Penny Wong (SA, Australian Labor Party, Minister for Foreign Affairs) Share this | Hansard source

I think that anybody who has looked at the history of Australia and at Australia's current export profile would know the monetary value that coal has provided to all of us. It has funded a lot of the public infrastructure, including those things that you wish for—Medicare and so forth.

But the point is: as the world moves to 2050, it is inevitable that we will have to ensure that we export goods and services into a global market that is a net zero market. So that means we have to transition our economy to do much more for the new economies and the clean energy economy than we have in the past. So, rather than just trying to make it about one industry and those who work in it—and vilifying those who work in it, which is what the Greens political party do—what I want to do and what we want to do is to transition our economy, so our children get the chance to have the prosperity we have had, but on the basis of clean energy and a net zero economy. (Time expired)