Tania Lawrence (Hasluck, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

I've been happy to see the steadfast commitment of the government to our future prosperity in the transition to a green economy. The budget delivered by the Treasurer just a fortnight ago was a budget aimed squarely at meeting the cost-of-living challenges faced by Australian families today while at the same time preparing our country for the significant challenges of the future. The government's Future Made in Australia policy framework, which brings together the government's commitment to engage fully in the opportunities that the green energy transition presents, is a vision for the economic future of our country. It draws a clear line between the ambitious and realistic plans of this government and the lack of understanding and commitment demonstrated by the other parties in this parliament.

The Albanese Labor government's Future Gas Strategy is a critical piece of our government's plan not just to decarbonise our economy but also to seize the opportunities presented to us and to become a global green energy superpower. It's a lofty vision for our country: to transform our industries and economy to ones that produces the green energy to power Australia, Asia and beyond—to provide generations of Australians with secure and meaningful careers in order for us to be a global leader in the race to net zero. And it is a race. Not since the development of the iron ore industry or the opening of the North West Shelf—industries that then became the engine of the Australian economy for so many decades—have we so needed the political leadership and vision that we now have with Prime Minister Anthony Albanese and the cabinet. This is what a Future Made in Australia looks like, and it is important that the Future Gas Strategy announced by Minister Madeleine King this month is understood in this context.

In the context of our ambitious plans to seize and harness these green energy opportunities, we must maintain reliable power for our homes and for our industries. We are building a Future Made in Australia, where we travel to a net zero emissions future at a ferocious pace. It's never an option to do nothing when faced with a crisis, and it was never an option to do nothing in the face of climate emergency. Nor is it an option to throw up our hands and leave the hard work of managing this orderly transition to those who do not have our country's best interests at heart.

There's going to be an election in about a year from now. Australians who understand that there's a climate emergency facing not just us but the whole world will have choices to make. They won't be able to support the coalition, whose party rooms are themselves divided on the very question of climate change so that they are unable to produce any coherent policy around either emissions or our energy future. And, if the voters drill down into the lazy criticisms by the Greens that the transitions need to be faster or into their simplistic slogans about no new energy, they'll soon find that the Greens' policies are just as unhelpful as those of the coalition. The Liberals and Nationals would have us fail to have an orderly transition by doing too little too late. The Greens would have us fail by doing everything so badly that it would fall in a heap. Minister Bowen describes it well when he says we have a realistic and ambitious set of goals and we have the policies needed to get us there. Government is about hard work.

Through the net-zero ambition and its adoption across the globe, we can appreciate the urgency and necessity of this transition and how the Future Gas Strategy aligns with these goals. Net-zero emissions have become the central focus not just for the Albanese Labor government but for a great many developed economies around the world in the fight to reduce the prevalence of greenhouse gases in our atmosphere. The Paris Agreement in 2015 emphasised that, in the goal of limiting global warming to below two degrees and pursuing efforts to limit it to 1½ degrees, net zero is a crucial metric for assessing mitigation efforts and holding parties accountable. The strategy creates a road map for the gas sector to innovate and reduce its carbon footprint. This is not just a lofty goal but a necessary step for Australia to take its place among the leaders in global environmental responsibility. For the first time ever, an Australian government has a strategy for gas. For the first time, we have a government who is willing to speak clearly to Australian people and to provide them with the data, the modelling and the information to understand both the role of gas in our current energy mix and the plan for winding its use down as new technologies such as green hydrogen take over. The strategy establishes the role gas will play in the transition to net zero by 2050 and the need to secure affordable gas for Australia as we move to a renewable grid and to confirm our commitment as a reliable trading partner.

The coal is retiring. That is clear. We are well on our way to being able to reach our target of 82 per cent renewable energy by 2030, a difficult and ambitious goal but a realistic goal. We are ticking off more renewable energy than ever before. Minister Plibersek recently approved a new solar farm and battery storage system in Queensland. It will generate enough energy to power 300,000 Queensland homes, reducing greenhouse gas emissions by up to 1.4 million tonnes per annum, the equivalent of taking 450,000 passenger cars off the road for a year. Since we came to office, there's been a 25 per cent increase in renewables in the national energy market, and this has driven both total emissions and emissions intensity to all-time-record lows. We have signed off on 47 renewable energy projects, enough to power three million homes, with around another 140 projects still be progressed down the pipeline.

In the latest budget, the Treasurer laid down clear markers, indicating to industry that our government is keen to accelerate the commercial viability of green hydrogen and the downstream processing of critical minerals required for battery manufacturing. But that technology is not here yet. So, as we work to ensure the green energy and tech of tomorrow happen as quickly as possible, we do need the gas to continue keep the lights on and produce that energy required for manufacturing and industry. The reality is that gas plays a crucial role in Australia's energy mix, providing a reliable, affordable and flexible source of power generation. Unlike coal, gas plants can be effectively and efficiently turned off and on when demand exceeds the current capacity of renewables in the grid.

The gas sector also employs around 20,000 people across the country, including in remote and regional communities. I know there are thousands of people in my electorate who are employed directly and indirectly by the gas industry, and the incessant demonisation of the sector places an unfair and undue stress on these workers and their families, including their kids. We know that a net-zero future means far less gas circulating through our system, and I have stated consistently that it is a future we are working towards. However, deriding the industry and calling for it to end today does no-one any good. That is why we have a plan and a strategy to provide certainty to working Australians in the short term and to provide them and their children with a vision of the jobs worth training for and aspiring towards in a green energy future. That's why we're introducing the Net Zero Economy Authority to ensure that communities in the regions don't get left behind in the transition but instead reap the rewards of the inevitable changes to come in an orderly and planned way.

A Future Made in Australia is not just a slogan; it is a transformational policy that promises a brighter tomorrow for each of us. It's the type of visionary policy that you will see from only a Labor government. It is the type of future building policy that actually inspired me to run and stand for office, because it matters. It matters very much to many in my electorate of Hasluck, because Hasluck is representative of many parts of Australia. It's part peri-urban, part old, established riverside suburbs and part mortgage belt. It's an electorate with a good mix of industries and trades. The workers and families of Hasluck appreciate the certainty that the government's policies bring in relation to energy security and an orderly transition for change. The 14,000 technicians and trade workers appreciate it. The 7,000 machinery operators and drivers appreciate it, and the 3,000-odd FIFO workers in Hasluck appreciate it, but it's also the tens of thousands of workers across the country and their generations who will appreciate the vision that the Albanese Labor government has for this country.

See this speech in context