Fatima Payman (WA, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

There's one thing that my good friend Senator Bragg and I agree on, and that is that the previous government could have done better. They had almost 10 years in government, and we saw what the outcome was. If laughter is medicine, then the track record of those opposite when they were in government must be curing the world, don't we think?

I would like to take note of Senator Canavan's question to the minister. He said, 'Winter is coming.' Well, Senator Canavan, winter may be coming, but the Albanese government is manning the walls whilst your party is bickering over who will sit on that throne. We saw the results of the election over the weekend. In case anyone missed it, let me remind them: those opposite lost in New South Wales. They suspended their whip in Victoria and they don't exist in WA, but they also don't participate here. The election outcome is just one way of Australians saying that they've had enough of the decade of delay, denial and destruction and they want to see action.

Those opposite sit there asking us what we're doing for workers, what we're doing for Australians out there doing it tough, what we're doing about the housing crisis and what we're doing on climate change. Let me tell you that, with the announcement today, Australia is one step closer to achieving net zero by 2050, with confirmation that we've secured additional parliamentary support for the safeguard mechanism reforms. These are overdue, sensible reforms that ensure Australia's largest emitters are competitive in a decarbonising global economy and are doing their fair share, making a contribution to ensuring that we reach our reduction target.

Those opposite have, of course, made themselves irrelevant despite calls across industry for bipartisan support for these reforms. These reforms are our chance, our first chance in a over a decade, to implement transformative climate change action that gets us towards net zero and that has broad support across the economy and the community. We've had extensive consultation with business groups, with industries and with community groups, and this is what they've been crying out for for way too long. These reforms have been carefully designed to cut pollution by our biggest industrial emitters while minimising costs and allowing flexibility of least-cost abatement opportunities to be deployed.

The Albanese Labor government recognises that Australians and Australian industries are smart. They will choose the least-cost abatement, and these reforms allow them to do that. Unless the parliament passes the government's safeguard reforms, Australia's 2030 emissions reduction projections will be 35 per cent, not the 43 per cent we legislated. No MP or senator can criticise this government on emissions reduction targets and say that they are not good enough if they come into parliament and vote against policies to achieve emissions reduction.

It's important to understand that there are sensible and prudent buffers in the scheme which take into account the possibility of new entrants. We've been hearing from those opposite, who I think are probably suffering from delusions of adequacy. They think they did so well over the last decade and that we haven't been doing enough in the last 18 months. I'd like to highlight and remind those opposite of who it is that the Australian people trusted and put in government. Who elected us to be the adults in charge to fix the mess that your government put us in? We know Scomo doesn't hold a hose. Can any of you hold a hammer to fix this mess?