Simon Birmingham (SA, Liberal Party, Assistant Minister for Education and Training) Share this | Hansard source

As Senator Day and all senators would be aware, the parliament recently passed the revised renewable energy target. The current large-scale target is 33,000 gigawatt hours, which will, by 2020, see around 23 per cent, it is estimated, of renewable energy generated in Australia. It is remarkable, though, that despite having agreed to this legislation and supported the compromise, as Senator Day rightly highlights, the Australian Labor Party now proposes a 50 per cent target. Estimates are that Labor's 50 per cent target could saddle Australians with about $85 billion of additional costs. When challenged on this, what does the Labor Party say? They say, 'We don't know, because we have not done any modelling, we have not done any assessment and we have not done any analysis.'