Tony Smith (Speaker) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I have received a letter from the honourable member for McMahon proposing that a definite matter of public importance be submitted to the House for discussion, namely:

The Government's failure to act on the globe's climate emergency, which should be Australia's jobs opportunity.

I call upon those honourable members who approve of the proposed discussion to rise in their places.

More than the number of members required by the standing orders having risen in their places—

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

It might be an unusual way to start an MPI, but I note that the Prime Minister recently said some very good things about the jobs opportunity in moving to a renewable-energy economy. He said to the Australian newspaper: 'We want to create new, high-quality jobs, from Perth to Penrith, by signing up to net zero carbon emissions by 2050.' We on this side of the House say, 'Hear, hear!' We're very happy with that. The only bad news is that it wasn't the Prime Minister of Australia who said that; it was the Prime Minister of Great Britain. The Prime Minister of Great Britain gets it—that the world's climate emergency is Australia's jobs opportunity—but the Prime Minister of Australia doesn't get it. The Prime Minister of Australia doesn't understand that this is so important for our economic future, but a lot of other people get it. The entire G7 gets it. Every other developed country in the world is committed to net zero by 2050. Every state and territory in Australia is committed to net zero by 2050. Business gets it. The Business Council of Australia gets it. APPEA, the peak body representing oil and gas in Australia, is committed to net zero by 2050. BHP, 'the Big Australian', is committed to net zero by 2050. Orica, BlueScope Steel, the National Farmers Federation, the Ai Group, Unilever, BP and other key corporate groups, including Telstra and Woolworths, are committed to net zero by 2050. And the Australian people are committed to net zero by 2050. They get it. They understand.

The Prime Minister is in London at the moment. The Prime Minister of Great Britain said he hoped Australia would commit to net zero by 2050 in the lead-up to the summit. Have you seen the footage? The Prime Minister of Great Britain got so frustrated he actually announced, on our behalf, that the Prime Minister of Australia was committed to net zero by 2050. You see the Prime Minister of Australia standing next to him, thinking, 'Where do I go? What do I do?' There's the sound of crickets.

In fact, this government is committed to net zero, but, under the current trajectory of its policies, it will take 145 years to get there. Those opposite are committed to net zero by 2166. That's their big commitment. To be clear: Australia should commit to net zero by 2050 and outline a clear pathway to get there, not because the rest of the world thinks we should—that's not a good enough reason—or because it's our moral obligation, as important a reason as that is, but because it is economically reckless not to do so. The G7 countries and other forums aren't just talking about net zero by 2050; they're also moving towards carbon tariffs for countries that don't have a pathway to get there. There'll be an economic cost for those countries. This government talks about 'technology, not taxes'. Under their regime, we'll have a tax put on us by other countries. There'll be a carbon tax under the government he leads, but it will be put on us by other countries. That's what will happen because of this government's reckless behaviour.

The member for Dawson recently said that net zero emissions equals net zero jobs. That just shows what this government is dealing with. They have people on that side of the House who are holding back ambition and stopping policies which will create jobs. They don't realise that every $10 million invested in renewable energy and energy efficiency creates 75 jobs, which is more than you get from investing in traditional energy generation, at 27 jobs. That's three times the number of jobs, and it's a great export opportunity. Australia is one of the world's largest exporters of energy, and we can continue to be. There's the Sun Cable proposal for the Northern Territory, which will have 24 million solar panels. There's the Asian Renewable Energy Hub in the Pilbara, which is going to create a whole new town in the Pilbara to take the 8,000 workers to staff it. That's where the jobs will be created, in the regions, which have powered Australia for so long. This government likes to say that climate change is an inner-city obsession. No—climate change is the key to a bright economic future for our regions, for the Pilbara and for all of the regions which have powered Australia for so long.

We've seen more of this government's prejudice on display in recent weeks. The Minister for Resources, Water and Northern Australia vetoed an investment in a wind farm because, he said, it didn't have a battery. The problem was that it did have a battery. If he was so concerned about the windfarm proposal, he could have looked it up on the website. He would have found it is a 157-megawatt wind farm with approval for a 100-megawatt battery and a network upgrade. So it had the wind farm, it had the battery and it had the upgrade. That wasn't good enough for the minister for resources, because he's so prejudiced against renewable energy. He's not the only one. The Minister for Energy and Emissions Reduction, who is at the table, has just promulgated a regulation which gives him the power to declare that a technology is low-emission—him; this guy. No, not on our watch. We voted to disallow that regulation and we'll vote in the other place to disallow the regulation. And if those fail, I think the courts might disallow the regulation because he's breached the law, as he does so. This is what we have. We have a minister who tried to legislate the CEFC to invest in non-renewable energy. He couldn't bring that legislation back into the House. We still haven't seen it. Has anybody seen it? He said it was a milestone. It turned out to be a millstone, because it's been 'Barnabied'. We haven't seen it. So he thought he'd sneak around the other way this time and bring down a regulation. That's how determined these guys are.

They are so prejudiced against renewable energy. They've got their lines. We all know the lines. They say, 'The sun doesn't always shine and the wind doesn't always blow,' like they're the only people who've thought of it. It's about as logical as saying, 'The rain doesn't always fall, so we shouldn't drink water. We can't rely on water.' We store water and we can store energy. Part of our community batteries policy is to create 400 community batteries around Australia. It's part of the policy suite that we're rolling out.

