Penny Wong (SA, Australian Labor Party, Minister for Climate Change and Water) Share this | Hansard source

The modelling released in October last year—so that is over a year ago—which was the largest modelling exercise the Australian government has undertaken, had a whole range of assumptions driving it. Those assumptions included action around the rest of the world, technology—there were quite a number of assumptions. The key and central finding of that is that we can reduce our emissions and continue to grow our economy. The alteration in the order you refer to is of course a mid-century projection; we are not talking two million more people by next year. The question of how fast we grow and when we will hit a certain population figure—whether that is by 2050 or later—does not, in the government’s view, change that central proposition. The key issue in that modelling is that we can grow the Australian economy, we can continue to increase the number of jobs in Australia and we can still reduce emissions.