David Gillespie (Lyne, National Party, Minister Assisting the Minister for Trade and Investment) Share this | Hansard source

I always enjoy these Thursday afternoon MPIs, because they always come up with some crazy hypothesis at the basis of their question or statement. It's so ironic that they're criticising us, when we have actually delivered what we said we would do. We have walked the talk. Many nations and whole sections of the body politic around the world prophesied that they were going to reach amazing targets, but what Australia has achieved is that we have the lowest emissions since records started—in fact, 20.8 per cent less. Our emissions are 20.8 per cent lower than they were in 2005, and down by 639 million tonnes in the last year alone. That's enough to take millions of cars off the road for more than a decade, yet at the same time we are protecting jobs in the resources sector. Employment is up in both the resources sector and the manufacturing sector. What happened when they were last in charge of the Treasury benches and governing this nation? One in eight jobs manufacturing jobs went overseas because of their policies. But in the last manufacturing figures we have demonstrated a growth of more than 100,000 jobs to reach more than a million people involved in manufacturing.

We use technology to reach our targets and we have good economic policies to match our environmental policies. We have been supporting solar uptake, which in this country is quite staggering with 7,000 megawatts of new solar generating capacity in both the large-scale and small-scale solar rollout. That is really quite amazing. Everyone will know that New Zealand has criticised us for not doing enough to reduce our greenhouse gas emissions, yet when you look at the figures you'll see that we are way in front of New Zealand, Canada, America and Japan. The OECD average was a reduction of seven per cent, and we are already nudging 21 per cent. Like I said, we have walked the talk. We are promoting soil carbon measurement so that farmers that are already doing it and can get recognition. We want more of that happening because soil organic carbon is a huge sink, and good farming techniques marry with good environmental outcomes.

We have been supporting the resources sector and research. We have mentioned carbon capture and storage. We've put $263 million on top of the existing $50 million in a carbon capture and storage technology hub. The revenue from coal, which is the backbone of energy generation in this country, is up despite the prophecy from the other side that no-one is using it any more and everyone is getting out of coal. China itself is building 37 coal fired power stations. India is building new ones, Japan is building new ones, Indonesia is building new ones. They last for 40 or 50 years, so the demand, as outlined by the minister for resources, is predicted to grow between now and 2030. My electorate of Lyne includes the Hunter Valley, where there are about 20,000 people in direct and indirect employment that depend on the mining and resources industry.

We on this side realise where our fertiliser comes from. It comes from gas. Gas is ubiquitous in manufacturing in so many processes, including in plastics and also in fertiliser. The whole fertiliser production process is centred on Newcastle in New South Wales, and these resources deliver revenue for state budgets that fund hospitals, roads and schools. There are also thousands of wage earners that depend on the resources and energy sectors. We're doing good things for the economy as well as good things for the environment. We are also growing employment, as I've outlined and as the minister outlined. The whole premise of their argument is false and very hard to justify—in fact, it's made up. It's a Thursday afternoon special, yet again.

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