Electric vehicles: remember 'they're going to ruin the weekend' and 'they can't tow your boat'? They said that Australians don't deserve the choice. We think Australians do deserve the choice of electric vehicles. That's why we will cut their cost. We believe in technology and tax cuts. That's what we believe in—tax cuts for electric vehicles to make them cheaper. Take the tariff off electric vehicles. Provide an FBT concession for employers to provide their employees with electric vehicles, which will reduce the cost of a Nissan Leaf by $9,000 plus the tariff reduction, which is $2,000. That is up to $11,000 to drive behaviour, encourage electric vehicles and give people the choice. The government says we don't have enough affordable electric vehicles in Australia. I agree. It's because of them, because of their policies, because they don't believe in electric vehicles. This is another part of our policy that we're rolling out together with our rewiring the nation policy, a $20 billion investment. You can have a solar panel on every element of the desert and you can have lots of wind turbines. Unless you've upgraded the grid to get the energy where it's needed, where it's consumed—in the cities—we won't be doing the job. So we'll rewire the nation. That'll create thousands of jobs as we do so, upgrading transmission lines around the country in the regions, which have powered Australia for so long, making sure that we can get that energy out of those regions and into the cities and to export to South-East Asia and Asia more broadly. These are the great job opportunities that we have in Australia which the government simply refuses to grasp.

Of course, there is the rebuilding the nation fund, at $15 billion, with renewable energy at its core as a key priority area, along with some others and renewable energy manufacturing. We as a country in Australia have put 60 million solar panels on roofs in the last 10 years. That sounds impressive, and it is, but it's small compared to what we will put on roofs in the next 10 years. Do you know how many of those solar panels have been made in Australia? A very small number. We can do so much better. There is one solar panel manufacturer in Australia on this government's watch. There can be many more as we build those solar panels to put on roofs.

This is the message that the Labor Party has. In my time as shadow minister I've been to Emerald, I've been to Gladstone twice, I've been to Yallourn power station and to the Latrobe Valley. The message is: we believe in the jobs of the future. I have a message for this government as well about renewable energy. This solar panel is renewable energy. Don't be afraid of it. Don't run away from it. Don't be scared of it!

Llew O'Brien (Wide Bay, National Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The member for McMahon will put the prop down.

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

This is renewable energy. Those opposite have an ideological, pathological fear of renewable energy. There's no word for renewable energy phobia, officially, but that's the malady that affects those opposite. That's the malady that's afflicting the jobs and the towns and industries of this country because of their pathological, ideological opposition to renewable energy being an important part of our sustainable and more-certain energy future. You might have heard those words before, in a slightly different context. They were said by the bloke who's the Prime Minister of Australia, who's missing out on jobs opportunities for Australia.

Angus Taylor (Hume, Liberal Party, Minister for Energy and Emissions Reduction) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I've sat here and endured rot and drivel from those opposite, because they will always take every opportunity to talk down Australia and Australians. They do it all the way through question time, and we've just heard 10 minutes of it. But let me give you the facts, because the facts are a really good starting place and these are facts that Australians can be proud of. Emissions are now at their lowest level since records began in 1990—20.1 per cent below 2005 levels. In 2020 they were more than 100 million tonnes, or just under 20 per cent, lower than forecast by Labor when they left government—with a carbon tax. Let me be clear about this. We took away the carbon tax, and emissions are more than 100 million tonnes lower for 2020 than they forecast. That's an extraordinary outcome and one that all Australians can be proud of. Between 2005 and 2019, Australia's emissions fell faster than in the OECD: faster than Canada's, faster than New Zealand's—indeed, theirs barely budged, when ours are now down by 20.1 per cent—and faster than the United States'. In electricity our emissions fell 5.6 per cent last year alone.

That record low is driven by a record level of deployment in renewables, and we set a new record just last year. Last year alone we saw 7,000 megawatts of solar and wind being constructed—installed—in Australia. That's the equivalent of four large coal-fired power stations, last year alone. That is more than was installed in the whole time Labor was in power over six long years. So in one year we saw more installed than in six long years when Labor was in power, when we saw only 5,600 megawatts, as against 7,000 last year and 6,900 the year before that. So, twice over now, we've beaten Labor's record over their whole six years. And they like to boast about their achievements!

Well, we deliver. Australia deployed renewables eight times as fast as the global per-person average and four times as fast as in Europe or the US. We on this side know there are ultimately only two ways to reduce emissions: technology or taxes, innovation or elimination. Those opposite want taxes and they want elimination. This is a shadow minister who is not committed to technology. He's committed to taxes. He wanted a retiree tax, he wanted a housing tax, he wanted a car tax and now he's decided that since he can't impose a tax himself he's going to ask other countries to do it for him. One way or another, he's seeking to impose taxes on Australians, and he's doing it gleefully. Our approach is technology based. That's why we're driving $80 billion of investment over the next decade through our technology investment road map—160,000 jobs, clean hydrogen, carbon capture, healthier soils, and low-emissions steel and aluminium. These are the things that are really going to drive the next decades of emissions reduction, just as we've seen dramatic reductions in emissions over the past decade.

