David Van (Victoria, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

As a Catholic and a member of this government, I'm immensely proud of what this government is doing to lower emissions. Those opposite don't seem to pay any attention to the real facts of what's going on here, so I think it's time to tell them a little bit of what we've been doing. Australia's emissions are at their lowest levels since records began. Emissions in 2020 were more than 20 per cent lower than the 2005 baseline being used for the Paris Agreement. Australia has reduced its emissions faster than have Canada, Japan, New Zealand and Senator Keneally's previous home, the USA. Australia is on track to beat our 2030 Paris target, and we will meet and beat that target. Let me repeat that: we will meet and beat that target. On a per person basis, that's a reduction of nearly 49 per cent per capita. This is more than France, Germany, Canada, New Zealand or Japan is expected to achieve.

Those opposite haven't even set a 2030 target that they will share with anyone, so God knows what they're carrying on about. Our approach to reducing emissions is not going to be theirs, which we know is going to be taxes. As we know, the world is changing, and we're going to need different mixes of energy. Our customers from all around the world, including Japan and Korea, are telling us that, so we're developing the technology to meet those challenges.

Australia is truly the envy of the world on this. We have strong targets. We are beating our targets. We're spending $1.2 billion on hydrogen development. We will get hydrogen well below the $2 per kilo mark, which is as expected, and that is for both blue and green hydrogen. But these things take time. These things aren't going to happen overnight. Like carbon capture and storage, these are technologies that need to be developed. We know that those opposite won't take any time to develop a tax on this. They'll apply it the second they ever get back into government. It's just a shame that they won't ever learn their lessons. Hopefully, they learned their lessons from the last election.

Australia is building wind and solar three times faster on a per capita basis than is Europe or the US. We have the world's highest take-up with rooftop solar, with one in four homes now having rooftop panels. Last year seven gigawatts of solar power were installed in Australia. It took 30 years to come up with the first gigawatt of renewable power. Now we're doing seven gigawatts a year. Globally, I believe the number is 700 gigawatts, so we're doing our fair share, and we're committed to reducing emissions through technology not taxes. Our Technology Investment Roadmap will support investments in hydrogen, long-duration energy storage, pumped hydro, low-emissions steel, low-emissions aluminium, carbon capture and storage, and healthy soils. Our commitments and investments in this will guide and be enhanced by $80 billion of private investment going along with ours by 2030. That will support 160,000 jobs. So Australia has achieved its emissions reduction, and, when you look at it on a per capita basis, we're doing far more than those opposite would ever have achieved.

Senator Keneally says we're an eight-year-old, tired government. Let me just remind you of a few things we've done in the last six weeks, since we were last sitting in this place. Five million Australians have received their first dose of a COVID vaccine, while 6.5 million have received their second dose. The first million doses of Moderna have arrived and have been put in the arms of those aged 12 or more. We've secured access to 300,000 doses of molnupiravir, if I'm pronouncing that correctly. We've created—and this might have been missed by those opposite—an enhanced security partnership, AUKUS, with the US and the UK. There was the historic first meeting of the Quad. The final budget outcome for 2021 showed a net improvement of $80 billion in the nation's finances. These are hardly the hallmarks of a tired government. I could keep going, if you would give me leave to continue my remarks.