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

My question is to the Prime Minister. Labor has approved 23 coal and gas projects and is giving $1½ billion to the gas-expanding Middle Arm precinct. Will you work with the Greens to ensure a future made in Australia isn't a future for more coal and gas but, instead, one that supports public ownership and a national critical minerals reserve so Australians get their fair share of the future? What's more important to you, Prime Minister: passing your bill or opening more coal and gas mines?

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

I thank the member for his question. It's on a day when we have approved, through the environment minister, Australia's biggest renewable energy project ever, but does the Leader of the Australian Greens talk about that? No. 'No, we won't worry about that.' Does he talk about the fact that manufacturing jobs are also going to be created because of Australia's largest ever renewable energy project? No. They are too busy out there preparing to vote once again with the coalition to block the Future Made in Australia legislation.

I'll say this about a future made in Australia: we have enormous opportunities that we can seize from the transition to net zero, and one of the things that people who are looking at large-scale renewable energy, such as Rio Tinto there in Gladstone, talk about is the need for firming capacity so that they can shift to net zero. They see that gas has a role to play in that. The Leader of the Australian Greens can pretend that that's not the case and deny that that investment is occurring, or he can actually get with the program of a real plan to deliver the transition to net zero in a way that sees us deliver the reduction that we need to have—43 per cent by 2030 and then net zero by 2050.

The Sun Cable project that was approved today in the Northern Territory is expected to deliver more than $20 billion in economic value to the Northern Territory and support an average of 6,800 direct and indirect jobs for each year of the construction phase, with a peak workforce of 14,300 in that area. He might know as well that Middle Arm has a role in that export. Middle Arm, by having an industrial precinct in the Northern Territory, has a role in the shift that needs to occur and that is occurring.

So I say to the member for Melbourne that he should support the Future Made in Australia plan, he should support Australian jobs and he should support Australian manufacturing. We'll wait and see, but we're quite happy for him to get on board and, indeed, for the coalition to get on board as well, making more things here because we need a more resilient economy as we take advantage of the shift in the global economy. (Time expired)