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

This evening the Prime Minister will fly off to Glasgow, but his packing light. His luggage has not been a difficult undertaking, because he doesn't have to pack any new policies to deal with climate change, because he doesn't have any. He doesn't have to pack any new medium-term target for the government, because we know that he wanted to update his medium-term target but the National Party wouldn't let him. He certainly doesn't have to pack any economic modelling on the impact of his policies. We have been working through the reasons why he might not want to release the modelling of his policy, but, I must say, we hadn't thought that one of those options might be that it hasn't been done yet. So he is packing light for Glasgow.

In all the melodrama, all the crisis meetings on Sundays and all the chaos of the last week, all we've seen is one substantive announcement: a pay rise for the minister for resources—and that's it. The man who vetoed government support for 250 jobs in North Queensland, because they are associated with renewable energy, looked out for his own job and not theirs—because, with the National Party and the Liberal Party, it is always about them. They have introduced a positions trading scheme—trading positions for policy. I have seen some pretty cynical low-rent actions in my time in this House but this one takes the cake: trading a pay rise for a policy concession.

All we see are slideshows and slogans. A steaming pile of nothingness is all we have got from the government this week—a lot of spin. But, in all that spin, there are two things which have been particularly insulting to Australians, I think. There are two elements of this government's approach which have been a particularly insulting method of operation for Australians. The first is for this Prime Minister and this government to have the temerity to call their policy 'the Australian way'. How dare you invoke the name of our country to justify your delay. How dare you invoke the name of our great nation to justify your lack of action. The Australian way is innovation, not indolence. The Australian way is to lead, not to follow in the wake of other countries. The Australian way is to seize opportunities. Climate change is the world's biggest crisis but it is Australia's biggest economic opportunity, and the Australian way is to seize it. How dare you invoke the name of our country to justify your steaming pile of nothingness as a policy.

What the Prime Minister has done is confuse the Australian way with Morrison's way—and there's a difference. The Australian way is to innovate, not to be indolent. The Australian way is to embrace the future, not to scare people about it. The Australian way is to get on with the job, not talk about it. The Morrison way is to spend $13 million of taxpayer money to talk about a policy they don't have. The Morrison way is to spend $13 million of taxpayer money to boast about policies they opposed.

The Australian way is to come together to deal with crises and challenges, to unite as one people. That's the Australian way. When people in rural and regional Australia are going through drought, which is more and more the case thanks to climate change, people in metropolitan Australia come together to support them—unite. The Morrison way is to divide Australians, to talk about how climate change is apparently the obsession of people in inner-city wine bars. That's the Morrison way. The Australian people come together at times of crisis, like bushfires, and support each other, not get on a plane to Hawaii and not even bother to tell the Australian people they're going. That's the Morrison way. That's not the Australian way. The Australian way is to embrace technology, to embrace the future, to embrace science. That's not the Morrison way.

That's the other egregious part of the government's spin over the past week—to talk about technology; to have the gall, to have the hutzpah to come into this chamber and say they're on the side of technology, to say they're on the side of science. This nation, thanks to Australian scientists, has engineered the modern solar power. Professor Martin Green, at the University of New South Wales, and of whom the member for Kingsford Smith is so proud, has basically, with his colleagues, invented the modern efficient solar panel. The Morrison way is to undermine and undercut ARENA and CEFC, who've been so important to that innovation. The Morrison way is to undercut science. This is the Liberal and National way, and we see it time and time again. We can look at recent examples. We can look at examples across this government.

We know there have been plenty of mistakes at the Treasurer's hands with JobKeeper. He's made plenty of errors. He just hasn't understood it, but there have been some things he's done deliberately, like excluding universities from JobKeeper, like letting 7,000 university researchers lose their job in the last 18 months on his watch. That is no government that loves technology. And we know the Prime Minister's greatest hits: saying that electric vehicles would end the weekend, saying that a battery is about as affective as a big prawn or a big banana, saying that a 50 per cent renewable energy target is nuts. We also know this government's record on science funding and technology funding: undercutting not just ARENA and the CEFC but our greatest institutions like CSIRO and the universities.

Tonight, as the Prime Minister jets out, another man will be taking over: the Acting Prime Minister of Australia, the man who's in charge while the Prime Minister is away. Let us never forget his track record either. When a great Australian scientist pioneered a new vaccine for cervical cancer, the man who will take over the government of this country this afternoon warned that it might make young women more promiscuous. How dare they lecture us about technology and science! How dare they pretend to the Australian people that they are on the side of modernity and innovation! They are stuck in the past and scared of the future. Their track record on climate change is appalling and their track record on technology is even worse, and they dare to bring down a document for which their big step forward, their big leap for the future, is to assume that new technologies will come forward. Fifteen per cent of the advancement in action on climate change and emissions reductions they say will come from technologies for which they have no framework to encourage and no policies for investing and which they have undermined for eight long years. That is what has been particularly insulting to the Australian people this last week.

There's disappointment that after eight years of toxic policies, of division, of identity politics, of playing the climate wars that this government is doing it yet again. There's disappointment that after eight long years the best they can come up with is a slideshow and slogans and no real action. We tried to give the government a chance to say maybe, just maybe, they could come up with something we could give them bipartisan support for. They've failed miserably at every turn. This is a government that can't plan for the future because they don't understand the opportunities that science and technology and renewable energy provide for our country and provide for rural Australia in particular. They don't understand that the reasons that have powered Australia for so long are the reasons that will power us into the future.

Yes, it's because they've got the space for renewable energy. Yes, it's because they've got access to the electricity grid. Yes, it's because they've got the supports. But more than anything else it's because they have the skills to make energy. Their greatest attribute, their greatest resource, is their human skill that has created energy for so long. With the right government, with the right framework of investment, with a government that gets the opportunities, they can make energy and export energy well into the future. That's what this government will never understand, and this week has shown it more than ever. This government has seen some real lowlights on climate over the last eight years. There have been some really dark and sad moments for this country over the last eight years. But I think this last week has been about the darkest and the saddest.

The Australian people deserve so much more than this government, which has tried to abolish the renewable energy target at every opportunity. Even before they came to office, they indicated that they would abolish ARENA and CEFC. The then Leader of the Opposition wrote to the boards of ARENA and CEFC and warned them, 'If we come to office, we're going to abolish you, so don't spend any more money on science and technology.' Now we have his successor, the current Prime Minister, boasting about technology, daring to wave around this chamber a mobile phone, saying he's the friend of technology.

Australia does deserve better, and there's one way it can get it—a change of government. Throw out the climate change deniers, the party that embraces the likes of Senator Rennick, Senator Canavan and the member for Dawson. But also throw out the fellow travellers, the pretenders, the fake modern Liberals. Throw out the member for Goldstein. Throw out the member for Higgins, who allows this to happen. Throw out the member for Kooyong. Throw out the member for Reid. They do not represent their communities when it comes to action on climate change. Throw out these people who engage in the scare campaign with alacrity, just like their climate-change-denying comrades. They deserve to go, because Australia deserves so much better. Australia deserves better than the member for Goldstein and all his pretend, fake Liberal colleagues. They deserve a new government that gets the future. (Time expired)

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