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

I have received a letter from the honourable member for McMahon proposing that a definite matter of public importance be submitted to the House for discussion, namely:

The government's failure to have a climate policy after eight years in office.

I call upon those members who approve of the proposed discussion to rise in their places.

More than the number of members required by the standing orders having risen in their places—

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

It's the job of the government of Australia to leave the country stronger than when they found it. It's the job of the Prime Minister of Australia to tackle tough issues, to prepare Australia for the future, to make us stronger as he does so, to argue for things which are tough and right. That's a thread which has joined many prime ministers, from Curtin and Chifley fighting to win World War 2 and then build a better peace; through Gough Whitlam arguing for a better, fairer country with Medibank, Malcolm Fraser arguing that Australia should playing a leading role in tackling apartheid, Hawke and Keating building a better country, and John Howard taking a crisis and arguing for more gun control in Australia, at great cost to himself; to Rudd and Gillard building the National Disability Insurance Scheme and apologising to our First Peoples. That's what good prime ministers do.

Over the last week, we've been reminded that this Prime Minister is not fit to be compared with those holders of that office—not fit to be compared with his predecessors. This week the Prime Minister has shown us that when an issue requires leadership he's just not there—and climate change requires leadership. Just like when the bushfires required leadership, just like when ensuring Australians had the world's best access to vaccines required leadership—just like on those issues—Australians look to their Prime Minister and they find no leader in the Lodge. They find a vacuum of leadership in our country.

The Prime Minister likes to declare that things are not a race, but the world is in a race—to net zero. We need to be in a race because that's what all the science shows us is absolutely necessary to hold the world to 1.5 degrees of warming and avoid all the catastrophic consequences of not doing so. But also it's a race to net zero to ensure that our country, our people, can get the thousands of jobs that are going to be created in this renewables revolution. Global capital is moving rapidly towards renewable energy, and we have a once-in-a-generation chance to ensure that our workers and our technologies are leading that race to zero, leading that transformation for our planet. But this opportunity is falling through the fingers of the government as we speak. They're spending all their time not setting a course to grab those opportunities but arguing about whether we're even going to turn up at the race, whether we're even going to be at the starting line. After 423 weeks in office, and just two weeks before the most important climate conference we've seen, the government are deciding whether we even care, whether they even have a climate policy. After 70,000 hours in office, they need a few more four-hour meetings to decide whether we're even going to be in the race. After 21 goes at an energy policy, they want us to believe that the 22nd one is the one with which they'll get it just right, after all these attempts.

If there's one thing that has been welcome this week—just one thing—it's that at least some Liberals have recognised and grasped the fact that action on climate change is good for the economy. For almost two decades their entire political model has been based on arguing that action on climate change costs jobs. It has always been a lie and it's an even bigger lie now.

An opposition member: Was it the BCA?

It could be because the BCA has told them that there are 195,000 jobs to be created, or it could be because the BCA, with the ACTU, the World Wildlife Fund and the Australian Conservation Foundation, has found there are 395,000 jobs to be created from clean energy exports. It's a good thing that some Liberals have recognised this. But there's one thing they haven't given up on: dividing Australians between each other. They're addicted to dividing Australians between rural and regional Australians and inner-city dwellers. They're addicted to toxic politics.

I want to say something about rural and regional Australians. They know this land. They know this country. They live on this country and they see it changing before their eyes. They've got a connection to this country and they want to see this issue tackled. They want to see a policy to protect our land. I could talk about the facts and the figures. I could talk about the fact that, of the 250,000 jobs to be created in Australia by action on climate change, 185,000 are in Queensland, or that 13,000 are in Central Queensland, or that 28,000 are in other areas of regional Queensland, or that 16,000 are in the Hunter, or that 6,000 are in northern Tasmania, or that 47,000 are in regional Western Australia. They're the facts. But more important than that is the knowledge of our workers in our regions who have created energy in Australia for decades, who know how to make energy and who want to make energy into the future. They know that they want to manufacture energy and renewable energy infrastructure, and we want them to do it too. They are being denied these opportunities by a government with their heads in the sand. They want to know that Australia's jobs opportunity will be taken. They want to know that Australia's opportunity to be a regional powerhouse in renewable energy will be taken. But it won't be taken by this government.

We know that the regions which have powered Australia for so long—those with the access to the ports, the railway lines and the electricity grid—are the same areas that will power Australia and export energy into the future. We will continue to be an export energy powerhouse with the right policies. But this five-minutes-to-midnight conversion by the Prime Minister is not to be believed. This is the same man who has led Australia down a policy black hole for too long. We know what's driving him because his own colleagues have told us. The Liberal MP said it well when they said, 'At the heart of the Morrison government is a focus group.' It's not driven by the need to navigate a massive transformation. This is a government and a prime minister driven only by what is popular and political in the moment. They're not for the future, they don't have the vision of those other prime ministers imagining a new Australia, guiding the course and taking the people with them. They're just focused on the politics.

