Jess Walsh (Victoria, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

Thank you to Senator Siewert for raising this critical issue. This government's climate policies are a mess, they are an embarrassment and they are irresponsible. This government, while it preaches budget responsibility, cannot tell us what its current climate policies will cost. However, the man that was leading the government not too long ago, former Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull, has been happy to tell us what the cost is: a less habitable planet, lower economic growth, lower growth in new jobs and more emissions. That is the cost of this government's plan.

This has been backed up by a CSIRO report, the Australian national outlook 2019, which stated that if we stay on our current course, we risk a situation where 'Australia drifts into the future', and we risk a slow economic decline. That same report mapped out a second possible future for Australia, which it called the 'outlook' scenario. In this second possible future, Australia takes action on the major challenges facing it over the next few decades, such as emissions and climate. In this scenario, it predicts an Australia with significantly stronger GDP growth, over double the growth in wages, and household electricity bills down 64 per cent as a proportion of household income. All of this happens with an Australia that reaches net zero carbon emissions by 2050 with international cooperation. I know which of these two futures I want to see, live in and be part of, and I know the majority of Australians will agree with me, because the cost of inaction is not just the environmental impact that a changing climate would bring but also an Australia that gives up the opportunities of becoming a clean energy superpower with a new generation of jobs and cheaper bills. I wonder which future the government would like to see, because, due to the policy decisions this government has put in place, we're currently on track for the former scenario, the one which the CSIRO report named 'slow decline'.

All of the latest data confirms that this government's climate policies are hopelessly inadequate. Their own data shows that there was no reduction in emissions pollution in the quarter to September 2019, and the most recent data on annual emissions pollution shows a decline that is pathetic: just 0.3 per cent to date. So not only is Scott Morrison failing to protect Australians from the future of a changing climate but he is also failing to take advantage of the better future that we can have, which the CSIRO, the government's own pre-eminent science agency, described in their report.

Scott Morrison and his government are the only ones who don't seem to think that we should cut emissions pollution and invest significantly in renewables to get to zero net emissions in 2050. This argument is happening only inside the Liberal and National parties, because everyone else agrees, and they have done for a long time. So what we need to be able to move forward to a better future is for this government and the two parties that make it up to resolve their internal conflicts. That is what we need. We need them to resolve their internal disputes and to make a plan now, because we can't wait any longer—though I have to say that it's becoming increasingly clear that plans aren't really the style of this government.

We, on the other hand see a positive future where Australia is a clean energy superpower with a new generation of jobs and cheaper energy bills, a future which sees a positive and forward-looking Australia which moves forward with the rest of the world. There is now a real consensus on what needs to happen, with 73 countries around the world, every Australian state and territory, and major business groups supporting zero net emissions. There are major countries, the Business Council, the AIG, the Property Council, and some of our biggest employers all seeing the same positive future that Labor sees.

What we really need to do is deliver certainty about the future, and that is what a zero net emissions target does. It delivers certainty, and certainty is what this government refuses to provide. Business needs it to invest, and young people need it to know that our generation will deliver them a healthy planet. We owe that to them.