Karen Grogan (SA, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

I'm delighted to rise and take note of some of the responses we heard in question time today and particularly to have an opportunity to talk about how the Labor government is powering Australian communities with batteries—and not just individual batteries but community batteries, whereby we can support powering so many homes: 100,000 homes will benefit from this initiative. There are 400 batteries to roll out, and they will power entire communities. They will help entire communities to lower their electricity prices, which I'm very, very proud of.

One in three Australian households have solar panels, but very few have batteries. This community approach to powering our homes is going to make a big difference out there. And these things will help us get to net zero. A number of questions in question time today went to the issue of net zero. It was mentioned on a number of occasions. Looking around this chamber, we know that the majority of people in the Australian Senate are right behind the idea of net zero. And although it would have been difficult to see on the face of it, following the last couple of days of debate around the safeguard mechanism, there are even some people on the coalition benches who believe in net zero, but you wouldn't have thought it if you'd been listening to the conversation in here over the last number of days.

But that is where we need to get to, and the safeguard mechanism is another element that is going to help us get there—the safeguard mechanism that passed this chamber earlier today, after 10 long years of so much uncertainty. The safeguard mechanism, when put in by the coalition when they were in government, did nothing to reduce emissions, and its entire intent is to reduce emissions. But it did not. Emissions went up. You'd have to ask yourself, why was that? I think it was probably because there was no intention to do it in the first place—set up a mechanism and then set your baseline so high that nobody's coming down, which totally goes against the grain, totally goes against the intent.

I'm delighted that, today, this parliament has passed that bill, and the safeguard mechanism will kick in on 1 July. Last year, when the 43 per cent target was legislated in this parliament, we saw investment go up. We have seen organisation after organisation come and talk about how much the importance of certainty matters. The whole thing about moving the goalposts—well, let's put the goalposts in the ground first, shall we? The goalposts in the ground about where we're going and how we're getting there have seen a tick-up in investment. We know that, with the safeguard mechanism, 80 per cent of the organisations captured are already committed to net zero. They've made that commitment; over 80 per cent of them made that commitment, along with the majority of people in this parliament.

For the last couple of days and through question time we have been listening to all the puff and waffle. The fact is the Australian public placed Labor in government, and these are the things we will pursue. We will pursue renewable energy. We will pursue reducing emissions. We will pursue stronger relationships internationally. We will pursue that investment. That is exactly where we're going, with a broad vision that will make a fundamental difference to the people in this country, while you keep bleating on about small issues.