The Australian people are entitled to ask: 'Who is the right party to guide Australia through this transition? Which is the right party to take this opportunity?' They are entitled to conclude that in this building there is a guilty party, and that guilty party sits opposite. That is the guilty party which has avoided the opportunities for eight long years. There are no innocents on that side of the chamber. There are no innocents; they are all equally guilty. When the Prime Minister was declaring that electric vehicles would 'end the weekend', he was guilty. When he was comparing the world's biggest battery at that time with a big banana and a big prawn, he was guilty. When his hand-picked member for Hughes—he may have left the party but the Prime Minister's still responsible for him—was undermining the science of climate change, he was guilty. When the member for Wentworth was comparing electric vehicles to communism, he was guilty. When the member for Goldstein, who has joined the executive, was calling for Australia to leave the Kyoto protocol, he was guilty. When the member for North Sydney was recommending that this House not even debate the Zali Steggall bill, he was guilty. When the Minister for Industry, Energy and Emissions Reduction, who is at the table, was arguing that wind farms are injurious to health and claiming that there was too much wind and solar in our grid, he was guilty.

Opposition members interjecting—

He is guilty of many other things as well; I do concede the point. When the member for Mackellar was arguing that electric vehicle policy was like the pink batts policy, he was guilty. There are no innocents on that side of the chamber. Their voting record is the same. The member for Goldstein's record is the same as the member for Dawson's. The member for Wentworth's voting record is the same as Senator Canavan's. Not only are their voting records the same but also there is one other thing that unites the other side. They've had their dysfunction and division and we've all seen it. The Australian people have seen it played out. There is one thing that will unite them: dishonesty about climate change. As the election approaches, we've already seen the Prime Minister explain—I thought, very compellingly—that their net zero is completely different to our net zero. It's a very different net zero. The other members were lining up behind him to cheer him on, saying: 'Yes! We've never been at war with Oceania—no, it's a completely different war. It's a completely different net zero.' That's the one thing that unites them: their addiction to power and to being dishonest to get it.

So, when the Australian people make this judgement about who is best to manage this transition, they can make the judgement that the guilty party is not the best party to manage the transition. The guilty party is the party that deserves to be voted out.

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

If I'm watching a game of cricket, a game of rugby, or very occasionally a bit of AFL or netball, or if my kids are playing hockey, I want to know how it's going. I look at the scoreboard. The scoreboard on emissions reduction is absolutely clear: emissions are down 20.8 per cent since 2005. That's the scoreboard. There's no ambiguity about that. Indeed, if you look at the commentators forecasting, you see that their own forecast back in 2013, before they left government, was that emissions last year, with a carbon tax that, of course, the member for McMahon backed in because he's never seen a tax he doesn't like, would be 100 million tonnes higher than they turned out to be. That is, under a coalition government we saw emissions 100 million tonnes lower than Labor expected under their own policies.

Of course, in that time we got rid of their toxic carbon tax. They only know one way to try to solve any problem in this nation: to whack a tax on it. There's only one tool in this bloke's toolkit: a tax. We know he's going to find it one way or another. He's going to force people to buy things. He'll find some way of getting a sneaky carbon tax, and implicit carbon tax, a shadow carbon tax, a trading price for carbon. One way or another, he's going to get a price on the electricity and energy that all Australians buy, because that's how he tries to solve a problem.

We beat our Kyoto era targets by 459 million tonnes. That's the scoreboard. We're on track to meet and beat our 2030 Paris targets. Over the last two years alone, when you look at the improvement in our position versus the 2030 targets, we've improved our position by more than 639 million tonnes. That's the equivalent of taking every one of Australia's cars—14.7 million of them—off the road for 15 years. This is the extraordinary improvement we are seeing, and one of the factors driving that is the record levels of investments in renewables. There was a record seven gigawatts in 2020, the equivalent of about four large coal-fired power stations. Indeed, over the two years prior to now there were 13.3 gigawatts, equivalent to about seven large coal-fired power stations., added to the grid. That means that, as a result, we have the highest household solar in the world.

Australia forged. We drove. We shaped the development of solar in the world. We are right at the forefront. The University of NSW led the work, and the result has been that we are the biggest user of household panels on roofs in the world. One in four Australians have them. Just drive around the suburbs of Western Sydney: Fairfield, Camden, Campbelltown—they're there. That's under our policies. We trust the Australian people to make choices.

Llew O'Brien (Wide Bay, National Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The member for Isaacs is warned.

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

For those opposite, the only policies that count are the ones where they don't trust Australians to make choices. They bribe them to take a vaccine. That's their solution. But in my electorate 99 per cent are double dosed. They didn't need a bribe. They make the right choices when the technology comes to parity, and that's central to our approach. It is a technology-led approach.

That means technology, not taxes. That means expanding choice, not imposing mandates. We are not going to tell Australians what kind of car to drive. We are not telling Australians what kind of food to eat. We are not telling Australians what kind of energy to use. They will use low-emissions technologies as those technologies come to parity, exactly as we are seeing with solar right now. If you look at the uptake of solar around the world, you see it's a marvellous example of technology-led change. In the 30 years up to the early 2000s worldwide, we saw a total of one gigawatt of solar capacity installed around the world. Meanwhile, costs were coming down at 10 per cent a year every year, year on year. From 2001 through to last year the world installed 850 gigawatts of solar capacity, as the cost came down to parity with alternatives. That's how technology works. It is not a straight line; it is explosive growth as the technology works.