But we do need to get more horses in the race. We do need to make sure there are as many technologies available for those hard-to-abate sectors as we can possibly get. That means working with our trading and strategic partners. In the past few days we've seen Australia sign agreements as part of more than $560 million committed to technology partnerships. Australia has signed partnerships with Singapore, Germany and Japan, one of our biggest energy customers. We've signed agreements with them to advance technologies that are going to bring down our emissions and bring down emissions across the globe, because we in this country are an energy powerhouse and we can play a leadership role. Our special adviser on low-emissions technology, Dr Alan Finkel, is leading that charge, and he's driving those partnerships that will deliver real and tangible outcomes.

Sadly, those opposite have nothing to contribute but hollow words. The member for Hunter put it beautifully when he said Labor hasn't made a single contribution to reduce emissions in 14 years of trying. That's damning, from their own side—not a single contribution to reduce emissions in 14 years of trying. You only need to look at their efforts in the last 24 hours. Yesterday, under the leadership of the member for McMahon, Labor voted against the creation of 1,400 jobs and $192 million of investment for ARENA. They voted against funding that would see ARENA deliver more electric vehicle charging stations—against supporting carbon capture technologies and supporting efficiencies in heavy industry and in heavy freight. Only yesterday, to take one of those technologies where we see enormous potential, Australia's former Chief Scientist, Alan Finkel, who I mentioned earlier, said this about carbon capture and storage:

The role of CCS … is being promoted by the IEA, the United Nations, the Biden administration: We won't get to net zero without CCS and the companies that can do it and can do it really well are the oil and gas companies of Australia and around the world …

We saw the latest demonstration of Labor's hypocrisy when it comes to energy and emissions policy when they voted against funding for an agency that they established. They will stop at nothing to cosy up to green activists rather than take practical and responsible action. But, yesterday, where was the member for Hunter on that issue? He was absent. He didn't show up because he knows how absurd the member for McMahon's position is. As he rightly put it, it's just bad politics.

The member for McMahon isn't interested in his own climate ambitions. He isn't interested in reducing emissions or creating jobs, seizing trade opportunities or export opportunities. He's not interested in supporting industries like hydrogen. He's not interested in driving down emissions in steel and aluminium. He's not interested in healthier soils. He's not interested in standing up for the interests of blue-collar workers across Australia. No, it's not about his climate ambitions. It's about his personal ambition, because since being sacked as the shadow minister for health—in the middle of a pandemic—he's been reinventing himself as the darling of the Left. He's donned the skivvy and he's become the No.1 ticket holder for Labor Environment Action Network. He's the No. 1 ticket holder. In the last month, he's been a regular on the LEAN speaker circuit. He's been to far more LEAN meetings than he's been to electricity generators. From Canberra to Gippsland, in Parliament House or on Zoom, he's there at the LEAN meetings in his skivvy, late-night tea and biscuits with the same crowd who oppose gas, who oppose oil, who oppose fossil fuels and who want to shut down our resources industry and shut down jobs. That's where he's focused. Don't be fooled, Mr Speaker. He'll say LEAN is a stakeholder he needs to manage, but it's more than that: he thinks he can have a shot at being leader. He thinks he can have a shot at it. Everyone sitting behind him knows it—that that's his ambition. Everyone in the press gallery knows it, and no doubt the Leader of the Opposition knows it as well. This is a man who knows his way around an attempt at a political assassination. He had a go. We all remember that one. He had a go back in the Rudd days. It turns out he can't count how many cylinders there are in his own car, but, I tell you what, he can have a crack at counting the votes when it comes to a political assassination.

We will get on with the job, as we do every day, of delivering emissions reductions as we deliver affordable, reliable energy for all Australians in this great country. We'll do it through technology, not taxes. We're doing it through innovation, not elimination. Those opposite can't help themselves. We know what they want. They want taxes. They want to destroy jobs. We're getting on with the job of creating jobs for Australians, creating opportunities for Australians and bringing down our emissions at the same time.

Pat Conroy (Shortland, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for International Development and the Pacific) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I love it when the Minister for Energy and Emissions Reduction talks about numbers, because the truth is the numbers he usually relies on are in fraudulent documents, like those relating to the City of Sydney. They're the only documents that he's genuinely interested in, and they're the only numbers that he relies on. But let's talk about a couple of numbers from the government's own documents. Their emissions projections reports show that, when Labor was last in government, we cut annual carbon emissions by 87.5 million tonnes. Off the minister goes, because he's afraid he'll actually learn something. I don't think he reads the government's own documents. He's too busy having his office make up other ones. Under Labor, 87.5 million tonnes of emissions, on an annual basis, were cut from our greenhouse gas emissions. Under this government, from 2014 to 2019, it was 22 million tonnes—less than a third of what Labor achieved.

How did they achieve those emissions reductions? This is from their own reports. Principally, it was from the renewable energy target, from Labor's RET, which they tried to abolish three times. Now they're claiming credit for it, such is the chutzpah of this organisation. Secondly, they shut down car manufacturing—that's the second reason emissions fell between 2014 and 2019. Thirdly, it was because of the drought. So the three causes of emissions falling between 2014 and 2019 are Labor's RET, killing the car industry, and the drought. I wouldn't be bragging about that if I were the minister.

The truth is that they did achieve emissions reductions last year. A massive 26 million tonnes was cut from emissions last year. Do you know how they did it? It was by the Morrison recession. If you shrink the economy by 6½ per cent, which is what they did, you cut emissions by 26 million tonnes. A recession led to that.

Llew O'Brien (Wide Bay, National Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The member for Petrie on a point of order?

