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

My question is to the Prime Minister. In my last two questions to you on coal and gas, you handed it off to someone else. But I ask you directly today, as head of the government: will Labor join more than 100 countries and support a call for a phase-out of coal, oil and gas in the communique from this week's climate summit?

Anthony Albanese (Grayndler, Australian Labor Party, Prime Minister) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I thank the member for Melbourne for his question. Australia, when we are at the COP summit—where Minister Bowen is representing Australia—will be back around the table with credibility, as we have been at the Pacific Island Forum, and as we are in our region, because we are a government that is taking climate change seriously. We are, a government that understands that in order to take climate change seriously, you need to bring the community with you. You can't just flick a switch or have the best of intentions. What you need is a plan and a strategy to get there. We have that through the safeguards mechanism, which is the key to driving that change to 43 per cent reduction by 2030 and net zero by 2050. In the last month, this has been supported by the measures we took on the Capacity Investment Scheme, which will provide for that certainty to de-risk projects, to make sure that the investments flow through in renewable energy. You can't simply say, 'We'll just change overnight.' What you've got to do is make sure that energy security and reliability is part of the system. That's why, for example, gas will continue to play an important role in providing stability in the system. That's how renewables will be able to operate.

We have a comprehensive plan including our Rewiring the Nation plan based upon AEMO's Integrated System Plan that's been in place for a long period of time. When you combine all those measures, all of which were supported by the crossbench—the legislation in order to achieve those targets, in order to put the safeguard mechanism in place—

Milton Dick (Speaker) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The Prime Minister is being relevant to the question, so I'm going to ask the Leader of the Australian Greens to state his point of order.

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

The point of order is on relevance. The question was about the phase out of coal and whether that would be something that Australia will join in the communique at this week's summit, not about other matters.

Milton Dick (Speaker) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

In the first sentence the Prime Minister mentioned the COP summit. He's talking about the question. You may not agree with the answer; you may not like the answer, but under the standing order 104 he's got to be relevant to the question, and he is being relevant.

Anthony Albanese (Grayndler, Australian Labor Party, Prime Minister) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I'll make this point as well: Australia will remain a reliable energy supplier. We're a country that does not renege on the contracts that we make. In the region, that's really important. But we need to make sure that the transition that's occurring through market based mechanisms—because the cheapest forms of new energy are the cleanest forms of energy. The prospects that we have in an area like Whyalla to make steel, where the coal-fired generator has been turned off, is that they'll go through gas first and then, importantly, green hydrogen to produce green steel, which is very much Australia's future.

Milton Dick (Speaker) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The Prime Minister's time has concluded.