Katie Allen (Higgins, 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's 'technology not taxes' approach to reducing emissions is focused on harnessing Australians' innovation and expertise, and is the minister aware of any risks to this approach?

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

I thank the member for Higgins for her question and for her strong commitment to bringing down emissions as we strengthen our economy. We are constantly strengthening our economy. As someone who was a doctor before coming in this place, she knows how effective it is to take a technology led approach to solving hard problems, including bringing down emissions. Of course, she also knows that our approach is working. Emissions are down by over 20 per cent since 2005, which is lower than any year when Labor was in government. We saw seven gigawatts of new renewables capacity in the last year alone, which is more than the full six years of Labor government. And now Australia has the highest level of installed solar PV in the world per capita—the highest in the world. This is happening because we're backing Australian ingenuity and innovation and great organisations that are playing such a great role in this.

One of those organisations is ARENA. We are backing ARENA to invest in a broader range of technologies to bring down emissions in the coming years. In particular, in those hard to abate sectors, ARENA has an important role to play in this. It needs to be able to support our five priority technologies in our Technology Investment Roadmap. We've given it an additional $192 million on top of its baseline of over $1. 4 billion a year. That's an additional $192 million to invest in technologies like charging infrastructure for electric vehicles, micro grids, bringing down emissions in heavy industry and heavy transport—that next generation of low emissions technologies.

I am asked about risks to this approach. The risk is those opposite. The member for McMahon has been selling the party room over there on the other side a pup. He told them on Monday that in voting against the regulatory change for ARENA that supports these technologies they are only voting against carbon capture. He's teamed up with the Greens and Labor and they're voting against clean hydrogen, energy storage, low carbon aluminium and steel, healthy soils—they're voting against all of those things. They're voting against technologies that the IEA says are crucial to bringing down emissions around the world. They're voting against more jobs and investment in the regions. The member for Hunter got it right when he said, 'This is stupid policy and stupid politics.' That's from the member for Hunter: stupid policy and stupid politics. The truth of the matter is, if it's not to be technology, it is to be taxes.