Pat Conroy (Shortland, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for International Development and the Pacific) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

What?

Luke Howarth (Petrie, Liberal Party, Assistant Minister for Youth and Employment Services) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

First of all, there's parliamentary language, but I would ask that the member opposite refer to the Prime Minister by his correct title.

Pat Conroy (Shortland, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for International Development and the Pacific) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I did refer to the Prime Minister.

Llew O'Brien (Wide Bay, National Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I'll deal with the point of order first.

Mr Conroy interjecting—

You can go to the point of order, but I think I know what you're going to say and I'm going to address it.

Mr Howarth interjecting—

Pat Conroy (Shortland, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for International Development and the Pacific) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I didn't refer to the Prime Minister. I referred to an economic recession.

Llew O'Brien (Wide Bay, National Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Order! I'm going to rule on this. I watch very closely the use of the proper titles of members. The member for Shortland was not referring directly to the Prime Minister. Regularly 'the Morrison government' is used by the government itself, so I'm ruling this in order. But I would also caution those on my left to be mindful of the way they use titles.

Pat Conroy (Shortland, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for International Development and the Pacific) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Thank you, Deputy Speaker. What a moronic intervention from the member opposite.

Llew O'Brien (Wide Bay, National Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The member for Shortland will withdraw.

Pat Conroy (Shortland, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for International Development and the Pacific) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I'm not referring to the member.

Llew O'Brien (Wide Bay, National Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The member will withdraw.

Pat Conroy (Shortland, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for International Development and the Pacific) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I withdraw, but this is the quality we have opposite. No wonder climate policy is so substandard under this government. Those opposite don't even understand the standing orders of this place, let alone climate policy. He's still denying it. This guy is so hopeless. He is so obsessed with his minor debating point; he can't even understand the Deputy Speaker's rulings. No wonder this government is hopeless. No wonder the only way it can cut emissions is by reducing the size of the economy. That is the truth of this. This is in the government's own document. And the sad truth is that, even with claiming credit for the drought, Labor's RET, killing the auto industry, and the Morrison recession, they still don't hit their 2030 target.

In 2030, according to their figures, Australia's emissions will only be 478 million tonnes, still 35 million tonnes above their own target. The government's own papers admit they have failed, and it's because they're divided into two groups. There are the fossils, who deny the science of climate change—like the member for New England—and there are the bedwetters, who can't stand up to them, who can't take action and who are denying the economic opportunities for the future of Australia. They are denying the future. They are destroying the future for the next generation, and they will stand condemned in history. (Time expired)

Luke Howarth (Petrie, Liberal Party, Assistant Minister for Youth and Employment Services) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

That's a terrible contribution from those opposite. They're ignoring the actual facts. Australia invested $7.7 billion in renewable energy just last year, almost $300 per person. As the minister said, Australia's emissions are falling faster than anywhere else in the OECD, including the US, Canada, New Zealand. They're the facts that those opposite conveniently ignore. We know that, yesterday, when the minister was talking about renewables, he said that there was 7,000 megawatts of investment in renewables in the last 12 months alone. We know that one megawatt is enough to power approximately 650 homes, so 7,000 megawatts was enough renewable energy to power over four million homes last year alone. That's more than what Labor did in the six years they were last in office. The facts are that their arguments are completely hollow. They're unfounded, and they don't have a leg to stand on. That's the absolute reality of what the facts show.

A lot of that investment in renewable energy was also in rooftop solar. I want to commend the people of Petrie on their investment in rooftop solar. Almost one in three houses have rooftop solar, some 28,000 homes in Petrie alone. The government is also contributing to that as part of our renewable energy commitment. Recently, we installed renewables at the Redcliffe Surf Life Saving Club. We've also installed renewable energy at the Redcliffe Community Men's Shed and the Aspley Memorial Bowls Club. We've installed it throughout the electorate of Petrie, and I'm very proud of that. Businesses are also playing their part, like Packer Leather in Narangba, who have done a whole lot to help reduce their footprint by installing solar on their roof.

Not only are those opposite ignoring the facts; they're also voting against more jobs in the renewable sector. Yesterday, Labor—every single one of them on that side of the House, and that flows on to their candidates—and the Greens voted against an additional 1,400 jobs in renewable energy. Labor voted against another $192.5 million going to ARENA, the Australian Renewable Energy Agency. How is the $192.5 million that Labor didn't support going to be used? They don't support reducing industrial energy efficiency, because that's what that money was going to be used for. Agricultural trucks, for example, use 53 litres of fuel per 100 kilometres. Rigid trucks use 28 litres of fuel per 100 kilometres. Yesterday, they voted against ARENA's commitment to help support and increase heavy vehicle fuel efficiency and industrial energy efficiency. Packer Leather is an industrial energy user in my electorate, and ARENA would have helped them. Labor voted against it.

