shut. They need to explain which fertiliser factories, which cement factories are going to shut.

“The truth is that these targets, these reckless targets, will be a wrecking ball through the economy. We won’t stand for it.”