As we look across our technology focus, whether it's hydrogen, energy storage, low-emission steel, low-emission aluminium, carbon capture and storage—those opposite hate that one—or soil carbon, which they have no interest in either because that's good for farmers, we see those costs are coming down rapidly. As they continue to we'll see uptake, just as we've seen solar uptake right across the world in recent years.

At the same time we have focused on affordable, reliable energy for all Australians. At the end of the day Australians want to see emissions coming down but they don't want to see costs added to their electricity bills and they don't want to see jobs lost in those regional industries, those backbone industries of this great nation. We've seen 10 consecutive quarters of year-on-year CPI reductions in the price of electricity. We saw 19 months in a row of wholesale price reductions. As we see energy crises around the world, Australia is making sure that we get balance in our grid. We are making sure that there is a balance across technologies that delivers that affordable, reliable energy.

It is true that we as a government have had to make investment in great projects like Snowy 2, the great Snowy Mountains scheme. We're extending its reach into Snowy 2. The Snowy scheme is one of the great engineering projects in Australia's history. Snowy 2 is building on that wonderful legacy in the member for Eden-Monaro's electorate. I'm sure she supports that project and the very great progress that was made at Polo Flat just yesterday. Polo Flat, an industrial area, was right at the centre of the original Snowy scheme.

Those opposite lecture us constantly on this. The truth of the matter is that they have failed in taking their policies to the Australian people time and time again, but they're sticking with it. For the sixth time last night in the Senate and then today in the Reps they voted against the technology led approach. They're voting against a technology led approach because theirs is a tax led approach. They voted against $192 million of ARENA investment in electric vehicle charging and industrial energy efficiency. They voted against it. I know that on their side there is a lot of dissension on this, but the member for McMahon is on a rampage. He has a campaign for ideological purity. He wants to make sure that there's no investment in carbon capture and storage, soil carbon and industrial energy efficiency. Those things are not good enough for him. He is as pure as the driven snow. He really wants to do the one thing he has always wanted—to impose a tax on Australians.

That's absolutely right—he salivates over the prospect of another tax. Retirees, houses and cars, but the one he really wants is energy. That tool is in the toolkit. He's whipping it out. He's going to whack us all with the same old tax, as he has always wanted to. You only have to look at what his colleague Senator Gallagher said on the weekend to know that that's true. When she was asked explicitly by David Speers if a carbon tax was an option for Labor, she said, 'We are looking at everything.'

Yesterday when asked, 'Are there any climate policy settings that you will rule out Labor either adopting or supporting?' the Leader of the Opposition, no less—Each-way Albo—said, 'We'll examine anything that's put forward.' Each-way Albo has never seen a fence he doesn't want to sit on. I'll tell you what: he'll get off the fence and go for the tax. That's where he always ends up. He will end up saying one thing in Melbourne and another thing in Gladstone and a different thing in Balmain to what he says in Balranald. That's how he works. We will always focus on the interests of all Australians and on the interests of the great industries that have been the backbone of this great nation throughout our history, and that history is what this great country is all about.

Susan Templeman (Macquarie, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I was walking into Parliament House on Sunday just as a gaggle of National Party members were walking out of their four-hour meeting—a meeting where they didn't decide anything because they needed a bit more time. For people who are in government, albeit as the junior coalition partner, for a group who have no policy whatsoever except to resist, at the 11th hour, as the Prime Minister booked his VIP to Glasgow to a crucial global meeting on climate change, they looked pretty relaxed, and that's when it struck me: these people think it's some sort of game; it's just a game to have a bit of fun with; it isn't about, quite frankly, the future of our country and our planet. They looked very relaxed, as though it was a sport, just to secure a few select votes of people in certain parts of the country, who, ironically, are profoundly affected by a failure to have a climate change policy and who are going to bear the brunt of global impacts if the Liberals and Nationals continue to twiddle their thumbs.

These people seem to think it's okay to play a game, and not just this game. It's a game that's not just going to cost in the future; it's already costing this country now. It's costing people in my electorate now. These people seem to think that you're a competent government if you have 21 different energy policies in the course of your government. Seriously! Although, let's be clear: today Australia does not have a coherent energy policy, let alone a policy to tackle climate change. I think we've been a bit gentle in the language about this. I want to make it very clear that over the last decade they have misled the country on the effects of acting on climate change or not acting on climate change. They knew it was a lie to say that there'd be $100 roasts. They knew it was a lie to say electric vehicles would kill the weekend. They knew it was a lie to say that the world's biggest battery was as useful as the Big Banana. They said these things knowingly. They said them knowing that what they were saying was not right, from Tony Abbott through to Scott Morrison. We have been misled as a country.