Labor also voted against hydrogen fuel. Hydrogen fuel is used in vehicles. It has zero emissions when running. It can be used in passenger cars and buses. It has even been used in space. Labor voted against that. Labor voted against electric vehicle infrastructure too. I'd like to see some more electric vehicle infrastructure on the north side of Brisbane and in Redcliffe. Every single one of those members voted against it yesterday. They also voted against more microgrids throughout Australia. We know that diesel generators play a big part in pushing up emissions. In regional areas, microgrids could have been used in Indigenous communities, in remote communities, by farmers, in shearing sheds, and even locally in Moreton Bay, in places like Moreton Island, Bulwer, Cowan, Kooringal and Tangalooma, a resort just off the north side of Brisbane that uses a lot of diesel generators. ARENA was going to ensure that microgrids had a real part to play in further reducing emissions and helping with climate change. Let it be on the record that every single Labor member opposite voted against that $192.5 million extra. So don't complain if it goes through the Senate and you don't get extra electric vehicle chargers in your electorate. You shouldn't be getting any, if you vote against good policy like that. The fact is that— (Time expired)

Daniel Mulino (Fraser, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

In 2006, Nicholas Stern wrote a report which has formed the intellectual bedrock for what most countries around the world have embraced as a framework for addressing climate change. Nicholas Stern said:

Climate change is a result of the greatest market failure the world has seen.

What he was referring to there, in part, is the fact that carbon pollution imposes negative externalities on our society. That's an economic term for something that has a very commonsense meaning, which is that in a free market people pollute more than they ought to because they don't bear the consequences of that pollution. That's why it is so critical that government action is needed to respond to that.

But what we're dealing with today is the flip side of that, and something which is becoming more and more prominent in climate change debates, which is that not only are there negative externalities from climate pollution but there are positive externalities from action to reduce that pollution. For example, the research and development that goes into clean energy is a positive externality. In a free market, it is underproduced, because the people who invent that technology don't capture all the benefits. So government needs to step in and fund that clean energy research and development. There are often networks—electric vehicle networks, for example—where, again, there are positive externalities. This is critical to this motion, because the government say they are 'for technology', as a cheap throwaway line, but they don't do what is necessary for society to benefit from all the positive externalities that energy, clean technology and clean networks will generate.

What are the three elements that are needed for these positive externalities? Firstly, we need to agree on a destination, on a purpose. What is it we are using technology to achieve? Secondly, we need the right environment for that technology to flourish. Thirdly, we need to put the resources in to create that technology.

What about the destination—something so basic? As many speakers have already outlined, this government can't even get that right. This government refuses to commit to zero net emissions by midcentury, when every economy in the G7 has done so. Time and time again, our leaders—our embarrassing leaders—go overseas to be pariahs yet again at conferences at which countries far and wide across the world have all committed to this destination. We all know that the research and development and the implementation of this complex technology require a long-term perspective. We will never implement or develop this technology if we can't even agree on where we are going. This government may end up committing to zero net emissions, but it will do so on the basis of a timetable for an early election, not on the basis of any genuine belief in the need for action.

What about the need to create an environment where this technology can be developed and implemented? There's no certainty. We don't have the environment we need. There have been 22 policies over the last eight years. It is an absolute disgrace and an absolute disaster. What about the Business Council of Australia? They are hardly rabid socialists and hardly greens. They say:

To create new jobs and lower our carbon emissions we need a laser-like focus on giving business the certainty they need to invest.

What about the International Monetary Fund? Hardly greenies and hardly rabid socialists. They say that Australia's 'energy policy should further reduce uncertainty for investment decisions'. We are talking about orthodox economic policy development and orthodox economic policy implementation. They all say the same thing: you need certainty to underpin the development and implementation of the technology. This government uses it as a cheap, throwaway line but will never implement it in this country. What about that hippy Larry Fink, the CEO of BlackRock? He says:

I have great optimism about the future of capitalism and the future health of the economy – not in spite of the energy transition, but because of it.

This is about the positive externalities. But then he says:

Given how central the energy transition will be to every company's growth prospects, we are asking companies to disclose a plan for how their business model will be compatible with a net zero economy …

Again, this is about a plan, a path forward and a commitment. What about the funding? What about the resources?

We have seen, because of this government's failures, investment in renewable energy projects collapse by more than 50 per cent in the run-up to the COVID crisis, so we're going to snap back to a situation that was a failure, that was a disaster. What about the 2021-22 budget, which created $1 trillion in debt but almost nothing for clean energy? The Clean Energy Council rightly said it was a missed opportunity. This government say they're for technology, but there's no destination, there's no environment and there's no resourcing. It won't happen under them. (Time expired)

Dave Sharma (Wentworth, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

It's a pleasure to talk on this MPI and address the matter that those opposite have raised, of the government's alleged failure to act on addressing the climate emergency. Let's look at our record. The Clean Energy Regulator estimates that last year Australia installed a record 7,000 megawatts of renewable energy capacity. That beats by 11 per cent the figure for 2019 of 6.3 gigawatts or 6,300 megawatts, which was itself a record. It means that one in four Australian households now has solar, one of the highest uptakes in the world. Australia's deployment of wind and solar renewable energy is happening at 10 times the rate of the global average, four times the rate of the US and the EU.

In the first weeks of 2020, well over a year ago, we ticked past 25 gigawatts of wind and solar generation, meaning we're one of only three countries in the world to have more than one kilowatt per capita of renewable energy generation capacity. We've now got more solar capacity per person than any country in the world. We've got more solar and wind capacity than nearly every country in the world, and nearly 40 per cent of this capacity has been installed in the past two years.

The integrated system plan published by the Australian Energy Market Operator, AEMO, predicted renewable energy will supply as much as 90 per cent of the national energy market by 2035. They said in that report:

On certain measures, the rate of change in Australia is the fastest of any country in the world.

