Tim Wilson (Goldstein, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

I want to start by echoing the sentiments of the Minister for the Environment, who responded to the matter of public importance raised by the member for Clark this afternoon; in particular, the point that we welcome this opportunity to talk about the outcomes, policies and measures of the Morrison government in stewarding our environment, because they go to the core of who we are as a Liberal government. As a Liberal government, we understand responsibility; in fact, liberalism is anchored by the principles of responsibility and empowerment and handing to future generations an economy as prosperous as the one we inherited, a society as united as the one we inherited, and an environment that's as healthy as the one we inherited.

The one question I do have to ask is whether the Leader of the Greens is going to be speaking on this motion, and I suspect he will. This government, our party and our record, has been consistent in supporting the environment as part of advancing this forward-looking nation. As the minister outlined, we were the party that established a minister for the environment. The minister left one thing off the list. John Howard's government established the Australian Greenhouse Office, something no doubt the Greens and others would like to airbrush out of history, particularly when you compare it to the Greens as a political party being founded on a platform to oppose renewable energy investment—and we should never let them forget that.

I was reminded of this the other day when I got an email from Christine Milne AO, a former member of the other place, from the Bob Brown Foundation, with her and the founder of the Australian Greens arguing against more renewable energy investment in Australia and particularly connecting renewable energy from Tasmania to the mainland. It is just despicable. But that's the difference between their approach and ours on this side of the chamber. We are achieving practical outcomes, delivering for the Australian people and taking the community sustainably forward with us. That's compared to the high and lofty rhetoric of our political opponents, not just those in the opposition party but those in other parties and, at times, Independents, who like to talk the talk but have no practice in reality at walking the walk.

We see this critically in the area of climate change, where our government took targets to the last election and the one before it to deliver outcomes by 2020 and 2030, and we are in the process of developing those for 2050. Compare that to our political opponents, who set lofty ambitions of what they wanted to achieve by 2030, but you do not hear them utter a word about it anymore. In fact, they now talk about targets so far outside their control they're guaranteed to make sure they are never held to account—that's for any single person sitting in this chamber. It's an abrogation of their responsibility. They like to talk the talk, but they are not interested in the delivery.

What we have focused on at every point is how we transition the Australian economy to take Australians with us by making sure we deliver not just with the targets but with practical outcomes and investment to make sure the improvement in the environment is realised. Whether it is the $1.9 billion reef plan, whether it's our investment in the Antarctic, whether it's the investment in ARENA, whether it's the investment in the CEFC or whether it's small-scale investments throughout the country to transition different parts of the economy in agriculture and energy—no matter where it is—we are there and contributing every step of the way.

We saw this only last night in this chamber with the Assistant Minister for Waste Reduction and Environmental Management trying to pass legislation in this very parliament to modernise our recycling sector. That's important legislation which will lead to more investment to critically address some of the issues we've had around the volume of exported materials that can be recycled here, creating jobs and investment in our great country. And what was the political response? It should have been for our opponents to support it every step of the way and stand up and speak in favour of it. Instead, they frustrated it and obstructed it at every point. It took hours to pass through this parliament and for no reason other than political vanity from our political opponents because they simply have no plan of their own in comparison to the concrete measures we are implementing every day as part of the legacy of this government.

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