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

My question is to the Prime Minister. I refer to the Prime Minister's statement in question time on Tuesday:

Australia is the only country, to the best of our knowledge, that reports quarterly on its emissions reductions …

Is the Prime Minister seriously telling the House he has no idea that the United Kingdom, New Zealand, Sweden and the Netherlands have published quarterly greenhouse gas emissions statistics for years? Why does the Prime Minister keep making stuff up?

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

The point the Prime Minister was making is that Australia has a track record of transparency that is unrivalled. Not only do we report our emissions each quarter, we report them across every gas and every sector—every quarter, every gas, every sector. I tell you what those reports are saying: those reports are saying that our emissions are down by over 20 per cent since 2005. Over 20 per cent is ahead of the United States, ahead of Japan.

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

The Manager of Opposition Business on a point of order?

Mr Tony Burke (Watson, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for the Arts) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Yes, on direct relevance: the question does not go to the details of anything being relevant because it found its way into these reports. It goes to the fact that the Prime Minister claimed that Australia was the only country, to his knowledge, that was doing this quarterly, and whether that information was accurate or not.

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

Can I just say there's another problem with that, with respect to the Manager of Opposition Business. He talks about what the question goes to. There was a question at the end that was really an accusation. I'm not going to repeat it but it was a very—

Mr Conroy interjecting—

Member for Shortland, most people asking questions want to stay to hear the answer. That's the purpose. It had a long preamble with a question at the end that could have related to anything, frankly. That's why I've been listening to the minister—

Mr Burke interjecting—

The Manager of Opposition Business will not abuse points of order like that. In doing that, he has confirmed my ruling: the minister is in order.

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

As I was saying Australia's emissions are down 20 per cent, as you'll see in our transparent reporting—every quarter, every gas, every sector. You'll see in those reports that in the last year alone our National Electricity Market emissions are down over five per cent. That's in a single year, and the reason for that is very clear: we have the highest level of installed solar capacity in the world. We have seven gigawatts that was installed in the last year alone. That's more than in the entire time—the entire six years—that Labor was in government. If you look at our transparent reports, the year before—again, in a single year—there was more solar installation than in the entire time when Labor was in government. That's because we are focused on technology as a means of driving down emissions. Indeed, when those opposite left government their forecasts were for emissions that were expected to be over 100 million tonnes higher than we actually had last year.

We will continue to drive the transparency and outcomes I've just described, because that is the Australian way, but we will do it without taxes. We will do it without wiping out industries. We will do it without wiping out regions. We will do it the Australian way, through innovation, through ingenuity, through $20 billion of investment in clean technology that will continue to drive down emissions. Our transparency will ensure the world can see what an extraordinary job we continue to do, as we have been doing for many, many years.