Adam Bandt (Melbourne, Australian Greens) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I move:

That section 7 of the Australian Renewable Energy Agency (Implementing the Technology Investment Roadmap) Regulations 2021 made under the Australian Renewable Energy Agency Act 2011 on 23 July 2021 and presented to the House on 3 August 2021, be disallowed.

Any 2050 plan that relies on expanding coal and gas is a fraud—all the more so when it's done using public money. Public money should be going to schools and hospitals and renewables, not to coal and gas. Everyone now—from John Kerry, who is in charge of climate negotiations for the United States government, to the UN Secretary-General to the International Energy Agency—says very clearly that there is no room for investment in new coal, oil or gas projects if we are to address the climate crisis. They have said that, from this point on, there cannot be new investment or not only will you fast-track climate collapse but you will also end up with stranded assets that produce a product that the rest of the world no longer wants to buy. his message is getting louder and louder in the lead-up to Glasgow. The United States is asking the rest of the world to sign up to a pledge to cut methane emissions. The United Kingdom is asking the rest of the world to sign up to a pledge to phase out coal. But what does the Liberal government do? The Liberal government comes up with a fraudulent 2050 plan that takes public money—money that could be going to schools, hospitals and renewables—and gives it to big coal, gas and oil corporations.

This regulation must be disallowed by the parliament because it is using public money to make the climate crisis worse. There is a reason why, all around the world, corporations and financiers are saying, 'We are not going to be putting money into new fossil fuel projects.' They have listened to the science and they have heard the advice of the likes of even the International Energy Agency, a conservative group representing energy producers right around the world, that there is no room for any new investment. What that means is that the only way that this white-elephant investment in new gas and coal can get up is if the government subsidises it, putting its hands in the pocket of the public and saying, 'We're going to take your money and give it to the big gas corporations'—many of which donate to the big parties but pay no tax here in Australia and send their profits offshore.

The government at least has some idea about the numbers in this parliament, because it knows that it might struggle to get legislation up to turn the Renewable Energy Agency into a funder of coal and gas. So what does it do? The government comes here with a regulation that even its own Senate committee has said is probably illegal. It moves a regulation to say, 'We want the right to take public money away from renewables and away from schools and hospitals and give it to coal and gas corporations.' This government is so desirous of giving money to its coal and gas corporate donors that it is willing to break the law to do it. This regulation will be struck down in the courts, and that is what the government's own scrutiny of bills committee, headed by a government member, has said. With this regulation, if it is allowed to stand, the government is inviting lawsuits that, even on its own advice, it will lose. It is creating a lawyers' picnic in its desperation to funnel money out the door to big coal and gas corporations.

To rub salt in the wound, because the government knows that it may struggle to get the numbers in this place to do that, it is using the Australian Renewable Energy Agency to funnel cash to coal and gas corporations. I've got a hint for the minister. I know he has trouble reading and downloaded documents from time to time, but all he has to do is read the title: 'Australian Renewable Energy Agency' is what ARENA stands for. The clue is in the name. The 'R' stands for 'renewable'. Coal and gas are not renewable. Under no definition put forward by anyone in the world do coal and gas count as renewable, but this government wants everyone here to believe that black is white—that coal and gas are now renewable and that the Renewable Energy Agency should be the vehicle through which to channel public funds to coal and gas corporations. As I said, the government's own scrutiny of bills committee said, 'No, that probably breaches the law.' Well, I'm going to say it definitely breaches the law. ARENA, the Australian Renewable Energy Agency, is a success story in this country. It was established in the Greens-Labor-Independent power-sharing parliament of 2010, and it has grown and fast-tracked the growth of renewable energy in this country. To use it and to nobble it to say it now has to fund coal and gas is an utter perversion of the purpose of ARENA.

I notice that the members for Higgins and Wentworth are here in this chamber and I am expecting them to jump up and say, 'No, coal and gas are not renewable and we should not be subsidising the coal and gas industry.' They're supposed free marketeers who think that the market is going to get us to 2050. Well, not if the government puts its hands in people's pockets and says, 'We're going to start propping up coal and gas by calling them renewables' it won't. So I am hoping that those inner city Liberals who say that they support reduction of our emissions will come with us and cross the floor and vote to stop public money going to coal and gas corporations. Even if you think that somehow renewables don't deserve support it's got to be the case that the coal and gas corporations can afford to fund their own research, especially when these multibillion dollar corporations pay no tax in Australia and send their profits offshore. What could possibly be the small-l liberal case for taking public money and giving it to a coal and gas corporation and funnelling it through the Renewable Energy Agency? They're very, very quiet, these so-called modern Liberals and inner city Liberals when it comes to this gas-led recovery, because they know that something is wrong with taking public money, asking their own constituents to subsidise coal and gas corporations for technology that is not yet proven.