What is driving this transition? It's being driven by the affordability and availability of new technology, by consumer appetite and by investor sentiment. The progress here is not linear, it's exponential. We've seen this in the continued fall in our emissions.

In the year to December 2020, our CO2-equivalent emissions were 499 million tonnes. That's five per cent lower or 26.1 million tonnes less than in 2019, the equivalent of taking half our national fleet of light vehicles off the road entirely. It's also 20.1 per cent lower than our 2005 levels, the baseline for our 2030 Paris Agreement target. Those opposite were saying Australia does not stack up well internationally. Let's compare what we've achieved. The OECD's reduction in emissions, across the average OECD over the same period, is nine per cent. New Zealand's is four per cent. Canada's is less than one per cent. The United States' is 10 per cent. Australia's is 20.1 per cent. The G20 over the same period, 2005, increased their emissions on average.

Just this past week the Prime Minister has been engaging with our foreign partners to act on climate. In Singapore, on 10 June, he and Singapore's Prime Minister Lee established a $30-million partnership to accelerate the deployment of low-emissions fuels and technology, such as clean hydrogen, to reduce emissions in maritime and port operations. On 13 June, in the UK, the Prime Minister and Japan's Prime Minister Suga announced the Japan-Australia partnership on decarbonisation through technology, which will provide for lower emission LNG production, transport and use; clean fuel ammonia; clean hydrogen; low-emission steel and iron ore; and carbon capture utilisation and storage. That same week, just a few days ago, with the German leader, Chancellor Merkel, the Prime Minister announced the Australia-Germany partnership initiative on hydrogen, which will, amongst other things, establish the German-Australian Hydrogen Innovation and Technology Incubator, funded with up to A$50 million, and industry-to-industry cooperation on hydrogen hubs. All these agreements, with Germany, with Singapore, with Japan, are part of the government's half-a-billion-dollar commitment to build new international technology partnerships.

The clean energy future for Australia is also, I believe, a bright jobs future. The Australian hydrogen industry could generate more than 8,000 jobs and deliver over $11 billion in additional GDP by 2050. The clean steel and clean aluminium industry could, similarly, generate thousands of new jobs and industries for Australia. But here's the irony: the disallowance motion that those opposite moved yesterday would have prevented ARENA from supporting low-emissions technology. It would have prevented ARENA, the Australian Renewable Energy Agency, from supporting low-emissions technology. It would have prevented ARENA from supporting things like energy efficiency, low-emissions transport on electric vehicles, all forms of clean hydrogen, soil carbon, technologies that reduce emissions from aluminium and steel, carbon capture technologies, including carbon capture and storage.

The Business Council of Australia supports ARENA for doing this. The Australian Industry Greenhouse Network supports ARENA for doing this. The Investor Group on Climate Change supports ARENA for doing this, but not Labor. In the Sydney Morning Herald today there are reports that Rio Tinto was pushing into green aluminium and that the trial was being backed by the federal government with an injection of $600,000 into a trial of technology to help remove emissions from the carbon intensive production process. Well, if Labor had succeeded in passing that disallowance motion yesterday, that trial could not proceed. You cannot, in the same breath, talk about a crisis but not be willing to engage with the solutions.

Susan Templeman (Macquarie, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I don't think I'm the only one in this chamber whose ears prick up when we hear a world leader talking about Penrith. I'm sure the member for Lindsay pays attention too. When we hear about jobs being created by renewable energy projects from Perth to Penrith, that's a great message. We want to see more jobs in Penrith. We certainly want to see them just across the border in my electorate of Macquarie and heading all the way through to Lithgow, which will need to see some really good job creation. Renewable energy will provide enormous opportunities if only we move on it now, if only we get started, instead of continuing a debate about denial. So I'm very grateful to Prime Minister Boris Johnson for his comments. He has nailed it in one.

Business has always known that we need to take strong action in this place to encourage investment in technologies and all sorts of ideas around reducing our carbon emissions. I know this because, before I was here, I worked in the world of investment banking and listed corporates, and for more than a decade there has been a really serious conversation about what was needed from government policy. In around 2010 they were feeling really positive about what they were seeing. Sure, it wasn't all plain sailing, but there was an absolute intent since 2007 which carried through into action by a Labor government to do something that gives certainty to business.

Of course, it was all thrown out the window in 2013. Then I saw big business, investment banks, people who invest all over the world, start to turn away from Australia and look to other places to invest in renewable energy. Here we are in 2021 and we still have business—not unions but business—crying out for action from the mob on the other side on something so fundamental to the future of our own economy and to the role that we play in the global economy.

It is not just a climate emergency; it will become an economic emergency to see action on this. But, as always, this government, these Liberals, will just delay and delay and delay until it finally hits them in the face, and then they will do only just enough or not even enough. And we can't afford that. The facts are that we need to be working in this area now. Seventy per cent of Australia's trade is with countries that are now committed to net zero emissions by mid-century. We are so far behind, and that is going to cost us in GDP and in jobs. It is the biggest economic change that has happened since the Industrial Revolution, and those opposite will continue to deny it. This isn't niche; we've moved on from this being something that just nice people who like the environment are on about. This is hard-headed business people. This is people who care about jobs. And that's where our unions come in. They care about the jobs that their members will have in the future. And they're working hard to develop policy; it's a pity that those on the other side just can't be bothered.

