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

I thank the honourable member for his question, and I thank him for the opportunity to talk about everything this government has done over the past 15 months in relation to acting on climate change after 10 years of denial and delay. The honourable member quotes the IEA. The IEA is a very important organisation. If the honourable member is going to quote the IEA—and he's quite entitled to do that—he should quote the IEA in full: all their views about all things, including carbon capture and storage, for example, which is not I think a view the honourable member shares, and he would not quote the IEA in that regard.

In relation to climate change, I'm very proud of the fact that this government has finally given Australia a climate change act with a significant increase in the targets. I'm very proud of the fact that we brought the Climate Change Authority back, to give independent advice to the government of the day, as it should, in a transparent way. I'm very proud of the fact that we've changed the objectives of the CFC and Arena and so many other government organisations to actually finally put us on track for net zero emissions. I'm very proud of the fact that we've funded $20 billion in Rewiring the Nation to upgrade our energy grid, because there's no transition without transmission. I'm very proud of the fact that we're improving, including today, community engagement on that transmission. I'm very proud of that fact. There may be things the honourable member doesn't support.

See this speech in context