If carbon capture and storage could work I am sure that these ultrawealthy coal and gas corporations could've made it work by now. They are making billions of dollars in profits and do not need public assistance. In the last recorded year of income the big gas corporations brought in $55 billion—that's billion with a 'b'—of income and paid zero tax . And now the Liberals are saying as well as these big gas corporations paying no tax, they want their own constituents to subsidise them and give a handout to these big coal and gas corporations and call it renewal energy. If you need any demonstration that the farcical, stage-managed charade going on in the lead-up to Glasgow is nothing more than an excuse to come up with a fraudulent 2050 plan that won't bring down emissions but will allow coal and gas to keep expanding it is here in this regulation. The government's idea of tackling the climate crisis is to make it worse by expanding coal and gas.

There's a reason that the scientists, the United Nations and the International Energy Agency have all said, 'We've got to call time on coal and gas' and why we can't be expanding infrastructure, as this regulation in this bill wants to do. To give you an indication, Mr Speaker, of how serious this is, right now we've been told that the world has to cut its pollution globally by 50 per cent before 2030, which would mean a much higher target in Australia, or we say goodbye to any chance of staying below 1.5 degrees. We're headed for a world where the reef is gone. We're headed for a world where extreme droughts are more than twice as likely to happen here in Australia. On current targets we're headed for a world where by the end of the century—during my daughter's lifetime; during the lifetimes of many kids of people in this House—we will have a 92 per cent decline of productivity in the Murray-Darling Basin. That is where we are going at the moment unless we massively cut pollution globally by 50 per cent—more in Australia—by 2030.

The kinds of gas projects that this government are talking about supporting are going to blow that budget. The Beetaloo Basin in the Northern Territory—a project initiated by the NT Labor government and supported by this federal government—is a carbon climate bomb. According to the NT government if we extract the gas in those NT basins we are talking about a up to six per cent increase in Australia's emissions alone and on top of that is all the toxic damage that is going to be caused when this gas is burnt overseas. So just one set of projects in the Northern Territory adds six per cent to Australia's annual emissions. The government is saying they want the right not only to make it happen but to use public money to make it happen. Public money should not be going to making the climate crisis worse. Government should not be stepping in to subsidise coal and gas corporations at a time when money should be going to renewables. Public money should not be spent in a way that pretty much everyone says is illegal.

The Renewable Energy Agency is called the Renewable Energy Agency for a reason. The legislation prohibits it from funding fossil fuels, so the government should not knowingly march the public into a series of lawsuits to defend a regulation that is illegal. The government may well be willing. The government may be so keen to please its coal and gas donors that it's willing to break the law, but the parliament shouldn't back it. The parliament should stand up for the legislation that is passed and says in very clear terms what renewable energy is. It should disallow this regulation that says black is white and that coal and gas are renewable. They are not. I wonder whether the Prime Minister is going to be waving this particular regulation around if he goes to Glasgow and telling Joe Biden and Boris Johnson that, whatever he might say on the international stage, back at home he's keen to say coal and gas are renewables and that he wants public money to go into them.

We should save the public the money that will have to be spent on the inevitable lawsuits and just disallow this regulation now.

Rob Mitchell (McEwen, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Is motion seconded? I call the member for Mayo.

Rebekha Sharkie (Mayo, Centre Alliance) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I second this motion. I very much support this disallowance. We are really in dangerous territory as a nation when we have ARENA, the Renewable Energy Agency, which has been successful despite attempts by government in recent years to cut funding to it, and then make ARENA invest in gas and coal projects. If ever there were an oxymoron, it is 'clean coal'. The reason why the big banks are not supporting new fossil fuel projects is, for some, that want to do the right thing morally, but moreover it doesn't make financial sense. As the member for Melbourne says, they will just have stranded assets. The risk is too great. These are industries that are in decline, and the government's way of fixing that is to say: 'Well, that's alright. We're going to make public money invest in oil, gas and coal.' This is not the right thing to do. This is not what the Australian community wants. This is actually some kind of bizarro world where we would charge ARENA, the Australian Renewable Energy Agency, with that task.

