Anthony Albanese (Grayndler, Australian Labor Party, Leader of the Opposition) Share this | Hansard source

This week we've seen the Seinfeld policy launch: all the build-up and then it was all about nothing. No new net zero policy, net zero legislation, net zero modelling or net zero unity from those opposite. They left it to the last possible minute to outline a scam that leaves everything to the last possible minute. It's out on the never-never because this government will never, ever take climate change seriously. After all of the build-up we just got a glossy brochure. When launching it, they said the word 'plan' 94 times—94! Well, saying it doesn't make it true. The fact is that the Prime Minister isn't known as 'Scotty from marketing' for nothing, because that is what we saw. The brochure mentions the word 'modelling' 44 times but doesn't produce any. Maybe it's in a blind trust?

Those opposite are simply not fair dinkum. They're led by a Prime Minister who said that electric vehicles would end the weekend, who said that batteries for renewables were as useful as the Big Banana or the Big Prawn and who said that the Renewable Energy Target was 'nuts'. He says that they're going to reach a 35 per cent reduction by 2030, but that they can't change the Abbott target of 26 to 28 because that would be different from the last election. But at the last election they opposed net zero by 2050, the whole basis of what this has allegedly been about.

When Australia was burning down, during the Black Summer, they were apoplectic at the idea that there was a connection between the bushfires, and the drought that came beforehand, and climate change. To talk about that was 'woke inner city'. But now that the Prime Minister wants to strut across the global stage in Glasgow, they say, 'Oh, no, net zero by 2050. With all this new technology, it's just going to happen.'

Australia can spot a fraud from a long way away, and they're onto the marketing guy. But it gets worse. When he jets out, as of tomorrow, Barnaby Joyce will be the acting Prime Minister of Australia, the bloke who knocked off Michael McCormack, a good man, in order to strongly oppose net zero. That was the whole platform of why the coup happened! He didn't support it but it's National Party policy, apparently, anyway.

He still doesn't support it, like a majority of National Party cabinet ministers. This is what he said when he became the leader, talking in the third person as sometimes people with particular afflictions do:

The likelihood of Joyce getting endorsement from his party room to agree to net zero is zero. That's where the net zero lies.

That's what he said. He doesn't even support it. He described climate change as a scam. And remember the bizarre video in the paddock, shouting at clouds, with the cows all around him, saying, 'I just don't want the government in my life'? But he said he doesn't mind the Deputy Prime Minister's pay. He doesn't mind a making a career out of taxpayer directly funds.

What we know from the announcement yesterday is: (1) they can produce glossy documents and (2) there are two big changes. One change is that Keith Pitt, the minister for resources, is now in the cabinet. This is a guy who said that solar and wind don't work at night. This is a guy who gets a shock every time he turns the tap and water comes out, because it isn't raining outside. He doesn't get the whole idea about storage of renewables and what's happened. He just doesn't get it. That was the one change, the one job, we know occurred. The other change is a Productivity Commission review. Every five years they're going to have a look at it, to see how it's going. But the Deputy Prime Minister said this: 'I use them when I run out of toilet paper.' That's what he had to say about Productivity Commission reports. That's how seriously he takes them. That's all that we know came out of this.

Barnaby Joyce is the whoopee cushion of Australian politics. You know you shouldn't laugh when you hear him make noise, but somehow you just kind of have to. And as we sit here in question time, listening to the human whoopee cushion opposite, you've just got to have a chuckle. We need subtitles up on the screen to explain it. The Nationals have become a clown show and he is the perfect figurehead.

He is trying to turn the word 'legislation' into a pejorative term. Someone should tell him that's what parliament does! The debates that we have in parliament are about legislation, and they are about laws, but he is trying to turn it into a pejorative term. The newsflash for him is: that's what parliaments do. But there's a second newsflash: investors need certainty, going forward. That's why you have legislation, so you can go forward. When Dennis Denuto in The Castle spoke about laws being about the vibe, it was satire. They think it was a documentary. They just don't get it at all.

We on this side, of course, have had a net zero by 2050 policy for a considerable period of time. In terms of how you get there, we backed that up with a rewiring the nation policy—$20 billion announced in my first budget reply—to make sure that electricity transmission is brought into the 21st century. That's the most significant and easy thing that you can do between now and 2030. We have a policy for community batteries, making sure that you can maximise what you get out of solar energy. We have a plan to make electronic vehicles cheaper by reducing taxes. We asked the government about that today. The don't seem to comprehend that that's a large part of the high price for electric vehicles. If you want to change behaviour, you do make it cheaper. But, of course, they said that electric vehicles would end the weekend.

We want to make sure that Australian workers benefit. That's why we have a new energy apprenticeships plan. We want new industry, and we've said how we will pay for it: a $15 billion national reconstruction fund to transform existing industries. But we also want to talk about the opportunity that's there. We have abundant resources in this country. I've got an idea. How about we use those resources to make things here and to create jobs here? That's why it fits in with the buy Australia plan that we have as well. They've adopted net zero by 2050, but we'd encourage them to adopt all the rest of that plan as well. We will have more to say, but we've already made significant announcements going forward.

The Prime Minister leaves for Glasgow tomorrow. Glasgow did give the world Billy Connolly, so they do recognise a joke when they see one. You will have to wonder what they will make of this Prime Minister walking into that conference. He'll stand up and say, 'Technology! We want technology!' They will say: 'Hang on. Isn't this the guy who said electric vehicles will end the weekend? Isn't this the mob that said that renewable energy targets are bad? Isn't this the government that says that solar and wind don't work unless the sun is shining and the wind is blowing? Isn't this the government that tried to get rid of the Clean Energy Finance Corporation and ARENA?' He did get rid of the fund that was there for carbon capture and storage.

An opposition member: The government doesn't mention that.

They never mentioned that. They got rid of the fund that was there. Now this Prime Minister says that he accepts that climate change is real, because he knows that his opposition to net zero is simply unsustainable. But there's no conviction there. This guy is all show and no go. He's not fair dinkum, and Australians know that. He's all marketing, no substance.

What we need to deal with the challenge of climate change is a government that understands the opportunity that meeting that challenge represents—an opportunity for Australia to take advantage of being in the fastest-growing region of the world in human history and an opportunity to create jobs by becoming a renewable energy superpower for the world. That means committing to net zero by 2050, but it means actually setting about creating it, not having people speak who once argued that we need to get— (Time expired)

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