Ben Small (WA, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

Like something from Sesame Street, today's MPI seems to be brought to us by the No. 2050 and the letter D. The letter D is for division and dysfunction over there on the Labor benches. The Labor Party will do anything, it seems, to paint over their own internal divisions, whether it's on coal, on gas, on energy or on emissions reductions, and the investments that this government seeks to make and that they stand between. Labor talk a big game about a climate emergency but, in the same breath, they vote against solutions and the necessary steps that we seek to take.

Not 24 hours ago, in this chamber, the Labor Party sided with the Greens to vote against $192.5 million in additional funding for ARENA—and that's investment in Australian innovation. They voted against more EV and hydrogen charging stations. They voted against more energy efficiency and a competitive heavy industry in Australia. They voted against carbon capture and storage. And they voted against their own national policy platform, which they adopted not even 90 days ago at their federal conference.

Meanwhile, we are seeking to take real and practical action to deliver lower emissions whilst we protect our economy, our jobs and our investment in Australian businesses. We have strong targets. We have an enviable track record and a clear plan. Our approach is driven by technology, not taxes. So we are not divided. We are very unified that our plan will deliver lower emissions, protect Australian industry and protect Australian jobs, and the only thing that stands between that and realising it is the Labor Party.

Emissions are at their lowest level since 1990, when records began. But that hasn't been brought about by a massive increase in the power prices that Australians pay. Indeed, wholesale power prices are at their lowest level in nine years, following 19 straight months of falls from the introduction of the big-stick legislation that this government introduced. Household retail prices are 11.2 per cent lower than they were a year ago, and we are delivering the needed investment, through Snowy 2.0 and the Kurri Kurri gas-fired power station, to ensure that Australians pay affordable energy prices today and tomorrow.

This is a government that recognises that, whilst ambition is important, achievement and outcomes are actually what matter. We are one of a handful of countries in the world to have beaten our Kyoto-era commitments. We beat our 2020 target by some 459 million tonnes. Not only that, our emissions have fallen faster than the G20 average, faster than the OECD average and much faster than similar developed economies like Canada and New Zealand. So, again, this is a government that is unified with a strong track record and a plan that the Labor Party oppose. On a per-person basis, our 2030 target is more ambitious than the targets of France, Germany, Canada, New Zealand or Japan. We have an ambitious target. We have a proactive policy agenda. That is an ambition but not a cap. We want to meet and exceed those targets. The latest emissions projections published as recently as December 2020 show that we are on track to do exactly that.

As the Prime Minister has said, we are a nation that wants to get to net zero—and preferably by 2050—but we're committed to doing that through technology and not taxes. That's the approach that's yielded results so far, and it hasn't sacrificed jobs and industries on the altar of Labor vanity. Instead, this government is focused on the how, and that how is breakthroughs in technology that will be needed to make net zero emissions possible here and around the world.

Updated forecasts with respect to our 2030 Paris targets show that we are improving our baseline position by some 639 million tonnes, which, as I told the chamber yesterday, is equivalent to taking Australia's 14.7 million cars—that's every car in the nation—off the road for some 15 years. But not only that—focused on the present, we have an impressive plan. We've got momentum leading into Australia's Technology Investment Roadmap, and our commitment is clear. We're going to keep electricity prices low, we're going to keep the lights on and we're going to be doing our bit to reduce global emissions without wrecking the economy. These are the results we're seeing thus far, and this is the plan we have.

Advancing that next generation of low-emissions technologies is crucial to fully realising our plan under the Paris Agreement. But that's exactly what was voted against by both Labor and the Greens yesterday. Not only did they vote against $192.5 million in investment in renewables and technology; they also voted against 1,400 green jobs here in Australia. Australia's experience has been that, where new technologies are economically competitive, Australians take them up at a great rate. That's why, here in Australia, we're seeing the adoption of renewable energy at 10 times the global average, and four times faster than China, Japan, the US and Europe as a whole. Australia now has the highest solar capacity of any country in the world.

That's where we can go with our technology road map—that comprehensive plan to ensure not only that we realise the benefits of the technologies today but also that we continue to realise those benefits tomorrow. Accelerating technologies like hydrogen, carbon capture and storage, carbon-soil measurement, low-carbon materials in steel and aluminium, and long-duration energy storage are the sorts of innovations that will unlock emissions reduction into the future. That's exactly what was opposed in this chamber last night by those who seem to have forgotten it, with this fallacious MPI today.

Australian electricity prices are coming down. Emissions are coming down. Jobs are secure. Industry is developing. Technology is developing. And we're futureproofing our energy markets with a gas fired recovery as we recover from the COVID-19 pandemic. Our competitive advantage as a nation has always been premised on cheap, reliable energy, and gas is fundamental to that as we move through a transition to a net neutral future, preferably by 2050. Our comprehensive plan of 13 measures in the gas market to establish an open and competitive hub model, based on the Henry hub, will unlock supply, ensure efficient transportation and, importantly, empower consumers. This is an industry that employs more 900,000 Australians, and we will not risk their jobs and their economic security with a big-taxing, big-government agenda like that of those opposite.

Labor are completely divided by this issue, and this motion is yet another attempt on their part to paper over the cracks over there, to distract from their complete lack of energy and climate policy action where it counts. They're all talk about targets and ambitions, but they have no plan to get there. The contrast with this government—with a strong track record, a world-beating story to tell and a plan to take us to a net neutral future—couldn't be starker. Labor can't tell you by how much their policies will reduce emissions. They can't tell you how many jobs it will cost. They can't tell you how many more electric vehicles we'll have on our roads or indeed whether we'll have carbon capture and storage at all. But yesterday, in this place, they all lined up over there to vote against $192.5 million of investment and 1,400 jobs in this important space. That is something that reflects the fact that the Labor Party are all at sea when it comes to energy policy and when it comes to being net neutral, preferably by 2050.

The Labor Party oppose our Kurri Kurri gas fired project. They voted against our ARENA investments. Yet they've got no plan and no story to tell. I think Australians can be very confident that it's the Morrison government that will protect their jobs, that will keep power prices low, that will keep their jobs safe and that will deliver the sort of future that our children would want to see.