I urge all members of this House—particularly those who like to put in editorials, who say hand on heart how they're all for a clean and green future—to support this disallowance. You can't say one thing to the papers, go out there and help put turtles in the ocean, and have lots of photo opportunities, and then vote differently in this place. The Australian community have wised up to that. They know what is happening in here. There is a reason why big banks and superannuation companies are divesting. How people in this place who are very much of the free market ideology can support the government's position and not support this disallowance is nonsensical. So I urge all of those up in their rooms right now, listening to this speech, to have a look at this disallowance, have a look at what the government is intending to do by regulation and support this disallowance by the member for Melbourne.

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

Just as the Labor Party created ARENA, the Labor Party will defend ARENA. The Labor Party will support this disallowance, just as we've moved a disallowance in the other place, and we will stand against this illegal regulation.

ARENA has played an important role in the transition that is underway in Australia. When the minister talks about 'technology, not taxes', he ignores the fact that ARENA and the CEFC have been the central bodies driving the take-up of new technology in Australia and that this minister and this government have been addicted to trying to undermine that work at every opportunity. Never let it be forgotten that this government tried to abolish both instrumentalities when they came to office. In fact, before they came to office, the then Prime Minister wrote to the chairs of CEFC and ARENA and told them not to do any more work, because he was going to abolish them if he won the election. That's how keen and arrogant they were. Here we are, almost a decade later, and they're still at it. As has been said by the honourable member for Melbourne, this House may disallow it, the other house may disallow it yet or the courts may disallow it, but it is important that this House and the other house stand up for renewable energy, because this is just the latest iteration of this government's attempt to undermine the focus on renewable energy in ARENA and in CEFC.

This is being done by regulation. There's an important reason it's being done by regulation, which is that this government is so dysfunctional and divided on matters of climate change that they can't trust themselves. They can't trust their backbench to support their legislation when it comes to the CEFC and ARENA. The minister tried to do the same trick with CEFC, but he did that by legislation. He called it a 'milestone bill', and we're yet to see it back in the House. Where's it gone? It's gone missing. It's missing in action. The government couldn't deliver the numbers on their own bill, which they called a milestone, so they thought they'd be very tricky. They've come up with a plan so cunning you could put a tail on it and call it a fox. They've done this by regulation. This regulation is being used by the minister to avoid votes in the parliament, because he knows that his backbench might move very inconvenient amendments. You can't do that with regulations.

But there's a problem with the way the minister has done it: he hasn't followed the law. The parliament's committee, which is run on a bipartisan basis, has found a very real prospect that this regulation is in breach of the law. Call me old-fashioned; call me a traditionalist, but I happen to think ministers should comply with the law and should not ask the parliament to vote for regulations which are not in keeping with the law. But this minister, who has made something of a habit of breaching protocols and proper practice in this building, thinks it's perfectly okay to introduce a regulation which members of his own party believe is not in keeping with the law of the land.

This has happened before; governments have brought down regulations which committees have found not to be in keeping with the law. It can happen. I understand mistakes can happen. Do you know what happened in every other instance where that occurred? The government withdrew the regulation. It worked out how to make it in keeping with the law. This minister is so arrogant he doesn't care about those precedents. He is just rolling along, ensuring that ARENA will be extended beyond the purpose of investing in renewable energy. Not only has he enabled ARENA to invest beyond renewable energy; he's actually requiring it to invest beyond renewable energy. He's put a floor on the amount of money that the board of ARENA can invest in non-renewable technologies. That is just not on. It's not on as far as this opposition is concerned; it's not on, as I understand it, as far as the crossbench is concerned.

This is a government which is addicted to undermining ARENA and CEFC. We will not hear one word from this minister about 'technology, not taxes', when he has undermined these technologies at every opportunity. He was there with the rest of them bagging electric cars not so long ago. He was the one who said that climate change was some sort of religion. He was the one who questioned windfarms and the role of wind technology in Australia. He works for a bloke who said that electric vehicles would 'end the weekend'. He works for a bloke who said big batteries are like big prawns and big bananas. That's what this government really thinks about technology. That's what it really thinks about renewable energy. That's what it really thinks about the opportunities that are created in Australia.

