Fiona Martin (Reid, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

My question is to the Minister for Energy and Emissions Reduction. Will the minister outline to the House how the Morrison government is focused on technology, not taxes, to reduce emissions? Is the minister aware of any approaches standing in the way of this?

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

I thank the member for Reid for her question. She knows, as we all do on this side of the House, that the way to reduce emissions is through technology, not taxation, and through innovation, not elimination. That's our focus. That's why we're investing in our technology investment road map—with $20 billion, driving $80 billion of overall investment and 160,000 jobs. We're positioning Australia for success by investing in low-emissions technologies that will protect our industries—indeed, grow those industries—while creating new ones. We need our best and brightest minds working on that, in organisations like ARENA. That's why we are absolutely committed to expanding ARENA's mandate to support investment in the full range of technologies that will reduce emissions right across every sector in the Australian economy. We shouldn't be restricting ARENA, we should be enabling it and expanding it.

I am asked: what is standing in the way? And I'm looking at it. Last night Labor cheered, clapped and patted themselves on the back by voting against jobs. They stood in the way of $192 million of investment in low-emissions technologies—in technologies like carbon capture and storage and investments in healthy soils, in hydrogen and in electric-charging infrastructure for electric vehicles. Worse than that, they voted against programs that would create 1,400 jobs. ARENA welcomed the changes. They said it was a new era for ARENA. But I'll tell you who didn't welcome it—the member for Hunter. He called it ideological craziness, as we've already heard. 'Ideological craziness,' he said on 2GB this morning. But this is what the Labor Party have become—cosying up to their coalition partners, the Greens.

That's not our approach. Every day in this place we support agriculture. We support heavy industry. We support the transport sector and the resources sector. We know that, when it comes to reducing emissions, it's about technology, not taxes. But the member for McMahon, the shadow minister, has never seen a tax he didn't like.