Justine Elliot (Richmond, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

My question is to the Prime Minister. Why has the Prime Minister given the Deputy Prime Minister and the National Party a veto on whether Australia takes action on climate change? And why is the Prime Minister not in the room where Australia's climate change policy is being decided?

Scott Morrison (Cook, Liberal Party, Prime Minister) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The government's decision on the government's commitments for Australia in relation to COP26 will be made by the government in cabinet. That's where it will be made. That's where these decisions are made. All members of the government understand that. All members of the government do the right thing by consulting far and wide, informing their views when they come together to make decisions in the best interests of Australia. And the government, a coalition government—a strong coalition government, working closely together as we have been leading Australia through one of the greatest crises we have seen since the Second World War—is working together constructively to find the right solutions, sensibly, responsibly and cautiously.

This government hasn't gone off and signed a blank-cheque commitment. We haven't gone off and stated a target without a plan. That's what those opposite have done. What we are doing is carefully considering the implications of these very serious issues for Australians right across the country. The Labor Party has signed up to a target without a plan, a blank cheque that they will expect Australians to pay for. That's the Labor Party's policy. On this side of the House the Liberals and the Nationals are working together to ensure that Australia succeeds over the next 30 years in a world economy that is going to be challenged by the world's response to climate change and that is going to have very real impacts in rural and regional communities. We're not oblivious to that like those opposite, who will cavalierly go and commit Australia to all sorts of things without thinking through the consequences. We are thinking through the plans that are necessary not only to protect jobs in this country from the challenges that are coming but also to secure the opportunities. Our policies aren't about shutting anything down but opening up new opportunities. Those opposite would seek to impose choices on Australians. We're going to let Australians make their own choices. We're going to ensure that we keep the lights on and prices down.

Tony Pasin (Barker, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

My question is to the Minister for Industry, Energy and Emissions Reduction. Minister, can you outline to the House the importance of a technology led approach to reducing emissions? How does this ensure that we can create jobs and support Australian industry and manufacturing as we reduce those emissions?

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

I thank the member for Barker for his question and for his relentless focus on jobs—in his electorate and across Australia—and on a technology led approach to reducing emissions. That's his focus and that's the focus of all of us on this side of this place—creating jobs and creating opportunity for Australians. In the manufacturing sector, which is strong in his electorate, we've seen in the last three months alone another 91,000 jobs added. That's more than 80,000 jobs more than before the pandemic. We now have over a million people working in manufacturing again, and we haven't seen that since Labor put in place their carbon tax.

Local manufacturers are going from strength to strength, and that includes businesses in the member's electorate like Mondelez, which is one of Australia's largest food manufacturers with more than 100 years of experience in manufacturing behind them and 2,000 local employees. They research, develop, manufacture and sell great products. They're investigating and working on ways now to drive 50 per cent energy efficiency across their operations, and one of the ways they're doing that is by installing solar. We are a world-beater in solar. That's technology, not taxes, at work.

We know from the latest data that Australia's emissions are over 20 per cent down since 2005. We're reducing emissions while we're creating jobs and driving investment, and that's because we're taking a 'technology, not taxes' approach. It's technology, not taxes, that strengthens our regions and our traditional industries, like agriculture, resources and heavy manufacturing. It's that technology led approach that will ensure that we can continue to bring down emissions whilst creating jobs and continuing to drive that investment, including export opportunities for our world-beating export sectors. Technologies that are crucial to achieving that are technologies like hydrogen, soil carbon, carbon capture and storage, stored energy, clean steel, and aluminium. They are all in our technology investment road map, focused in each case on getting those costs down to a point where we see rapid uptake.

Just a few weeks ago we opened our $464 million clean hydrogen hubs program to support the development of up to seven hydrogen hubs across Australia. That makes the total investment in hydrogen $1.2 billion of the total $20 billion we're spending on emerging technologies. We're backing technology. Those opposite will always back taxes.

Stephen Jones (Whitlam, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Assistant Treasurer) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

My question is to the Treasurer. He says that a failure to adopt net zero by 2050 will cost jobs and the economy. Treasurer, what has been the cost to the economy of nearly a decade of climate change inaction?

Josh Frydenberg (Kooyong, Liberal Party, Treasurer) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The first thing to state, for the record, is that our emissions are down by more than 20 per cent on 2005 levels. That's consistent with meeting and beating the 2030 targets that we agreed at Paris. When it comes to the economy and when it comes to jobs, I point out to the honourable member that when we came to government—therefore, under Labor—the unemployment rate was at 5.7 per cent. Before this pandemic, before the first recession in nearly three decades, the unemployment rate was at 5.1 per cent, and today the unemployment rate is at 4.6 per cent. The unemployment rate is under five per cent for the first time in a decade.

I'll tell you what leads to more jobs: lower taxes. On this side of the House we have legislated, through the parliament, more than $300 billion of tax cuts for Australian families. We have introduced, in successive budgets, some of the biggest tax incentives for investment. That has led to, for example, a 20 per cent increase in machinery, capital and equipment purchases over the course of the last year through the incentives and the immediate expensing provisions that we have put in place in the budget. Whether it's our patent box, whether it's cutting taxes for small business down to 25 per cent, whether it's the work that we're—

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

The member for Whitlam on a point of order?

Stephen Jones (Whitlam, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Assistant Treasurer) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Yes, on relevance. The question was about the cost of climate change inaction. He hasn't addressed that issue yet. He has gone off on a completely different tangent.

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

Well, I think it was a fairly broad question, the member for Whitlam would have to admit. He's talking about the economy. The Treasurer has the call.

Josh Frydenberg (Kooyong, Liberal Party, Treasurer) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The reality is that under the economic stewardship of those on this side of the House we've seen more jobs created, we've seen the unemployment rate fall to a more-than-decade low and we have the plan in place to see a strong economic recovery from the biggest economic shock since the Great Depression. Those opposite—their only solution—

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

The Treasurer wasn't asked about those opposite.

Josh Frydenberg (Kooyong, Liberal Party, Treasurer) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The fact is that on this side of the House we are driving the creation of more jobs. We're going to drive stronger economic growth into next year. We've seen our triple-A credit rating reaffirmed by the Fitch rating agency. We're one of only nine countries in the world to have a AAA credit rating from the three leading credit rating agencies. We're getting on with the job of lowering emissions, lowering electricity prices and creating more jobs.