It is outrageous, just as this regulation is outrageous. It should be disallowed by this House. It should be disallowed by the other house. The other house will get another opportunity when the committee actually reports and, as a result, moves the disallowance. I would say that's another opportunity for the parliament to declare judgement on the mismanagement by this minister.

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

The disallowance motion before this House is really a very simple proposition: do you support the government's focus on low-emissions technologies or don't you? Do you support a technology led approach or do you support a taxation led approach? We know that the member for McMahon only has one tool in his toolkit, and that's a tax. That's what he took to the last election. He said to the Australian people, 'You make up your mind whether you like it or not.' Well, they did and they will continue to do so, because they know a tax driven approach has always been Labor's preferred approach. But it's not the Australian people's preferred approach. Let's be clear, this is not a question of legality. The Australian Renewable Energy Agency (Implementing the Technology Investment Roadmap) Regulations 2021 were always envisaged to adapt to changing technology requirements. When they were established in the first place, they were always envisaged to ensure that, as the range of technologies that bring down emissions expand, the regulations would adapt to those technologies. In fact, the regulations have extraordinarily broad based support. Whether it's the BCA, Ai Group, the Minerals Council, the NFF, the Investor Group on Climate Change, the Australian Industry Greenhouse Network, over 20 peak bodies are all in support because they understand we have to use every technology available to reduce emissions.

That's exactly what we are doing in this country, and it's working. Emissions are down by 20.8 per cent on our 2005 level. When we left government and the Labor government, with their carbon tax, the member for McMahon's preferred tool in his toolkit, were doing their forecasts, the forecast for last year, 2020, was over 630 million tonnes. Do you know where it ended up? Around 530 million tonnes, more than a hundred million tonnes lower than their forecast. That's because technologies are working. We're seeing record levels of investment in household solar and utility solar across this country, with seven gigawatts of new renewable capacity last year—that's the equivalent of four large coal fired power stations in a single year. In a single year we saw more investment in renewables, 5.4 gigawatts, than we saw in the entire time that Labor was last in government. And the year before was exactly the same. This is world-beating stuff, and yet they say: 'No, we can't use any other technologies. We have to ignore the fact that our emissions in electricity are only 30 per cent of our total emissions. Let's ignore the other 70 per cent.'

The first and most important point I'd make about this motion is that Labor is showing its true colours. They're not interested in technologies; they're interested in taxes. They find lots of ways to impose taxes: sneaky taxes, implicit taxes, shadow prices—you name it. They do it through mandates. They force consumers to buy things because they believe that consumers don't know what's in their interest. Consumers don't know what kind of car to buy; governments need to tell them—that's how the Labor Party thinks. They're making the phone calls to the old Soviet central planners, dusting them off and saying, 'It's time to come in and take control of the economy, tell consumers what kinds of things to buy.' This is the Labor Party way, because they don't trust the Australian people. They didn't trust them to get vaccinated. They were going to spend billions because they thought you'd have to bribe them to get vaccinated, you'd have to tell them. They were wrong about my electorate, and the member for McMahon has seen some pretty high vaccination rates in his own electorate. In parts of my electorate we're seeing 99 per cent-plus double-vaxxed. The Australian people make their own choices; they don't need a Labor government to tell them what choices to make.

The second thing I would say about this is quite remarkable because is it tells us how Labor is thinking about net zero. They are not focused on net zero; they're focused on zero. They want to wipe out the mining industry in this country. They want to wipe out the beef industry in this country. They want to wipe out the natural gas industry in this country. Labor want them gone. They've wanted them gone for years. We saw that with the RSPT and all the taxes Labor wanted to impose on them. They've always hated those industries, because not enough of them vote for the Labor Party. It's purely politically motivated.

They want zero emissions. They want the technologies that support those foundational industries of this great country—the competitive advantage that has made us one of the wealthiest countries on earth—gone. They want them gone, whether it's in agriculture, resources or heavy manufacturing. They used to support the workers in heavy manufacturing, but not anymore. We saw how the people of Gladstone felt about that at the last election. They had had enough. The so-called blue-collar workers that the Labor Party supported turned out to be white-collar workers in the inner cities. That's their focus. They couldn't care less about the regions—and that shows in their approach to this very question in front of the House today.