On this side we have remained firm, knowing how important it is to take action on climate change. People in my electorate know it more than many other places because we live it. This week eight years ago I stood owning one dress, one pair of shoes and one set of underwear, because that's all that was left when my house burnt down in the Winmalee bushfires. I was one of nearly a thousand people. Two hundred houses were destroyed in a single afternoon. We lived that. Two years ago next week the Gospers Mountain fire was started. That was part of a black summer that saw 33 people die and more than 400 people die from inhaling smoke. These are consequences that people are experiencing now. These are not future costs. But the costs are also monetary, because to live in a community like mine it costs you extra if you choose to live there—and we do choose because it's an incredible place. We pay more for insurance.

An honourable member: If you can get it.

If you can get it, as my colleague says, if you can get it for bushfires or floods—and it probably won't be long before we have trouble getting it for storms as well, as climate change makes these extreme weather events even more extreme.

We pay more to build our houses. We don't just have a timber front door. We're not allowed to have a timber front door. In fact my house is not allowed to have a single piece of timber anywhere on its exterior. It's concrete. It's steel. It's corten. It's heavy things. It's got windows like skyscraper windows so that, should a fire like the fierce fire we saw come through, it has greater resilience. That extra cost is not just tens of thousands of dollars but in our case hundreds of thousands of dollars for those in the most intense flame zone areas. It's the same with floods. We also pay through the anxiety and the mental health impacts, and that's a cost that you opposite are responsible for if you fail to act.

Tim Wilson (Goldstein, Liberal Party, Assistant Minister to the Minister for Industry, Energy and Emissions Reduction) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

It's a great privilege to speak on this motion moved by the member for McMahon. We've had some political run-ins in the past when, for instance, he spent a lot of time trying to shove Australian retirees down the financial stairs of the nation, and it's good to know that there has been no change in his demeanour. Before the last election he was the man out there spruiking his wondrous idea about how he would cut down incomes and shove Australian retirees under the poverty line, and now he simply wants to reimpose that ambition on energy prices. He wants to turn around to the nation's pensioners and say, 'I've got a solution for you.' The solution is to make sure they pay more for their electricity, so they can't live in comfort and warmth in winter. That is the foundation of Labor's policy related to climate change. It is not one that is anchored in what they'll do to improve the environment. It is not one that will take the Australian community with it. It is not one, as the minister will attest, that acknowledges, understands, appreciates or even considers and listens to the challenges of people in regional Australia and the impact it will have on them. Labor's solution, like so many of their other solutions, is a tax. I know the member for McMahon can't look at me straight when I talk about this, because he knows his legacy and he's taking his solution to the portfolio that he failed in and imposing it on his new portfolio, because they have no other ideas.

The foundation of every step of the coalition's position related to climate change is what we need to do to get our emissions down while utilising and harnessing the power of technology. That's what you've seen and what we took to the last election. It isn't something we made up willy-nilly in this term of government. It has been consistent and it asks this question: how do we empower Australians, how do we empower businesses and how do we empower the nation to harness the opportunity of technology to drive down emissions?. We've seen the results: 20 per cent off 2005 emissions for Australia so far, and we continued to drive them down. Of course, we're now having a very important conversation about what we need to do to set long-term targets to make sure that all Australians have the opportunity to be part of the conversation. We've seen the translation of our practical plan to invest in the future of renewables, with $35 billion having been invested in renewables so far. I see this every day in my wonderful Goldstein electorate. In 2017 there were 2,700-odd solar PV cells on homes in the Goldstein electorate. There are now nearly 9,000 in the Goldstein electorate.

As the minister said earlier, at every point not only has the coalition government focused on what it can do to empower technology but we have used the legislative instruments available to us to broaden the mandate to increase the opportunity that we see to make sure that people can use the technology and that government agencies can invest in the technology that Australian businesses that Australians need. What we've seen consistently from those opposite is they have blocked every attempt that we have made to do so, whether it is ARENA investing in charging stations or ARENA investing in carbon capture and storage, technology that the IPCC's own modelling says will be necessary to hit long-term targets and that the International Energy Agency has mapped out in its net zero plan. But Labor don't want to have a bar of it because it gets in the way of their one objective, which is the reintroduction of the carbon tax. When I was coming up to the dispatch box I had to check the date because it seems they want to resurrect the carbon tax from the past. It isn't yet Halloween, but we're certainly getting a fair degree of trick or treat. We all remember the promise that was made by former Prime Minister Julia Gillard in the lead-up to the 2010 election, when she said one thing before the election until she did a sweetheart deal with the Greens and brought in a carbon tax and imposed it on the Australian community.

The fundamental problem is there is no respect for democracy from our political opponents and those who sit on the other side of the chamber. We took a policy to the last election, and it was endorsed by the Australian people. We're seeing this not just from the Labor Party but from the independent member for Warringah, who literally wanted to introduce legislation that would give appointed officials veto power over this parliament and its capacity to decide our legislative agenda and how we reduce our greenhouse gas emissions. We stand for democracy, we stand for technology and we stand by the Australian people.

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

When it comes to climate change this government is a total debacle, particularly over the past week. The chaos and the circus we've seen, especially in the last few days from the National Party, all around their wilful inaction when it comes to climate change will be the National Party's shameful legacy.

