Julie Owens (Parramatta, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Assistant Minister for Citizenship and Multicultural Australia) Share this | Hansard source

What a shemozzle this government is making of action on climate change and energy, and of ensuring that Australia has a world-class electricity system supporting our economy and our prosperity. The Finkel report laid out a blueprint for the future after five years—nearly six years now—of inaction by the Turnbull-Abbott government. The Finkel report sought to maintain security and reliability in the National Electricity Market that is facing significant transition and technological change. We welcome the recommendation from the Chief Scientist to establish the Energy Security Board and the call for increased security, future reliability, rewarding consumers and lowering emissions. But this Prime Minister keeps pandering to the conservative climate change deniers in his coalition, and he fails to take action. We've seen the entire dismantling of our carbon price framework, making Australia the only country to entirely dismantle a legislative climate change policy. This government's budget saw not one measure to tackle climate change—not a single cent. Power prices have skyrocketed under this government, and the ongoing energy crisis and the chaos in the coalition over policy mean higher power prices for Australian families and businesses. Those on that side of the House don't help matters when they cut the energy supplement, costing pensioners $14 a fortnight. If you're living in a harbour-side mansion, it doesn't matter, but it certainly matters if you're struggling to make ends meet.

This national energy crisis needs leadership and long-term planning to ensure the reliability of the national energy market and emissions reductions to meet our international obligations, but this government is overseeing one of Australia's most significant public policy failures, and there's quite a bit of competition for that award. They've been fighting amongst themselves over climate change policy for years. They are failing to act on climate change and failing to deliver climate change policy. During the last Labor government, we decreased carbon pollution by 11 per cent, but pollution has increased by six per cent and risen every year under the Liberal government. For the third consecutive year, the Turnbull government has overseen an increase in Australia's pollution levels. Emissions rose 1.4 per cent last year. And the government's own emissions projections show that Australia will not even come close to meeting our obligations under the Paris Agreement, and that agreement has a ratchet mechanism that will see countries increase their pledges to meet the two-degree target.

Current pledges under the Paris Agreement are consistent with three to four degrees of warming, but our government pretends that their 26 to 28 per cent target is all they have to do. If the government is serious about meeting its obligations under the Paris Agreement, it will have to strengthen its 2030 targets as well as implement real policies to reduce emissions, especially in the electricity sector. After coming down by 10 per cent under Labor, the government's own data shows pollution will rise and continue to rise all the way through to 2020. Australians want action on climate change and more investment in renewable energy, and that's why a Shorten Labor government will target a 45 per cent cut in emissions by 2030 on 2005 levels, net zero emissions by 2050 and 50 per cent renewable energy by 2030. And we'll do this because we have a plan. Unlike those opposite, we know Australia must act.

Australia's energy system must deliver reliability, security and affordability, and that's what Australia's national energy market needs, plus a plan for future needs to ensure investor confidence and certainty in the market, or else energy prices and pollution will continue to rise, and confidence in the reliability of the sector will continue to plummet. The Australian Energy Market Commission tells us that electricity retailers are taking a battering in terms of consumer sentiment, now ranking lower than the banking and telecommunications industries in terms of trust in the sector, falling from 50 per cent in 2017 to just 39 per cent in 2018. This is a massive vote of no confidence not only in energy companies but in the Turnbull government. We need to shift to a clean energy economy and take real action to achieve decarbonisation. With the national focus on the National Energy Guarantee, as Mark Butler said, there's a risk of overdoing the reliability obligation and underdoing the emissions reduction obligation, but we can do both. Australia has the opportunity to invest more in renewables. This is where the future lies. It's not just that renewable energy is cleaner and, increasingly, cheaper; it's also because investors, increasingly, are alive to climate-related financial risks. What we see from the government is just not good enough for Australia's future. We must act decisively to guarantee the reliability of our energy systems across the entire energy market.

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