The Labor Party are crowing about 2030 targets—and they don't even have one. They haven't got one. They want to wander off to Glasgow without a 2030 target. Well, let me give them a bit of news: the Paris agreement requires a 2030 target. Labor abandoned theirs from the last election because the Australian people said no, and they now have no idea where they stand. Meanwhile, their focus is on getting technologies out of the portfolio. They don't want them there. They only want their preferred technologies, the ones that politically align with their ideological views. But not everyone in the Labor Party agrees with this. I'm very much looking forward to seeing who turns up from the Labor Party when we have a vote on this later this afternoon. I will be intrigued by who's absent, who doesn't turn up.

The Labor Party can't work out where they stand on any of this. That's why they have no plan. They have a target without a plan. That's what they had at the last election—a target without a plan. That's the Labor Party way. They have a divided party room on this. On one side they've got the barbecue stoppers who want to see the end of the iconic Australian institution of the barbeque. They want to see the end of it. There's the member for Cooper handing out leaflets in her electorate saying gas has got to go—'Your gas cookers have got to go.' They want them gone. Labor no longer supports those traditional industries that have been the bedrock of this great country.

The intriguing thing about this is that this regulation will also support investment in crucial technologies like low-emission vehicles. It will allow investment in technology for charging, which those opposite, for some reason, seem to oppose. It will allow investment in industrial energy efficiencies, but those opposite are not interested in that anymore. Industry is not their focus anymore. They couldn't care less. We know where Labor are going on all of this. The Labor Party simply don't know where they stand on technologies. They are choosing some that they really like and others that they really hate. It's purely ideological. But the one thing they fail to focus on is what's going to bring down emissions in the most efficient way for all Australians that doesn't destroy jobs, that doesn't raise the price of electricity and that doesn't take away this great nation's great industries, our great sources of competitive advantage.

If Labor ever succeed with what they're proposing to do here—with the Greens, of course; they've teamed up with the Greens on this one—the real losers will be Australian workers, Australian farmers, Australian industry and Australian miners, because the Labor Party want those industries wiped out. Their position on this regulation demonstrates what they really think—teaming up with the Greens as they always do in the end. They pretend that they are for the Australian worker, but it's the Greens that they ultimately support when it comes to the crunch. An expanded mandate for ARENA will provide support for those great technologies for our great industries and ensure that we are able to bring down emissions and maintain a strong economy.

Zali Steggall (Warringah, Independent) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Section 7 of the Australian Renewable Energy Agency (Implementing the Technology Investment Roadmap) Regulations 2021 should be disallowed. There is no doubt that that is what should happen today. I will pick up on the last words of the Minister for Industry, Energy and Emissions Reduction. He talked about protecting the mining industry. With respect, the important thing is protecting people and communities, not protecting industries. That is a very important distinction that needs to be made, because the industries themselves do change over time. We've seen that throughout history through the various stages of modernisation of industrialisation. Industries change. What is important is having a plan for people and their communities. That is where we in this place are absolutely falling short.

We are here to discuss a regulation that will categorically impact the mandate of ARENA and really absolutely corrupt it. It is really important for the Australian people to be clear about just what ARENA does. Since being created in 2012 ARENA has invested more than $1.77 billion in more than 600 renewable energy projects. The boon to the Australian economy and the Australian people has been a total project value of some $7.75 billion. It has been the most effective vehicle by which we have been able to support the development of technologies.

The coalition government is incredibly fond of talking about its focus on technologies in how it will achieve emissions reductions. Then why is it corrupting the very body that is achieving the results it is trying to take credit for? The reality is that ARENA is there to support renewable energy, not to put a costume on extending the life of fossil fuels.

We are on the eve of a major global disruption. There's no doubt about it—the world is engaged in a transition, and that is accelerating. We know that the three main sectors—energy, transport and food—are absolutely moving fast. That disruption and transition is accelerating at a pace. We know from the history of every other industrialisation age that that occurs at such a pace that all of a sudden people are left behind if you don't have a clear transition plan on how to manage that changeover.

