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

I thank the honourable member for Corangamite for her question and thank her for her advocacy on climate action, both directly to me and more broadly, over a long period of time. Today is a good day for our country. It's a good day for our parliament, it's a good day for our economy and it's a good day for our future because, today, it's become clear that the Albanese government's climate bill will pass both houses of parliament.

For a decade, the Australian people have watched this parliament and shaken their heads in frustration at the lack of action on climate change, and today we say, 'No more.' Today, the Australian parliament says, 'We have a government that gets it and a parliament that gets it.' Today, parliamentarians of goodwill and good faith have come together to do something good for our country. The member for Corangamite asks what this means for everyday Australians. What it means is investment. It means investment in the cheapest form of energy, in job-creating energy. I recognise that not everybody gets it, but enough people in this parliament get it to make this a reality.

I have a particular message for the people of regional Australia, who've powered Australia for so long. The people of the Hunter Valley, the people of the Illawarra, the people of the Pilbara, the people of Collie-Bunbury, the people of Portland and the Latrobe Valley: workers there have powered Australia for so long, giving us the energy we need for our economy. They will continue to do so as we turn Australia into a renewable energy powerhouse and as we turn Australia into a renewable export economy, creating good jobs for the future. That's what the Albanese government will do.

We've said consistently, 'Sure, this legislation is not essential for our agenda and we can get on with the things that we want to do, but this legislation is vital for investment.' You would have thought the so-called party of free enterprise would like investment in energy generation. You would have thought the so-called party of certainty for business would like a certain investment framework, but this party, which gave Australia 22 energy policies over a decade and couldn't land one, doesn't want to land another one now, even from opposition.

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