Susan Templeman (Macquarie, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

When my home and 200 others burnt down in a bushfire in the Blue Mountains in 2013, it took a European camera crew to ask the question, 'Do you think this is the result of climate change?' That's nearly a decade ago, and I responded by saying that the conditions we'd seen were exactly what scientists had been warning of for several decades. Climate change didn't start the fire, but it sure fed the flames and turned it into a disaster for the entire community. More frequent and intense droughts, storms, and heatwaves—more dangerous weather events—have wreaked havoc on people's livelihoods and communities. These are all the things that had been predicted. Now, in my community, we are living them.

The electorate of Macquarie, with the Blue Mountains and the Hawkesbury, are among the most disaster-prone places in Australia. The most recent flood, the fourth natural disaster in a little over two years, has left people feeling exhausted and hopeless about their ability to recover. Don't even ask about the cost or availability of insurance. My community is already paying the price in many ways. We're living the consequences of the serious failure of governments to take long-term action to limit climate change. It's been heartbreaking to sit on the other side of this chamber for six years and see the failure of the previous government who, for nine years and with such bloody-mindedness, refused to act on this issue.

So I am very proud to be standing here in only our second week of parliament debating one of the most important pieces of legislation that this parliament will deal with. We are taking swift action to legislate on the commitment that we made to the Australian people—and the commitment that I made to the people of Macquarie.

There are four key elements in this climate change legislation. The first is that we're enshrining in law the 43 per cent emissions reduction target by 2030 and setting the net zero target for 2050. We are one of the highest greenhouse gas emitters in the world per capita. It is a great achievement for us to say, 'This is our target.' It is wonderful to have the minister here in the chamber who has done so much work in being pragmatic but ambitious with this target.

The 43 per cent target isn't the result of us sitting down and saying, 'Hey, let's pick a number; let's just randomly pick a number that people might like the sound of.' This is the result of saying: 'What are the things we know we could do? What are the things the previous government could have done but didn't, and where would that get us?' The modelling shows that we can get to 43 per cent. But, of course, it isn't a ceiling on our ambition; it's a floor. I look forward to us achieving that 43 per cent and then saying, 'What next?'

I think people are surprised when we say we're going to have 82 per cent of our power generated by renewables by 2030. That is a big number. Increasing the uptake of electric vehicles by making them cheaper for people is the purpose of another piece of legislation that's before this parliament. These are the practical things that we are doing. Quite frankly, they could have been done in previous years. We are very proud on this side that we're the ones who did this and that Labor has come with this bill.

The second element in this legislation is about the Climate Change Authority and once again allowing them to be the independent expert adviser on Australia's progress against our targets and having open and transparent publishing about it. What a revelation that's going to be!

The third step is that our Minister for Climate Change and Energy will report annually to the parliament on the progress and how we're going meeting the targets—again, a measure of accountability, something we are not afraid of on this side of the House.

Fourthly, the bill inserts the emission reduction targets in the objectives and functions of the organisations that are government agencies so that people like Infrastructure Australia have to think about our targets. As for ARENA, the bill will make sure ARENA does what it was created to do, and that is to foster renewable energy.

It's been heartening in many speeches during the debate today to hear the goodwill of much of the crossbench and what they're bringing to the chamber on this legislation. I think it's great to see the support for our Labor bill. This legislation can end the climate wars. It is ending the climate wars at one level, and it can continue to do that provided there is goodwill from the crossbench.

What is really key about this, though, is that it brings so many opportunities. We can continue to rebuild our relationship with our Pacific neighbours, for whom climate change is the biggest threat to their homes. We can hold our heads high again internationally rather than being a climate pariah. We have jobs opportunities. We have investment coming in, and we're looking at five out of six of those hundreds of thousands of jobs in renewables being created in the regions. These are the exciting things that transform our economy.

At a local level, I'm delighted that we're going to have community batteries in both the Blue Mountains and the Hawkesbury. These are the things that change the country. They change the world for future generations. They give them hope, and I've got to tell you: the electorate of Macquarie needs to have a sense of hope as we get smashed by disaster after disaster. The climate bills are among the very first things that we have brought to this parliament and debated in this parliament. We take climate change seriously, and this shows we're prepared to act.

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