Matt Thistlethwaite (Kingsford Smith, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Assistant Minister for the Republic) Share this | Hansard source

I won't need to use it again! In 2014, there were 527 million tonnes of CO2 produced by Australia. In 2019, that had risen—in other words, gone up—to 555 million tonnes. That's clearly an increase. Why is that? Well, because the government doesn't have a policy to reduce carbon emissions in our economy. So guess what? They're going up.

We did have a policy to reduce those emissions, and that policy existed from 2012 to 2014. It was a price on carbon emissions. It was put in place by the Labor government. Guess what happened when we had a national policy to reduce carbon emissions?

An opposition member: What happened?

They actually reduced! They went down. They went down from 540 million tonnes in 2012 to 527 million tonnes in 2014. It's very clear that, when the Abbott government removed the price on carbon emissions, they started increasing again.

Australia would have to be one of the only nations in the world that had a successful policy of reducing carbon emissions, and a national government comes along and says: 'You know what? This policy is working so well, we're going to abolish it and remove it; we're going to get rid of it'! And guess what happened? Carbon emissions went up again. And our kids and our economy will be paying for it, because not only are our kids going to inherit a dirtier, more polluted environment that's not safe, but also our economy is missing out on the economic opportunities that come from transferring to renewables.

The claim in this motion is that emissions are reducing. I wonder how they got to this claim that emissions are reducing? I did a bit of research. The way they do it is that Minister Taylor claims that the impact of the extraction of LNG in its processing and the emissions that this produces should be excluded from Australia's greenhouse gas reporting obligations because it's predominantly exported! Can you believe that! This minister thinks that he can hoodwink the Australian people in that manner by saying: 'You know all of those emissions that we produce from LNG exploration and export here in Australia? We're going to exclude those.' It's like saying: 'From all the emissions that are produced from cars in Australia, we're going to exclude Toyotas because Toyotas are produced overseas'—despite the fact that they're driven on Australians roads. It's ridiculous! But that's what this government is doing.

Over the last decade, Australia has had a big increase in greenhouse gases produced by the extraction and processing of LNG. They cannot be excluded from our figures. That's how the government claims that emissions have been reducing—by excluding one of the biggest contributors to greenhouse gas emissions—and Australians are paying the price: a dirtier, unhealthier environment for our kids, and missing out on economic opportunities.

The transition to renewable energy is occurring whether we like it or not. This government, despite their attempts, is not going to be able to stop that. Despite many of their backbenchers wanting to invest in coal-fired power stations and put public money into them, the government are not going to be able to stop that.

So the question for the Australian people and the Australian government is: how do we position ourselves so that we benefit economically from the increase in renewables throughout the world and the industries that will come?

How does Australia position itself to benefit from solar, from wind, from hydrogen, from electric vehicles, from soil sequestration and from new agriculture? How do we grow those jobs, jobs, jobs that come from these new and emerging industries? This government has no plan to capitalise on the economic transition that's taking place and we're missing out on business investment and we're missing out on training a new workforce. Most importantly, we're missing out on the jobs that come with that transition to renewable energy. It's a disgrace that this government has no policy to reduce carbon emissions and that we're missing out on those job opportunities for our future.

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