Angus Taylor (Hume, Liberal Party, Minister for Industry, Energy and Emissions Reduction) Share this | Hansard source

I thank the member for Curtin for her question. As a former vice-chancellor and researcher, she knows the power of technology to solve hard problems in Australia and around the world. She knows that a technology-led approach is the right way to get to net zero by 2050 in a way that reconciles a strong economy, job creation and investment with bringing down emissions, and she trusts the Australian people that, when low emission technologies come to cost competitiveness, they deploy them. And they're doing exactly that in her electorate, where there are 15,000 households with solar cells on their roofs. I should say that 90 per cent of solar cells around the world have Australian technology in them. We've shaped that technology and we've played an extraordinary role in bringing down emissions not just here in Australia but around the world.

We, as Australians, trust our colleagues, our fellow Australians, to make the choices that are right for them about the vehicles they drive, the food they eat, the electricity they buy, and we know that Australians will adopt low emissions technologies when they make sense and when they're cost competitive. That's why we're focused on reducing the cost of those technologies, to bring them to a point where Australians deploy them, because it's in their interests. That includes technologies like carbon capture and storage. We've developed an Emissions Reduction Fund methodology, which we've announced in recent months, so that we can create an abatement from new carbon capture projects. We've committed $250 million to carbon capture and storage hubs. We know that will provide up to 1,500 jobs, nearly all of which will be in regional areas.

But it's not just us. Joe Biden, the US President, has said that the US will double-down on carbon capture and storage. The IPCC and the IEA have said that this is a critical technology for the world to meet net zero goals. The UK is investing a billion dollars in carbon capture and storage, which will reduce their emissions by 20 to 30 million tonnes per annum.

I am asked about alternatives. The fact is that those opposite rule out technologies—they rule them out—like carbon capture and storage. They have voted time and time again against technologies like these. We know why. It's because their real target is not net zero; it's zero. They want to see industries like agriculture, manufacturing and mining wiped out. No fossil fuels—they want them all gone. They want to see these industries wiped out. That's not the Australian way. We will reconcile, right across regional Australia and the rest of Australia, a strong economy with emissions reduction.

See this speech in context