It is absolutely appalling that Australia today does not have a climate change policy. Acting on climate change is one of our nation's greatest challenges. It's also one of our nation's greatest opportunities. Yet they have all squandered that over the past eight years. In almost a decade they have squandered that. We're in this situation today because this Prime Minister never leads and is incapable of effective governance. We are also in this situation because the National Party are just wreckers. That is all they are. They have betrayed the people of rural and regional Australia. The Nationals have deprived regional Australia of all the economic and environmental benefits of acting on climate change. They are to blame. After nearly a decade in power and more than 20 policies what do they have to show for it standing here today? What do you have to show for it? Absolute chaos. That is not governing; that is rolling from crisis to crisis, from inaction to more in action.

We are just a fortnight away from one of the most important international climate change conferences that we've seen in a very long time. The circus of the last few days involving the National Party is, quite frankly, embarrassing. That's the only word for it. Let's look at the National Party's actions in the last few days They had that partyroom meeting for four hours. They were saying they couldn't make any sudden decisions. You've had nearly have had a decade. It was appalling. Of course in that meeting there were cabinet ministers, including the Deputy Prime Minister. They had a meeting for four hours about whether they would support a decision that had actually been made in cabinet previously. But, of course, the Prime Minister needed them to tick off and they couldn't make a decision. The Prime Minister wasn't even in the room. We were all held hostage to the National Party. That is embarrassing. They just don't understand how serious this issue is.

We all know it's in Australia's economic and environmental interests to have action on climate change, including net zero by 2050 and a pathway to get there, because after this decade of inaction we have seen such environmental harm. We've seen job losses. We've seen lost economic activity—particularly in the regions we felt it the most. The fact is it's the people in regional and rural Australia who are paying the price for this wilful inaction with the droughts, the floods, the bushfires—so many natural disasters. We have seen falling farm productivity as well and falling profits. Yet the National Party's chaos, cuts and lies have resulted in nearly a decade of wilful inaction. This is despite that fact that it is rural and regional Australia that can benefit the most from the transition to renewables, to a more renewable economy. It is the regions that have suffered so much because of this wilful inaction. The National Party are stopping economic growth in the regions. They are stopping job creation in the regions. It is the National Party that are pushing up our power prices because of the inaction. That is their shameful legacy. In fact, the people of regional Australia are fed up with this Liberal-National government, fed up with their inaction and their division when it comes to climate change. People bring that up with me all the time. I fact, I asked the Prime Minister yesterday two very simple questions and he just couldn't answer those at all, not at all. He didn't have any information.

This is a really serious issue. This government has never taken it seriously at all. It is not just about the environment; it is about our economy and it's about jobs and about future generations. And that's why it will only take a Labor government to take serious action on climate change. Our country deserves that. But this is a Prime Minister who never leads. He never governs. On bushfires he just said, 'I don't hold a hose, mate,' On the supply of vaccines he said, 'It's not a race.' That was appalling. Look at the consequences of that. On climate change he said, 'That's too hard. We'll let the Nats decide.' All we see is massive inaction. The fact is this Prime Minister, this government, the Liberals and the Nationals, have all betrayed the nation with their wilful inaction on climate change—especially the National Party. As I've said many times, National Party choices hurt and their decision not to take action on climate change over a decade has been devastating for regional Australia. The potential for economic growth and jobs has been lost by their wilful inaction. The people of the regions will remember that for a very long time to come.

Luke Howarth (Petrie, Liberal Party, Assistant Minister for Youth and Employment Services) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The Australian government's plan is driven by technology, and it's working extremely well. As we heard the Prime Minister say in question time today, emissions are down, at their lowest level ever, and at the same time jobs are up—in the middle of a pandemic. I really trust the Prime Minister to deliver on that. I certainly don't trust the shadow ministers or the Leader of the Opposition to deliver anything like that—not a hope in the world. I know that Australians can trust the Morrison government to get the plan right, to transition with the world to renewable energy and at the same time to maintain jobs. Do you know why I know that? Because the facts support the government. Australia's emissions are down to nearly 21 percent below 2005 levels. Emissions are 21 per cent lower than they were 16 years ago, when the population was lower. Not only that: emissions are lower than they were when emissions were first recorded, back in 1990—31 years ago. We are one of a handful of countries to beat our Kyoto-era commitments. So, the opposition can talk all they want, but the people who are listening to this broadcast can know that the facts are on the Morrison government's side.

I regularly hear the perspective of Australia's young people, as Assistant Minister for Youth and Employment Services, and what young people want is for Australians to tackle these complex challenges together. They don't want to live in fear or to engage in polarising or divisive debate. Just yesterday I met with an impressive group of young Australians who represent Australia across the G20 countries, known as the Y20 youth leaders. They want inclusive action, sustainable action, education and innovation. They made some impressive recommendations, including a 10 per cent increase in current innovation spending by all G20 countries and support for community based green energy and smart microgrid networks—which those opposite, the Labor Party, all voted against recently and, as we heard from the minister today, they continue to vote against microgrids, continue to vote against small EV chargers and continue to vote against hydrogen with the government bill, which the member for McMahon, sitting right here opposite me, leads his party in voting against. Those opposite know it's the right thing to do. It's the right thing to do for local people. You should talk to this shadow minister and get him to sign up.

