Allegra Spender (Wentworth, Independent) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

My question is to the Minister for Climate Change and Energy. Australia has refused to sign a pledge to end new public subsidies for fossil fuels. These subsidies are bad for our planet, and they're a bad use of public money. When will the government put an end to fossil fuel subsidies?

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

I thank the honourable member for her question, and I recognise her very keen engagement on these issues and her engagement with the government on these issues. The approach the government is taking is to implement the policies we took to the election. In addition, we are engaging internationally on a range of pledges, of agreements and of alliances which I signed last week. The opposition has criticised us for that, but we continue in that international engagement with things like the Global Offshore Wind Alliance, the Net Zero Government Initiative and the Global Methane Pledge, which the opposition have got themselves hyperventilating about—but, nevertheless, we will continue to engage.

In relation to the honourable member's question, we continue to target government expenditure very carefully. We have made changes in the budget. For example, we cut around half a billion dollars out of CCUS funding and reprioritised it. We cut the former member's UNGI program, which delivered not one watt of energy, and we reprioritised that for energy storage. That is what a good government does.

What we won't do is—to be very frank with the honourable member—do things like cut the diesel fuel rebate to farmers. We won't be doing that. We understand the pressures and the different views, but these are arrangements that have been in place for a very long time, and we do not intend to change them.