Chris Bowen (McMahon, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for Climate Change and Energy) Share this | Hansard source

The honourable member says, 'I trust him.' Well, good for you, sport. I don't. I would be very reluctant to trust any minister over there with expanding the remit of ARENA to a technology regarded as low emissions. But this minister, I have to say, I particularly don't trust. Why would we give the minister the power to just declare a certain technology has low emissions—just because he doesn't want it or because he likes it? This is a minister who stood at rallies against wind farms. He actually should be the 'minister against renewable energy'. This is a minister who—

Honourable members interjecting—

There's a City of Sydney council election coming up, comrade. What's your role been in that, with the City of Sydney council travel costs? Are you telling us we should trust you with ARENA's remit? No thank you.

Honourable members interjecting—

I'm happy to debate with you about tax. Why don't you take the tax off electric vehicles, like we will? Why don't you believe in lower taxes when it comes to electric vehicles in Australia? You have an appalling track record on electric vehicles. We want to reduce the tax on electric vehicles. We want to give Australians more choice to buy affordable electric vehicles. Honourable members opposite stand against that choice. They stand for higher taxes on electric vehicles. Yet they come in here and say we need to expand the remit of ARENA to invest in electric vehicles. You have no credibility when it comes to electric vehicles. You have less than zero credibility.

Honourable members interjecting—

How's the weekend going? All those Australians who are towing their boats on the weekend and are lamenting the loss of their weekends at the hands of those terrible, evil electric vehicles are really regretting their choices.

Honourable members interjecting—

Honourable members opposite think because they sit on that side of the chamber they have the right to undo ARENA's remit by regulation and give this bloke the opportunity to designate technologies as low emissions. Well, we have a different view. We put the view to the House that this regulation should be disallowed. If it is not disallowed, as I said before, I suspect it will end up in court and the honourable member for Hume will have to justify his actions in promulgating a regulation which is, in a very real sense, highly likely to be illegal.

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