We know that some of our biggest export markets in Europe and the US are either considering or already working on carbon border adjustments, so it will be this government that sees Australia with a carbon tax; it's just that it won't be one that we have any control over, because it will be imposed on us by other countries. We will not be having any sort of control over the sort of future that we have; others will be making those decisions.

In my electorate, people want to see action. My councils both have zero emissions targets by 2050. My community absolutely seizes the opportunity to have solar panels and now they want batteries. We have the capacity here to be manufacturing those batteries—not just mining the minerals but turning them into the batteries that will power our homes, especially in a fragile environment like the Blue Mountains and the Hawkesbury, where we see the effects of climate change in the increasing number of harder and faster storms, floods and fires. My community knows that we need this; the kids in my community know we need this—kids who are involved in action, and I'm with them all the way.

Tim Wilson (Goldstein, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Down, down, emissions are down, under this government. You just need to look at the most recent National Greenhouse and Energy Reporting scheme inventory, which shows very clearly that since 2005, on the December quarter of last year, emissions are now down by 20.1 per cent. This comes as a complete fiction to the members of the opposition, who want to ignore the practical reality. We met and beat our Kyoto targets. We're meeting and will beat our Paris targets. And we are laying the foundation for further emission cuts as part of a transition to build Australia's economic future while reducing our greenhouse gas emissions and achieving the decoupling we need in order to make sure we can have sustainable jobs for future generations. The big difference between those on this side of the chamber and those on the other side is that we want to create the opportunities for the next generation of Australians so that they can have a job—so that we can provide security today and opportunity for tomorrow.

That is the approach the Morrison government has been taking every step of the way, because we see the enormous potential to transition the economy and utilise the power of technology. That's the foundation of how we've always seen productivity and economic opportunity. That's why we have a plan that is anchored in technology. And the great thing is that the Australian people back us every step of the way. We took a plan to the last election to put technology before taxes, and they backed us. Research that's come out overnight says that Australians back technology over taxes. That has been the fundamental problem that members of the opposition have, at every point, struggled to get over. They see the debate around climate change not as one about how we build the strength of the country. They have used it as a pursuit to drive their ideological madness, where they use their interests, their issues, as a vehicle to drive what they want to do, which is to concentrate economic power in the hands of the few and to empower the parliament to dictate to business, to industry and to workers in Australia—through taxes and higher regulation measures—how they should live their lives.

We will stand up against it every step of the way, because we believe in the power of Australians to take responsibility. The success of this country doesn't come from Canberra down; it comes from families, citizens and communities taking responsibility. I note that the member who spoke before me talked about how her council was taking responsibility. Well, good on them, because they're enabling the potential to transition, understanding that responsibility begins at home. In the Goldstein electorate, the city of Bayside has taken exactly the same plan. So has the city of Glen Eira. But the critical difference between what the city of Bayside and the city of Glen Eira have done, versus members of the Labor Party, is that they actually have a plan; they're actually implementing measures and have a clear pathway for how they're going to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, not impose higher costs on households, and of course make sure that the next generation of Australians have sustainable jobs and a sustainable environment.

The plan of the Labor Party is to use the position in emergencies as a basis to impose greater taxes, greater regulations. At the last election they tried to do the same, and they found themselves in a very difficult position, because they were saying one thing in Melbourne and another thing up in Macarthur. They were saying different things all over the country, because the basis of their policy is that they just want to tell people what they want to hear, rather than standing for things because they're right and because they understand the growth of the economy and the opportunity that we can build for this nation. We saw that in this parliament just yesterday, where there were motions to disallow decisions made around ARENA, the Australian Renewable Energy Agency.

This parliament decided to reject Labor's plan, because it wanted to undermine more investment in Australian innovation and Australian lower carbon and renewable technologies. Those opposite wanted to undermine investment in EV and hydrogen charging stations. They keep going on about how they want more EVs on the road but they want to suffocate the pathway to get them power. They want stranded assets all over the country in the driveways of the nation. I mean, it's farcical, to be honest. And they wanted to deny investment in energy-efficient and competitive heavy industry. If you understand the challenge of climate change, investing in transportable energy is a critical part of that conversation.

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

For the information of the member for Goldstein, we on this side are quite pleased not to have you standing up for us, absolutely pleased about it, because the member for Goldstein represents the global laggards that are the Morrison government. We have seen this writ large this week at the G7, have we not? We saw Prime Minister Boris Johnson—not our Prime Minister, for those at home, but the British Prime Minister—say in the lead-up to the G7 he was hoping to see a positive announcement from Australia regarding net zero by 2050. He waited and he waited and then eventually he said, 'I will make the commitment for them,' and he did. Our Prime Minister didn't see fit to correct him. He didn't see fit to say, 'Sorry, Boris, we haven't done that. The folks at home on my side of the Australian parliament, they're not up for that.'

But we had some good news. Senator McKenzie, as she does so well, outed not just the federal government but the Nats as well. She outed them both when she made the position very clear. She said the National Party, as the second party in this coalition government, has not signed up to net zero anything at any time. So it is never, as far as the good senator is concerned. We've sat here—it's been question time—and have had the Deputy Prime Minister being the Acting Prime Minister across the week. He has talked a lot this week about baristas, coffees. He's been trivialising this important debate. He's been selling out our future here at home.

