Julian Leeser (Berowra, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

It's wonderful to participate in this matter of public importance today. What have we heard from those opposite? We've heard what we always hear from those opposite: lots of finger-wagging! Lots of sanctimony. Lots of finger-wagging and lots of sanctimony but no target, no policies and a lot of confusion.

Labor has been all over the place on the target. They had a 45 per cent target for 2030 which they took to the last election, which was rejected. This week, they voted for the member for Warringah's 60 per cent target, so what is Labor's target? They have announced no target. They always bang on about how we need to take action on climate change, but they have no target and no plan to get there.

By the middle of May next year, Australia will have made a choice between our government, which wants to take action on climate change but which wants to deliver net zero emissions by 2050 with a clear plan to get there—that's what our announcements have been about all of this week—and the Labor Party, which has no clarity on this issue and no plan to get there. What do we know about the Labor Party on this issue? We know they have the idea of the legislated target; it's another thought bubble like the paper vax target, which was Labor's idea to get people to vaccinate themselves, and now we have one of the highest vaccination rates in the world.

Labor has a history on this. As I said, they voted for the 60 per cent target and they've been all over the place. Remember that when they were in government they had the carbon tax, they had the mining tax, they had the CPRS and they had the citizens assembly. Kevin Rudd told us that this issue was the great moral challenge of our time. Well if Kevin Rudd's party were serious about that they would have a plan.

But we know they have a secret plan, based on everything that they've done in the past and based on the fact that they have my friend the member for McMahon as their shadow minister. The member for McMahon was the shadow Treasurer in the last parliament and he brought forward the policy of $387 billion in new taxes on the Australian people. He loves tax, and his way to achieve reductions in emissions will be a tax based policy. We are tech focused and Labor is tax focused, and they always have been.

They don't like technology. Both the member for McMahon and the member for Dobell came and gave us a lecture on the importance of technology. If they like technology, why did they vote seven times in recent days against technology led emissions reduction programs like carbon capture and storage or like hydrogen? If they're going to have the 60 per cent target that they voted for with the member for Warringah, when are they going to tell us how many jobs it will cost, which industries will close, what it will do to electricity prices and what it will do to the regions?

Labor loves to point the finger and loves to play the gesture politics, but Labor has no plan here and the fact that they have no plan will shine through to the Australian people at the next election. By contrast, what is our plan? Our plan, because we are serious about climate change because it is a real and serious issue for our planet and our country, is to have a target of net zero by 2050 and to achieve that through technology, not taxes.

You just need to look at our record. We've beaten our 2020 targets. We are beating our 2030 targets—in fact, we are on track to beat them and to have an emissions reduction of around 35 per cent. While emissions have fallen to 21 per cent, at the same time we've grown our economy by 45 per cent. This is what happens when you have a technology focused approach. We are reducing emissions in this country faster than Japan, faster than Canada, faster than the US and faster than New Zealand. We've done this three times more quickly than the OECD average. If you want results, look to the work of the Morrison government.

Our plan is about technology, not taxes. It's expanding choices, not mandates. It's driving down the cost of new technologies, like what's happened with solar. It's about keeping power prices down. And it's about being accountable for the targets we set. That's why there were announcements made this week in relation to the Productivity Commission's role and the transparency of the Productivity Commission not only looking at the effect on emissions but the effect on the economy more broadly, because this is a great economic opportunity. The $20 billion of investment in technology that will unlock up to $100 billion in private sector investment will help transform our country and our regions and reduce emissions through technologies like soil carbons, like energy storage, like carbon capture and storage, like hydrogen, like low-emission aluminium and like low-emission steel. Our plan is technology focused, our plan is for net zero by 2050, and our plan is credible.

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