Kristy McBain (Eden-Monaro, Australian Labor Party, Minister for Regional Development, Local Government and Territories) Share this | Hansard source

The Albanese government has to make decisions in accordance with the facts, in accordance with the national environmental law. That's what happens on each and every project and that's what's happened right here. The government will continue to consider each project on a case-by-case basis under the law.

This project primarily contributes domestic gas supply to households and to Australian manufacturing, including for glass, for brick, for cement and for food packaging. The approval comes with conditions which protect nature, including strict limits on habitat loss. Under Labor, we've already seen a 25 per cent increase in renewable energy into our grid. We are ticking off renewable energy projects at record rates, outstripping coal and gas projects seven to one, and we have record numbers of renewable energy projects in the approval pipeline. The government has green-lit 54 renewable projects in just over two years, enough to power more than three million Australian homes. Those renewable energy projects will give us more electricity in the two years that we've been in office than the opposition leader's large nuclear reactors would hope to produce, if they were ever built.

If the Greens were anywhere near serious and if they were being pragmatic instead of standing up and protesting, they would have said more about the opposition leader's nuclear plan. We've had one tweet from the Leader of the Greens about nuclear energy. But, instead, we see things like this—the continual performative politics that we see over and over again from the Greens. It's not pragmatic. It's not dealing with the issues at hand; instead, it's more of this performative politics. We are serious about making changes to our energy transition, which why we green-lit 54 renewable energy projects, outstripping coal and gas seven to one. The facts speak for themselves. We have a government here doing more about climate action than ever before. In the last decade, we've seen nothing but delay and denial, agreed to by the Greens political party.

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