Jenny McAllister (NSW, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Cabinet Secretary) Share this | Hansard source

Well, it's all on display this afternoon, isn't it? Senator Ruston and Senator Cormann tried to run something approximating the line that the government may be a little bit committed to acting on climate change, but then Senator Scarr and Senator Abetz got up and let the cat out of the bag. Senator Scarr would prefer to just complain bitterly about the idea that any target at all might be set, while simultaneously being concerned that the target that's been set doesn't have enough detail attached to it—a recently inconsistent internal position, I'd suggest. Then Senator Abetz put the position that what we ought to have done over the last 30 years was spend all of our time investing in yesterday's technology and ignoring the technology that all of the global investment community tells us is the future—and that is renewable energy. It goes to the heart of the division in the government, and it explains, if anyone needs an explanation, why it is that for seven years this government has been completely unable to formulate an energy policy of any kind—not an emissions intensity scheme, not a clean energy target, not a national energy guarantee and not any of the other mechanisms that have been floated and discarded in the chaos of their party room.

The sad truth is that this is a group of people desperately torn between the siren call of populist denialism on display this afternoon and sensible, evidence based policy. They are torn between crude oppositionalism and the responsibilities of government, and they are increasingly landing on the wrong side of that divide. They're lured in by the culture warriors to the detriment of people they would ordinarily call allies.

Imagine what the business community makes of all this. Imagine the captains of industry, whose position on this has been clear for a long time. A net-zero-emissions-by-2050 target, consistent with the science, has been endorsed by the Business Council of Australia, the CSIRO, the Australian Academy of Science, the Property Council of Australia, Ai Group, the Grattan Institute, BHP, Qantas, the Commonwealth Bank, Telstra, AGL, Origin and Energy Australia. What do they make of all this nonsense here in this chamber? What do they make of a group of people who'd rather stoke wars on Twitter than get on with governing? What do they make of this?

You have to ask what state colleagues make of this. What does poor old Ms Berejiklian, the Premier in my state, think about this? That state has committed to net zero emissions by 2050—words that cannot be said by either Senator Ruston or Senator Cormann in their answers this afternoon. Obviously, Mr Falinski and Mr Sharma find it all pretty embarrassing. They're willing to go on the record and say that Australia should get with the international community's program to tackle this problem which represents an existential threat—a threat to our biodiversity, a threat to our way of life and a threat to our economy.

All that gets served up is fear. Mr Littleproud was out this morning talking about a dramatic reduction in the national herd. Mr Joyce is upstairs in the corridors of the press gallery, ranting about shrubs and manure. Mr O'Dowd is also talking about manure but in less parliamentary terms. All of them are apparently trying to engage on the question of emissions reduction in the agricultural sector. Their approach is not the approach taken by the National Farmers Federation. They've got a road map for net zero emissions by 2030. They're embracing the future with optimism, they're looking at the opportunities and they're making concrete plans for the future. That's actually what leadership looks like. That's what government requires. That would, amongst other things, require you to have an energy policy, because that is where the big gains are for Australia. Gains are there for consumers, because, if we had an energy policy, we'd have lower prices, we'd have lower emissions and we'd actually have an investment boom that drove jobs and opportunities in regional Australia.

It's very clear that the only way that we are going to resolve this is to elect a Labor government. There is no other party of government with the capacity or the drive to engage seriously on this— (Time expired)