What's really amazing is the desperation of the government to extend the life of fossil fuels. They go so far as to put forward an instrument that is highly likely to be illegal. It really beggars belief that they are at that level of desperation. A government should never take this course knowingly, and yet the advice is clear that it is highly questionable whether this is a legal path. It really speaks to the dysfunction and desperation within the government. On the one hand they say that they are acting on climate change and reducing emissions but on the other they are extending the life of fossil fuels—of coal and gas.

We need to explain what this regulation is really trying to do. It is essentially saying that carbon capture and storage should be funded under ARENA, because it essentially allows the extension of the use of the fossil fuels of coal and gas. Many people out there are confused and don't understand where the connection is. The best analogy I can give is that it is like a magic pill—we can keep emitting and burning fossil fuels and somehow magically we can offset that with carbon capture and storage. It hasn't worked. We have already invested billions of public funds into this, and it simply does not deliver. If this was a solution it would have already been embraced by the rest of the world, and it has not been. Australia is like the dinosaur of the world, trying to hang onto some magic solution, a unicorn that just doesn't exist. It won't happen.

The other reason the government is using this is that it wants to somehow 'greenwash' blue hydrogen. The public has heard a lot about hydrogen being a very viable energy source to replace coal and gas. But the real question is, which kind of hydrogen? We can have green hydrogen, made from renewables, which has lower emissions and which will have I think a very successful and very productive international market and really could set Australia up to be a renewable energy superpower of the future from an exports point of view. Or we can have blue hydrogen, which is made from burning gas, which is high in emissions and is not attractive to the international market.

The only way you can greenwash that blue hydrogen is to put it with carbon capture and storage and try to somehow, through an accounting trick, say that it is essentially not adding emissions to our global carbon budget. It is all greenwashing. At the end of the day, the solution is clear: we actually need to do the hard work. We need to reduce emissions. There's no accounting trick, no spin, no greenwash that's going to change that fact. We have already used up 85 per cent of global carbon budgets. We must—with urgency, in the next decade—dramatically reduce our emissions. There's no simpler truth that we have to focus on.

This regulation has already been disallowed in the Senate, and it's again in this place. I call on many members in this place, in particular those on the coalition. Week after week I read their op-eds in the papers, telling me and the people in their electorates how concerned they are about global warming, about rising emissions and about how we need to commit to net zero by 2050. But when it really comes down to it, what are their actions? What do they actually deliver for their electorates? When it comes time to vote in this place, that is your moment of reckoning, that is when your electorate knows whether it is just greenwashing or whether you truly believe that you have a responsibility to future generations to meaningfully reduce emissions. It really is time to call 'enough' on the greenwash, on the hesitation.

The minister mentioned organisations that are in support of this, but the irony is that those very same organisations support the implementation of the climate change bill. They want a legally binding framework so we can have a clear audit process on our emissions reduction in Australia. We can't have this system where emissions go up in one sector and we try to show that emissions are going down in another, and we never have an audit process to bring it all to account. We need to balance the books. We are in the red when it comes to emissions in Australia. I know that the coalition are fond of balancing the books. Well, it's well past time for us to balance the books when it comes to emissions.

All those organisations strongly support the implementation of a legally binding long-term commitment and a clear framework on how to get there. So I would urge the government and the minister to focus on the solutions that have support, to focus on the solutions that can bring us all together towards a low-emissions future. There is huge opportunity. The Australian people know there is huge opportunity for us to do that. It's time to put an end to the past, talking about the 2019 election commitments. Seriously, who cares? Since then we have had bushfires ravage our coast. We have had the world's leaders, our international partners and world economies all pivot towards what needs to be done. We have had a clear and present warning from the IPCC about where we are heading. Make no mistake, we are heading to 1.5 degrees by the 2030s. We have a clear message from the International Energy Agency saying that we must stop—no new coal and gas. We must stop. So, seriously, who cares what you promised in 2019? In 2019, no-one promised we were going to lock Australia down because a COVID pandemic was coming, yet the government found the mandate to act on the science—to act on the facts present on the day and take the necessary action. So I call on the government: the facts as we know them now are that we urgently need to decarbonise. It's time to do it. This regulation should be disallowed.

Rob Mitchell (McEwen, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The question is that the motion be disagreed to. There being more than one voice calling for a division, in accordance with standing order 133 the division will be deferred until after the discussion of the matter of public importance.

Debate adjourned.