Joanne Ryan (Lalor, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise to share with the House an experience I had on Friday evening, when I proudly joined members of the Western Region Environment Centre and members of the Labor Party on the People's Climate March. It was a wonderful event in Melbourne, with 60,000 people coming from all walks of life to put on the record their support for action around climate change. Of course, I was also there proudly wearing red, because Labor is very proud of its announcements around tackling climate change. Fifty per cent renewables by 2030 is one of our targets; the other is zero net carbon pollution by 2050. On this side of the House we are serious about climate change, we accept the science and we intend to act. We are a party with a track record of consultation and negotiation, and we have a leader in Bill Shorten who has a proven record in bringing business, unions, workers and the public together in positive action. He will come up with win-win solutions. We can trust a Shorten Labor government to deliver. On the opposite side, we have the Prime Minister out there today calling our targets 'heroic'—but, without aspirational targets, talk of innovation is empty rhetoric. We want action and we want to reduce the impact of climate change in this country.