Vince Connelly (Stirling, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

I rise to begin my comments by talking about cow farts. I know that may seem a little bit of an odd thing to talk about—I can see the quizzical look on your face there, Deputy Speaker Wallace—but, firstly, it matches the rather pungent and stinky nature of this suggestion that the government is operating with something other than speed and accuracy. So back to these cows!

There's an organisation called Sea Forest which has been working for a number of years now with the CSIRO. They've discovered that there's a special type of seaweed which, if added to feed for cattle, reduces the amount of methane they expel by 99 per cent. If this were in place in Australian industry on a large scale, it would be the equivalent of taking 100 million cars off the road—that's more than double the amount of cars which exist and are in use in Australia today. I know that the member for Braddon is cheering along here and seeing these great sorts of crossovers between environmentally friendly policies, the intelligence of world-leading scientists and, of course, our wonderful agriculture industry, of which the member for Braddon is a key sponsor.

This also sits against our more general approach when we look at climate change. Here, again, it's a government with a very clear plan and very clear targets—targets which we're meeting. We met and in fact beat our 2020 target and are on track to meet our 2030 target—a target which those opposite have not even established. Our technology road map includes an investment of $20 billion in new and emerging technologies by 2030. There are some great stories in place already. We've seen a 20 per cent reduction in emissions, which is more than for New Zealand, Canada and the United States, and we've seen the highest uptake of rooftop solar in the world here in Australia. So there are some great things which we should celebrate and not denigrate—as those opposite too often do.

I'll move on to something else that's a little bit stinky as well and mention fish. I mention fish because the sovereignty and security of fisheries in our Pacific region are something which our neighbours hold vitally dear, as do we ourselves. It's a surprisingly lucrative industry, particularly for our Pacific neighbours. Those fisheries are absolutely relied upon as the lifeblood of their economies and their societies. That's one of the reasons we're so committed to supporting the defence and sovereignty of our whole region. This ties into our defence budget. Whilst we saw Labor, those opposite, slash the defence budget to 1.56 per cent of GDP—the lowest level since before the Second World War—this government is increasing spending on defence by $270 billion over the next 10 years. The Guardian class patrol boats, which are being built by Austal, a wonderful Western Australian company, form an important element of the way in which we will support our regional Pacific brothers and sisters, to help ensure their own security and sovereignty over those fish stocks.

I'll switch targets and expand a little more on our economic agenda. We're absolutely continuing to stimulate our economy. One of the elements of that program is the $110 billion which this government is investing in infrastructure right around the country. As we talk about the economy, and within the context of the pandemic, it's also important to acknowledge the great success of the JobKeeper program. Frankly, I'm sure that members on both sides of the House are like me and colleagues, who have had so many people come up to express appreciation for the JobKeeper program. So many in my electorate, like El Greco Cafe, Cordingley's Surf Shop and many other businesses, have said, 'Vince, this enabled us to keep our doors open,' and, indeed, it saved 3.8 million jobs.

We also saw the cashflow boost—again, over 800,000 businesses and not-for-profits benefited there. The HomeBuilder program was initially labelled as a fizzer by those opposite—I think they hoped it would be! But of course it wasn't, with around $33 billion of activity now in the residential construction sector. (Time expired)

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