Hollie Hughes (NSW, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

Now, theirs is a party that clings to the idea of globalisation, with open borders or no borders at all—just opening up all the countries across the world, or one world, or whatever it is that you believe, out on the fringes. They love to say that Australia should open up to whoever wants to come, whenever they want to come, with no need to embrace our Australian culture—in fact, they openly and actively talk Australians down. But, when it comes to climate change and the discussion around that, Australia can do it all and there's no need for any global response or participation by any other nation. There's no need for the rest of the world to participate at all! So they sit idly by—and perhaps it's because they've been superglued to something!—as their ideologically aligned China continues to build more and more coal-fired power stations. But perhaps Communist emissions don't count when it comes to this lot! I just don't see what other reason there could be.

Here's the thing, though. I'll let you in on a little secret. If we, as a globe, are going to tackle global emissions, it needs to be a global effort. I know that sounds crazy and way out there and just a little bit too much for you all to handle, but half of the G20 member nations actually increased their emissions whilst Australia's fell faster than those of Canada, New Zealand, Japan, Korea or the United States. Yet, here we are, as you can contribute hot air, and pretty much that's it, to this current conversation.

But you're well and truly keeping the current Leader of the Opposition company, as those opposite abandon their 2030 target and so, in effect, walk away from the Paris Agreement. When asked about this, all the current Leader of the Opposition could muster—and I do hope that I do this justice—was: 'Well, what we do is, in government, of course, what we're doing is that we're encouraging the current government.' I mean, um, thanks—I think! It seems to be hot air, indecision, paralysis and the beating of the leadership drum. I guess that, in part, could explain why, just last week, those opposite voted against the Technology Investment Roadmap. They voted against technology, because we know that, for those opposite, it's purely about taxes and nothing else.

Not for us, on this side of the chamber; we're here for technology. We're looking to the future—investing in innovation; investing in our regions. I've personally been thrilled to see the $20 billion that's been invested by the Morrison government across the country up to 2030, and this $20 billion over the next decade will drive $80 billion of total public and private investment over the decade. This investment will create around 160,000 new jobs. But yes, sure—you guys over on the other side, you just keep on voting against those jobs! And keep on voting against the jobs of those workers in the Hunter region, as you walk away from the miners, but, on top of that, walk away from the energy hub that the Hunter region is becoming—all as you continue to march to the drum of the inner city latte left. Not us, on this side; we are looking at technology, not taxes; not destroying jobs or imposing taxes and new costs on households, businesses or industries.

In fact, in the Hunter, we have organisations like Batt Mobile and Energy Renaissance, as the region moves towards becoming a hydrogen hub, with partnerships between industry and the University of Newcastle. So I thought I might take the time to explain to you what some of this investment looks like and what some of this innovation looks like, because I'm not quite sure the intellectual fortitude and the depth of understanding exist for you to understand how some of these things look.