Today we have had lots of talk about the UK FTA. Well, as a member of the last Australian parliamentary delegation, pre-COVID, to go to the EU, I can tell you that, when we went to the EU, there was a lot of talk about an FTA with the European Union. There was a lot of talk. There was also a lot of talk from the EU about what they would require of Australia in terms of a zero-emissions target by 2050 as part of that FTA. So it's not surprising there's a lot of celebration about getting a UK FTA while not delivering, not doing the things we need to secure the much bigger market.

Let's look at that market. The EU has a $15 trillion GDP and a population of 475 million. The UK has a $2.9 trillion GDP and a population of 66 million. Now, what would be our priority in signing up to an FTA, do you think? Where do you think the biggest market is? Where would we get the best bang for our buck? Where would we get the best deal? Well, just think, maybe it might have been the EU FTA, but this government are holding us back. They're holding us back because they can't come to terms with the economic reality that climate change is delivering the biggest economic change since the industrial revolution. They can't grasp it, so we're missing out left, right and centre. Where are we? We're sitting on the bench in the game of the century; that's where we are. I know the member for Nicholls hated sitting on the bench but here he is sitting on the bench. The game of the century is going on in front of us, and we're sitting on the bench. We're not going to get back in the game.

We are not going back into this game. We know that some of our biggest export markets, Europe and the US, are either considering or already developing carbon border adjustments. These are tariffs on exports, and countries that fail to meet minimums in decarbonisation will be taxed. This country will pay tax to others to be part of what we now consider some of our largest trading partners. Taxes—there will be a price on carbon in this country. They will deliver it. After all the angst and all of the rage, we will pay a price on carbon. Deloittes estimates that unchecked climate change will cost Australia over $1 trillion by 2050 and over $3 trillion by 2070. That will cost over 300,000 jobs by 2050 and almost a million jobs by 2070.

What should the government be doing? They should be making commitments to the future. They should be building good jobs in this country. They're missing the boat because they're stubborn, they're wilful and they can never say they were wrong. They're failing Australians, they're failing the next generation of Australians and they're failing the people of my electorate of Lalor.

Damian Drum (Nicholls, National Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

This is an amazing debate in Australia today where the two extremes of this debate seem to want to hijack the normal common debate around where we take our power source into the future. All Australians want to have a greener future. We all want to have a cleaner atmosphere. We want to have less emissions, but we need to do it in a way that does not leave our fellow Australians behind. We need to talk about the transition period. We need to talk about a way to transition sources. We need to have a genuine, open and honest conversation about the use of gas as we start to walk away from coal. We need to be able to talk to coal workers and say, 'Your job is secure for the next 20 years, but you might not have a job for your children in the coal industry.' We need to find the middle ground in this debate. We need to talk about how we are going to transition our economy without leaving our people behind.

We also need to talk honestly about where Australia sits at the moment in relation to rooftop solar. We never hear the doomsayers from the other side or from the ABC say that Australia is leading the world when it comes to rooftop solar. On a pro rata basis, we are on top of the world, the best country in the world, and we're so far on top that if you add the second and third countries together they still don't get to where we are. But we never hear this. We never hear about the incredible success that Australia is having with rooftop solar.

If you want to throw in wind energy as well, we are still the top country in the world pro rata when it comes to wind and solar. Yet we never hear this. The other side keeps bellowing out the fact that we're not enough. Go back to a couple of years ago, and the only criticism they had of us was that we were going to use clever accounting to meet our Paris commitments. Well, now we're not. Now we're 20 per cent below. We are chasing 26 to 28 per cent on 2005 levels and we're sitting at 20.1. It looks like we're going to get there in a canter. But now they're saying that's not enough. The commentary keeps changing to make sure that somehow or other we can keep talking Australia down. It is just the most ridiculous concept.

To think that we're going to be lectured to by all these European countries who use nuclear as a 20 per cent base for all of their energy needs. Give me a break. If we had 20 per cent nuclear, we could step right out of coal. We could have anything we want. But of course we need this balance in our power source because we don't have nuclear. We need this dispatchable power so we can turn the lights on, run our manufacturing industries and run all of our businesses when we need to run them. Obviously, we have a very delicate mix at the moment, and AEMO will tell you all that it's very dicey. Several times a month we nearly go into that blackout stage, and it's only because we have too much intermittent energy in the mix and we need to be careful about the balance.

This is not about being luddites that just refuse to move with the times. We simply need dispatchable power in our grid, in our system, and we need to be able to transition across to these intermittent renewable energy sources. We need to transition across in a careful, considered and measured way and not leave our businesses and our people behind. This is a real risk that we don't talk about often enough.

Australia has done so much better than so many countries in recent times. Our targets toward 2030 are going better than Germany, France, Canada, New Zealand and Japan. Between 2005 and 2019, our emissions fell faster than those of Canada, Japan, the United States and New Zealand, and yet these countries somehow or other want to lecture us about not doing enough. It simply doesn't make any sense. And there's the conversation around batteries. Batteries will be the answer, batteries are going to have a significant role in the way we can deliver dispatchable power, but the technology isn't there yet. So let's get behind the battery sources and let's invest in them. Let's invest in hydrogen, which the government is doing in a balanced and measured way. This is something we don't need to be locking horns on. We are roughly all on the same page, except that we have an opposition that just wants to try and pick holes wherever it can. (Time expired)

Llew O'Brien (Wide Bay, National Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The discussion has concluded.