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

The renewable energy target was established to absolutely drive a certain level of renewable energy in Australia to provide a mix and an incentive for the development of alternative energy sources.

Senator Lambie, your question goes to be role it plays in part to contributing to Australia's emissions reduction targets—targets which Australia has always met and exceeded in terms of our international commitments, which we will do again in relation to our 2020 commitments and which we are working on in relation to effective policies to deliver our 2030 commitments for emissions reduction.

So, Senator Lambie, you are right: the RET in and of itself does not, of course, change global emissions, but it does make a contribution in some ways to the achievement of our current targets. But we will, of course, be looking very carefully at whether it is an effective mechanism of making any contribution to future targets or whether there are better ways of doing so.