Around 30 per cent of young Australians who were surveyed feel that using renewable energy and favouring renewable energy providers are the most important individual behaviours to combat climate change, followed by reducing consumption of disposable goods. But what we get from those opposite and also what we get from the Greens and some of the Independents in this House is fearmongering. The member for Indi said on 9 August, in relation to youth, that we are handing over to them a world that is burning. First of all, that's just plain wrong. Second, it's alarmist. And third, it affects young people's mental health. The member for Mayo, who is sitting in the chamber, said yesterday that we are last in the world in relation to solar. Firstly, that is plain wrong. It is alarmist, and it affects people's mental health. In Petrie we have one of the highest uptakes of solar in the country. In fact, one in three houses in Petrie have solar, and I thank the members for neighbouring electorates for what they are doing in installing solar. So, some of those Independents have been hanging around the Greens for too long, and we're not having it. The member for Warringah—I won't even start, there. But I'd love it if just once the Independent members would maybe support the government, or maybe even do a three-minute speech on some of the good things that we're doing around climate, to help our young people understand.

But let me tell those young people who are listening what this government, the Morrison government, is doing. We beat our 2020 target by 459 million tonnes. Emissions are now at the lowest level in the 31 years since records began. And between 2005 and 2019 emissions in Australia fell faster than in Canada, New Zealand, Japan, the United States and the OECD average.

Thank you, member for Mallee. In 2020, a record 7,000 megawatts of renewables were installed in Australia. That's more than the entire six years of the Rudd and Gillard governments combined. That was done in one year. So there was more done in one year under the Morrison government than was done in six years of Labor. To the young people of Australia: the Morrison government is the right government. We will make sure that you are not taxed more and we will make the change that is needed.

Josh Burns (Macnamara, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

[by video link] There is some talk of an early election. If you want to give the Australian people an indication of what governing under the Morrison-Joyce government is like you only need to look at the last 10 days. What a shambles it has been—what a ridiculous display of inertia, of dithering, of dysfunction and of absolute chaos between the Liberals and The Nationals. I say: if you are going to bring on an early election, Prime Minister, the Australian people are fortunate that they won't have to put up with this sort of rubbish that we are seeing from The Nationals and the Liberals right now. What a pathetic display of childish behaviour when we need leadership on the most difficult and important economic and environmental challenge of our time!

The states and territories, the international community and the business community are moving way ahead of this government. The debate has moved on. No-one is arguing whether or not we should have net zero by 2050. Of course, we should. That's the baseline. That's the very bear minimum that we need to give ourselves a chance of keeping global temperatures below a 1.5 degree increase. It's the absolute minimum. And this government is at war with itself over whether or not it can even agree to that. The second-weakest leader in this country is the Deputy Prime Minister, who can't even get his own party room to agree to the baseline level that we need to commit to as a country as part of the global community. The weakest leader in the country is the guy who holds the top job, because he's being held to ransom by a bunch of crazies in the National Party.

The people who hold the power in the coalition party room are not the modern Liberals—not the member for Mackellar, not the member for Goldstein, not the member for Wentworth, not the member for Reid and not the member for Higgins. They are irrelevant in the power distribution in the coalition. The people who have the power in the coalition are people like the member for Dawson and Senator Rennick and the other climate change deniers, like the Minister for Resources, who this morning he was asked, 'Do you even accept the science?' and he couldn't give a straight answer. He just said, 'The science is changing as it always has.' How pathetic! We need leadership right now and we need certainty. We need it because it is going to cost Australians jobs. It is going to cost our country economic development and opportunity, because of the dithering and the embarrassment that we have seen on display over the last week by the Liberals and Nationals, who are at war with each other.

Instead of this ridiculous city-verse-country regional divide that the Liberals and Nationals are trying to manifest, why not put forward some sort of a credible policy that is able to incentivise the economic development that we can realise in this country? Look at projects like Sun Cable in the Northern Territory, where we are talking about potentially exporting a third of Singapore's energy via solar power. How exciting! We are talking about thousands and thousands of jobs. Look at the offshore wind project off the coast of Gippsland in Victoria, which is potentially going to replace all of the energy from some of our major coal-fired power stations. It's brilliant and also so labour intensive. These are jobs that we need to secure for our country, not ignore and just let roll along while the Liberals and Nationals are at war with each other.

The Business Council of Australia are calling for a 2030 target of 50 per cent. They are not doing this out of the goodness of their hearts. The Business Council of Australia, as much as people might like to believe, are not a bunch of bleeding-heart lefties—like many on the government side like to call us on the Labor side. They are doing this because it's in Australia's economic interests. They are doing it because tackling climate change is the single-most important thing that we can do for the Australian economy, to set it up for the next 20 or 30 years. If we want to secure a future for our children—not just a future a planet that they can live on but a future economy that they can thrive in—we need to take this problem seriously. We need to turn up on the global stage with a credible plan. We need to put the climate wars behind us. Most importantly, we need to kick the dithering, dangerous, dysfunctional Liberals and Nationals out of office and install an Albanese Labor government to take it seriously.

