Zoe Daniel (Goldstein, Independent) Share this | Hansard source

The member for Newcastle is right when she says this is an immense job. The scale of it must be acknowledged, but so must the urgency. In a bid to make up for lost time and the competition for investment provoked by President Biden's massive Inflation Reduction Act, the budget bet more than $22 billion to try to get Australia deeper into the clean tech race. The Net Zero Economy Authority is another piece of the process, as we try to make up for lost time. What we know is that if we're going to succeed, communities affected by the forthcoming transformation of the economy must be brought along with the rest of us. What we also know is that unless affected communities are treated with dignity and respect, the entire shift to a cleaner, greener future could be put at risk. We're already suffering because of the re-weaponisation of action on climate change.

Many Australians will remember Al Gore's 2006 documentary An Inconvenient Truth as one of the first moments when the enormity of the climate change challenge began to sink in. These early national policy debates set in motion what would become a dominant theme in Australian politics for the ensuing two decades, and the climate wars have been, and unfortunately remain, among the most divisive fault lines in our nation's political history.

In 2022, the Prime Minister was sworn into office in part on his pledge to end these wars, and, as I said earlier, the Net Zero Economy Authority is one such piece of the process to get on with the job of mitigating climate risk and addressing climate impact. It represents a step in the right policy direction, and it should certainly become a standalone statutory authority. The proposed arrangement is a solid foundation towards a just transition in Australia, but it's just that—a foundation. More can be done now to soften the impact of fossil fuel industrial closure and to pre-emptively prepare an uncertain workforce for this transition. Workers deserve certainty and so does business.

I support the member for Indi's amendments to expand the authority's remit to cover the gamut of affected industries. Once established as a statutory authority, its advice will continue to provide strategic direction to future governments on issues related to cultivating efficient public-private investment and support for a fossil fuel workforce transition. Given the influential powers which the authority's prospective CEO would wield in applying to the Fair Work Commission for a community-of-interest determination, the CEO office holder should be appointed other than by ministerial direction. Australians know all too well the dramatic climate policy shifts which have occurred following a change of government or unpredictable global circumstances. Australia's renewable transition should be sheltered from politics and the day-to-day culture war that often fuels it.

The government's approach to transitioning to net zero is based on a six-sector strategy. As it stands, substance has only been provided for just one of these six—agriculture. Business is attracted to certainty, but the level of policy detail released by the government on our net zero transition is insufficient to provide this. This makes it difficult as Australia considers the net zero transition as a national mission, and that requires deeply entrenched social licence. Broad coordination across government, industry, academia and education is essential to not only achieving our net zero transition targets but ensuring that our country is better off for it and that people understand it. We should help all Australians understand the sense of urgent purpose in this mission, from a fresh chemical engineering graduate to a woman involved in solar panel installation, to corporate CEOs and school students of all ages.

A capable, resilient and specialised domestic workforce is required to support maintenance of this transition and this new renewable energy network. Right now government could provide, for example, electrical apprenticeship training and supervised job placements necessary to build the capable workforces that we need. It would be a start if the Commonwealth coordinated an approach which sees regions sharing in these benefits. In fact they must if we're to cultivate the genuine social licence for regional communities living in the vicinity of renewable energy facilities such as solar and wind. Right now, better community outcomes like lower energy prices, expanded community services and new local infrastructure could be delivered for these residents.

When it comes to climate change more broadly, I think it's fair to say that members of the Goldstein community that I meet, and there are many of them, are somewhat confused about the approach of this government. At the 2022 election they thought they were getting a government which took the issue seriously, but when they hear of the recent decision of the government to lock in a significant dependence on gas until at least 2050, they do wonder whether Labor really is serious because, on the face of it, that announcement is bad news for all of us working for a cleaner, greener future.

By contrast, this legislation is a step in the right direction. I will support this legislation and, in doing so, I encourage the government to remain future focused rather than to be focused on the past.

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