Celia Hammond (Curtin, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

My question is to the Minister for Industry, Energy and Emissions Reduction. Would the minister update the House on how the Morrison government is investing in the technology we need to reduce emissions both here and around the world? And is the minister aware of any alternative approaches?

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

I thank the member for Curtin for her question. As a former vice-chancellor and researcher, she knows the power of technology to solve hard problems in Australia and around the world. She knows that a technology-led approach is the right way to get to net zero by 2050 in a way that reconciles a strong economy, job creation and investment with bringing down emissions, and she trusts the Australian people that, when low emission technologies come to cost competitiveness, they deploy them. And they're doing exactly that in her electorate, where there are 15,000 households with solar cells on their roofs. I should say that 90 per cent of solar cells around the world have Australian technology in them. We've shaped that technology and we've played an extraordinary role in bringing down emissions not just here in Australia but around the world.

We, as Australians, trust our colleagues, our fellow Australians, to make the choices that are right for them about the vehicles they drive, the food they eat, the electricity they buy, and we know that Australians will adopt low emissions technologies when they make sense and when they're cost competitive. That's why we're focused on reducing the cost of those technologies, to bring them to a point where Australians deploy them, because it's in their interests. That includes technologies like carbon capture and storage. We've developed an Emissions Reduction Fund methodology, which we've announced in recent months, so that we can create an abatement from new carbon capture projects. We've committed $250 million to carbon capture and storage hubs. We know that will provide up to 1,500 jobs, nearly all of which will be in regional areas.

But it's not just us. Joe Biden, the US President, has said that the US will double-down on carbon capture and storage. The IPCC and the IEA have said that this is a critical technology for the world to meet net zero goals. The UK is investing a billion dollars in carbon capture and storage, which will reduce their emissions by 20 to 30 million tonnes per annum.

I am asked about alternatives. The fact is that those opposite rule out technologies—they rule them out—like carbon capture and storage. They have voted time and time again against technologies like these. We know why. It's because their real target is not net zero; it's zero. They want to see industries like agriculture, manufacturing and mining wiped out. No fossil fuels—they want them all gone. They want to see these industries wiped out. That's not the Australian way. We will reconcile, right across regional Australia and the rest of Australia, a strong economy with emissions reduction.

Ms Catherine King (Ballarat, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for Infrastructure, Transport and Regional Development) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

My question is to the Prime Minister. Why won't the Prime Minister legislate net zero by 2050? Is it because he is worried about members of his own government crossing the floor?

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

No. Our plan backs in what Australians are doing. We have met and beaten our Kyoto targets. They weren't legislated. We are going to meet and beat our Paris targets that we set at 26 to 28 per cent. We had this discussion at the last election. Those opposite said they didn't believe that our plans would meet that target. They said, 'It won't happen'. Other commentators said it wouldn't happen. They said the same thing about our 2020 targets. They made all the same criticisms and all the same noise that they're making today about our plans for 2050.

But, guess what? We met 2020. There aren't that many countries that can say that, because they just didn't meet it. We beat it by almost a full year of emissions by Australia. We beat that target in 2020. Regarding 2030, when we go to Glasgow we will be able to say that our projections, which are included in our nationally determined contribution, will see emissions reduced, we expect, by 35 per cent by 2030. Australians know what our policies are, they know what they're designed to achieve, they know what they have met, they know how those targets have been beaten and they know how we plan to get there—with technologies which we know will secure the outcomes that we are seeking to achieve. Australians, of course, want us to achieve net zero by 2050, but they don't want a blank cheque, they don't want to be signed up to a blank cheque, which is what the Labor party want to do with their legislation. Australians don't want the mandates to come down and be told what to do on their farm, in their business, in their home or in their car. They want to be trusted.

We trust Australians to be able to go forward and do these things, just like we trusted them to go out and get vaccinated. The Leader of the Opposition thought they had to be bribed to do that. We believe in the integrity of Australians and their commitment to do what's right by Australia. We don't think they need to be mandated. We don't think they need those sorts of things, because we know they want to achieve it and we know that's true, because we've already seen emissions fall by over 20 per cent on 2005 levels, and at the same time our economy has grown by 45 per cent. We've got a million people back in jobs in manufacturing in this country. Under Labor, one in eight jobs in manufacturing—gone. On electricity prices, under our government, on the latest inflation figures, they've gone up by three per cent since we were elected. Under Labor, they went up by 101 per cent.