Anne Webster (Mallee, National Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise to speak to this matter of public importance and to the Commonwealth government's track record on energy, climate change and emissions reduction. We on this side understand how important it is to have coordinated global effort to reduce emissions. Overcoming these challenges is a shared responsibility, and we are playing our part. Australia has a strong 2030 target and, unlike many countries, we are going to beat that target, just like we beat our 2020 target by 459 million tonnes. Between 2005 and 2019 Australia's emissions fell faster than those of Canada, New Zealand, Japan, Korea and the United States. We are committed to the Paris Agreement and its goals as well as to achieving net zero emissions as soon as possible, preferably by 2050. We need to reach this target as soon as possible, but we need to ensure that regional Australia does not shoulder a majority of the burden. Regional Australians need assurances that their economic wellbeing will be protected in a move to net zero. Our government will do this through our Technology Investment Roadmap.

Our plan is driven by technology, not taxes. Our commitment is clear—lower prices and keeping the lights on while doing our bit to reduce global emissions without wrecking the economy—and we are seeing results. We've already committed around $1.4 billion to help increase the uptake of low- and zero-emissions vehicle technologies. Through our Technology Investment Roadmap, we are backing the next generation of technologies that will deliver lower emissions, lower costs and more jobs. These are technologies like clean hydrogen, carbon capture and storage, low emissions steel and aluminium industries, healthy soils and energy storage. Over the next 10 years we will invest $20 billion in these technologies. This will drive at least $80 billion of total public and private investment and will support at least 160,000 new jobs.

Australia's experience has been that when new technologies become economically competitive they are rapidly adopted by Australian businesses and households, including in regional communities. We are seeing that happen right now, with the adoption of renewables in Australia at 10 times the global average and four times higher than in China, Japan, the US and Europe. One in four homes in Australia have adopted solar—one of the highest rates in the world per capita. We have played a significant role in sharing this knowledge around the world.

Our government will continue to support the kind of innovation that will help us solve this global challenge. That's why we have developed our Technology Investment Roadmap. In my electorate of Mallee the Commonwealth government has invested $15 million in a solar hydro power plant at Carwarp. This innovative project will help to solve the challenge of storing excess renewable energy. The Commonwealth government's Clean Energy Finance Corporation has also financed several major solar farms in the electorate, including in Kerang, Bannerton and Wemen, as well as Victoria's largest solar farm—the 200-megawatt Kiamal solar farm near Mildura. Taken together, the projects have the capacity to power over 220,000 homes. The projects in the Murray renewable energy zone in the north have been mapped by the Australian Energy Market Operator, encompassing more than 640 megawatts of solar-generation developments.

To fully harness the power of renewables in our nation we need to focus on improvements to Australia's energy grid, and we are. That's why our government is investing in game-changing transmission projects, including the Western Victoria Transmission Network Project and the VNI West, both in Mallee. These projects will greatly benefit the renewables sector in Mallee. Their construction gives the private sector the confidence to invest in new renewables projects, as they know that our grid will support further generation. For example, RES Australia are constructing the massive Murra Warra wind farm just north of Horsham in my electorate. This is slated to be one of the largest wind farms in the country, and it wouldn't be viable without the Western Victoria Transmission Network Project. Mallee is positioned to be a national leader in renewables production and a key contributor to Australia's energy generation mix. I see a very exciting future for Mallee.

I want to give a shout-out to our farmers, who are on the front foot in carbon emissions reductions. Indeed they are arguably our best environmentalists. They rely on our environment for their livelihood—it's in their interest—and, in turn, we rely on them for our food and fibre. This government is supporting farmers in Mallee through the agricultural and biodiversity stewardship— (Time expired)

Kate Thwaites (Jagajaga, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

After eight years in office, there is no climate policy. The way this PM works, it's like he's not in charge. Events just unfold around him, and all he can do in response is come up with a clever slogan, a stunt or, perhaps, a fear campaign. He doesn't do the hard work that our country needs to set us on the right path, to put the plan in place and to deal with the most pressing issue of our time. Instead, this week he is being led by the National Party room, who pretend they've had four hours to consider the most pressing issue of our time. They haven't had four hours; they've had more than a decade. They've had eight years in office. This is a farce. Apparently, net zero wasn't even discussed in the Liberal-National Party room today. The PM is talking like he might want net zero but is not doing the work to get us there. We can't trust he'll do the work to get us there. He's talking the talk, but there is nothing we see to back this up.

In this country, we have wasted more than a decade on the climate wars. The IPCC report makes it very clear that the window is closing. If we do not take significant and serious action now, we will miss that window, and the consequences are there for all of us. We will not limit warming to the level that we need for us all to have a future. Those are real consequences for all of us. There are real economic consequences on the table for all of us. The jobs and the industries of the future—the jobs, industries and investment that we should have right now—are being lost in this country and are going offshore right now because this government and this Prime Minister cannot put a credible climate plan together. That's what's going on under this government.

The PM's leadership failures do not just include his inability to do the hard work to put this country on the right track. It's also his inability to bring this country together to set out a plan that works for all of us and a future that all Australians can get behind. Instead, this Prime Minister allows members of his party room, senior members of his government, to stoke division in our country. He allows them to set up this false binary between regional areas and city areas to pretend that only people in regional areas are affected by climate change and only people in the city care about climate change. It's just not the case.

