Melissa Price (Durack, Liberal Party, Minister for the Environment) Share this | Hansard source

The Labor Party does have some nerve. We still don't know what their climate policies are but we know they've got a track record. It's right up there with their track record on the economy—we know that that's a mess, and once again we're left to clean up the mess. Their legacy on climate change was failed policy after failed policy. They have no substance when it comes to policy—plenty of noise but no substance, and we're hearing that across the chamber now.

The member for Port Adelaide wants to lock in a 45 per cent emissions target—45 per cent! Can you believe that? But they can't explain to the Australian people how they'll get there. They can't explain to Australians how much it's going to cost and they won't explain how many jobs will be lost as a result of it. Labor needs to explain to every farmer, every truck driver, every factory worker and every smelter worker where their future lies, because under Labor their jobs are gone. Labor hasn't delivered a single climate policy that didn't result in chaos.

We saw this last time they were in government. We remember pink batts. What happened to the pink batteries? Have you heard any more about the pink batteries? No? Anyone heard about the pink batteries? Are they gone now? They're off the agenda. That went well, didn't it? We remember the carbon tax that was never going to happen, until it was sprung on Australians after an election. When this government removed that carbon tax we saved Australian households $550 a year. And we remember how the Labor Party, who described climate change as 'the great moral challenge of our time', walked away from delivering a climate policy when things got difficult—and they'll do it again. They talk big now; they talk big in opposition. But when they get into government and once they have their hands on the till, we cannot trust them. We know you cannot trust Labor. They'll talk big and talk even bigger in opposition. They will pluck numbers out of the air, which is what they've done with their 45 per cent emissions reduction and a 50 per cent renewable energy target. But what do we know about those numbers?

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