Sharon Claydon (Newcastle, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

It's always a matter of interest to follow the member for New England in this chamber. I don't think that he will be surprised when I suggest that no-one in Australia is going to be shocked by the news that the member for New England is sceptical about Labor's climate change policy, because he was part of the problem. He actually was the Deputy Prime Minister and part of the problem. There were nine years of utter wasted time and wasted opportunity in this nation.

It is with pleasure that I get to stand in this chamber of the Australian parliament this evening to speak on Labor's Climate Change Bill 2022, because this is the first real climate action bill in years that this parliament has seen. It's a bill that we're actually going to get to vote on. It is a first step in implementing the Albanese government's mandate and the policy, Powering Australia, that we took to the election. Australia has been crying out for action on climate change, and on 21 May the Australian people voted for change. They rejected the Morrison-Joyce government's refusal to take action on climate change, the blatant disregard for science and the brutal climate wars that prevented any real action on climate change for more than a decade.

My electorate of Newcastle knows probably better than most the importance not only of reaching net zero by 2050 but of diversifying and strengthening our economic base with renewable energy. The member for New England suggested that only members like his good self might, perhaps, understand the real impacts of these changes. Well, I've got to tell you that the people of Newcastle, the world's largest exporting port for coal, have a lot of skin in this game. But, unlike the member for New England, we're not putting our head in the sand and pretending there's no issue here. We're not rejecting the science. We are not rejecting the very clear fact that renewables are now the cheapest form of energy in this nation.

The Labor government's Powering Australia plan will deliver on our commitment to ensure that not only are there 600,000 new jobs in this new energy space but also that five out of every six of those new jobs are going to be in regions like mine that are currently carbon-intensive economies. It's regions like mine that have always been at the heart of energy generation and distribution in this nation, and we want to be at the heart of energy generation and distribution for generations to come.

It's an Albanese Labor government that is going to ensure that we have the opportunity to transform Newcastle into a renewable energy superpower. That is our future. We want to create safe, secure jobs. We want to cut power prices for our constituents, for families and for people who are currently paying through the nose for their energy in this country, and we want to reduce emissions in the process. That's why Labor's plan is to boost the percentage of renewables going into the grid by 82 per cent by 2030. We've already this week introduced into this parliament legislation to make electric vehicles cheaper, honouring another promise we made to the Australian people. We're set to install 400 community batteries and roll out 85 solar banks across Australia. That's because we don't want only the good homeowners of Australia to have access to cheap, affordable renewable energies; we actually want to benefit every Australian, including those who are in rentals who currently can't afford to get a foothold in the housing market. Why should they not benefit from cheaper, affordable renewable energy?

Our government is mindful that we want all Australians to be able to take part in these renewable energy innovations and in the distribution of renewable energy across Australia. The people of Newcastle are absolutely ecstatic that there is finally a line being drawn in the sand to put an end to these bitter, destructive climate wars that have stopped action for the last decade. They know that it's time that we start the really serious work and, indeed, the heavy lifting of transforming our economies. The worst thing in the world to do to communities like mine is to pretend that there is nothing going on here: 'You can all just keep going. It's tickety-boo. Just keep doing what you're doing.' Then one day a decision is made in a boardroom far across the other side of the world which has profound impacts for communities like mine, which then means that we don't have a plan B in place, and we leave thousands of workers and their families hanging out to dry. That is not the Labor way; that is not what a Labor government will be doing.

Novocastrians, just like the business community and just like industry groups, know there is some hard, serious work to be done, and we want to take advantage of the opportunities that are going to come to regions like ours. We've got the highly skilled workforce. We've been generating power for more than a century. The workers in my electorate know more about power than anybody in this room, I can assure you. There's a highly skilled workforce, important key infrastructure in place and access to an electricity grid that is going to be vital in the transitioning of this nation.

Offshore wind, utilising the new technology of floating turbines, is fast becoming a reality in Australia. I congratulate members opposite for putting up legislation during the last parliament, which we wholeheartedly supported, to ensure that we can actually have offshore wind in Australia. We are now going to make that a reality. It is regions like mine that stand to benefit enormously from those new opportunities. We are poised to be a prime location not just for the production of wind energy but also for the important manufacturing and fabrication of those wind turbines and for lots of wind projects across the country. That's the vision I have for Newcastle.

Newcastle and the Hunter is also rapidly becoming the centre of green hydrogen. There a lot of projects on the horizon. The Albanese Labor government is partnering with the University of Newcastle to invest $16 million in building a new facility that will invent and test solutions to a whole range of global challenges when it comes to the use of hydrogen and the many new energy technologies that are coming online. The skills, techniques and technologies developed by this project at the university will enable local industry—including hydrogen investments at the Port of Newcastle, for example—to reach their full potential. There has been a lot of thinking as to what will be required and what industry is going to need in terms of a skilled workforce but also the places to test out, accredit and ensure safety in the use of these new energy technologies.

We are not blind to the challenges ahead; we are preparing for them. There are two green hydrogen projects set for Newcastle that the federal Labor government are going to be funding—$41 million each. One is with Origin and one is with the Port of Newcastle. I cannot wait to see them come online. It makes sense for our port to play a substantial role in Australia's bid to become a significant exporter of renewable energies.

In this limited time, I think it's important to remind the House that the Australian people had the opportunity to vote to end the climate wars, and that's what they did on 21 May for the first time in a decade. Now it's up to the Australian parliament to do the same.

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