Here's what the Deputy Prime Minister had had to say about my hometown of Melbourne. He said he 'couldn't really give a—expletive—' about Melbourne's pandemic challenges, and, when talking about our city, he said:

You can almost smell the burning flesh from here.

Well, I can tell the Deputy Prime Minister that people in my electorate do give an—expletive—about the jobs and the livelihoods of people in regional Australia. They get that the transition in this country has to support new opportunities and new industries in those regions. What they don't see from this government is the leadership and the plan that will get us there, and what they don't appreciate is the suggestion that their concerns are, somehow, of a lesser order and are not worthy of being considered as part of this debate. That is what they are hearing from this government this week in this place.

People in my electorate get up every day, they go to work, they work hard, they look after the kids and they pay their mortgages. Senator Canavan is happy for these people to pay more for their mortgages, because he has an ideological problem with us acting on climate change. They need a leader. They need a government that is prepared to do the hard work for this entire country to put us on the track that we need to be on. They do not need a government playing the politics of fear and division. They do not need a Prime Minister who is about slogans and stunts but who can't follow through with a plan.

It's been eight years. The kids who started primary school when this government first got elected are in high school. Others have finished high school. It's those kids' future we are talking about. This government has to come up with a credible plan. (Time expired)

Mark Coulton (Parkes, Deputy-Speaker) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I'd like to start my contribution by reading from a document. The first part is about an inland rail:

One double-stacked container train would take 276 trucks off the road, save 100,000 litres of fuel and prevent thousands of tonnes of greenhouse gas from entering the atmosphere on a journey from Brisbane to Melbourne.

A little bit further down in the same document:

The way society reacts to the issue of climate change will impact greatly on regional Australia. As our country grapples with the extent and effects of climate change, we must remember that agriculture is the cure, not the disease. Farmers have been adapting to the variables of the Australian climate for many years. The adoption of advanced farming techniques, such as zero-till methods of crop production, best-practice management in the irrigation industry and advanced pasture management techniques …

That document, 19 February 2008, happens to be my maiden speech to this House—nearly 14 years ago—so I will not be lectured by people on the other side about the concerns of adapting to climate change. Since that time, with the Inland Rail, in 10 days time the first grain train from Moree will go over a newly completed section of that line that is now well underway from Melbourne to Brisbane, delivering grain to the port in a much more efficient and effective manner. Since that speech, large-scale solar farms have been constructed, with the assistance of this federal government, at Broken Hill, Gunnedah, Moree, Nyngan and Nevertire, and a massive wind farm has been built at Silverton, west of Broken Hill, with proposals for a large battery to go in at Broken Hill to supplement it.

I'll just say to the people opposite: you need to get out more. For the people of my electorate, this is not a philosophical debate about what you believe. They're actually doing it. They're living it. They're adapting, they're growing to it, and they will not be lectured about their inability to adapt to climate change.

In 2020, last year, Australia invested $7.7 billion, which is equivalent to $299 per person, in renewables. That's ahead of Canada, Germany, Japan, Korea, New Zealand and the US. My electorate has the highest uptake of rooftop solar anywhere in the country, probably anywhere in the world. In places like Dubbo, 50 per cent of houses are covered by rooftop solar. We have irrigation farms that have large solar arrays, pumping water in conjunction with a hybrid diesel plant. On my own farm I have two solar arrays pumping water for livestock. In terms of the jobs that that are being proposed for the Parkes electorate, we have a lithium mine being proposed for the Fifield area, a cobalt mine being proposed for Broken Hill, a rare-earths mine at Toongi near Dubbo—thousands of jobs coming down the pipeline because of the direction, the investment and the guidance of this government.

My great frustration during this debate has been that somehow we're at the starting line of adapting to climate change. This government has been doing this since day one. We have progressed right through. It might be fine for the other side to have a scare campaign. I listened to the members in the corner here, the member for Melbourne and the member for Warringah, but I don't see any evidence in their electorates that anyone is doing anything personally to adapt to climate change. If they really meant it, we would have an offshore windfarm at Manly, or maybe North Heads could be covered in solar panels, but we don't see that. The member for Melbourne lectures day after day. I've been there at night, and they don't even turn the lights off in their offices when they go home. This is a serious issue. This government has got in place policies for the future that are going to make sure that Australia not only is doing its bit but is actually leading the world in adapting to climate change. My electorate so far has a proud record—and will continue to do so—of reducing its emissions and making our planet a better place for future generations. I will not be lectured by people here who are treating this as some sort of high school debate on who believes in something more. We actually do things in my electorate; we don't just talk about it.

Luke Howarth (Petrie, Liberal Party, Assistant Minister for Youth and Employment Services) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

on indulgence—I just want to correct the record in relation to what I said about the member for Mayo. I said that she said that we are coming last in relation to solar, but she didn't say that. She said we should be leading the world. I just wanted to correct the record.

Llew O'Brien (Wide Bay, National Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The time for the discussion has concluded.