Carol Brown (Tasmania, Australian Labor Party, Assistant Minister for Infrastructure and Transport) Share this | Hansard source

OL BROWN (—) (): It's always good to follow Senator Roberts's contribution to what is a very important issue. We are, despite the previous contribution, living in a climate emergency. This is our reality. It's an emergency which is showing us that our summers will be marred by extremes of bushfires and floods. In the Black Summer bushfires in 2019-20, 24 million hectares of land were destroyed, millions of native animals were killed, 33 people directly lost their lives and a further 450 people are estimated to have died due to smoke inhalation. In 2022, eastern Australia was devastated by repeated floods. At least 22 people lost their lives, and thousands lost their homes or businesses, with an estimated $5 billion hit to the economy. Last year in Australia, seven out of 10 people lived in an area declared as a natural disaster zone at some point in their life, often more than once.

Since coming into office, this government hasn't wasted a moment in getting on with the job. We've lifted our 2030 emissions reduction target by half, from 26 per cent to 43 per cent. Just two weeks ago we announced we would be developing decarbonisation plans for each major sector of the Australian economy, underpinned by sector-wide economic modelling, to set us on a path to reaching our ambitious but achievable goal of net zero by 2050. One of those industries is one I work closely with in my responsibility as Assistant Minister for Infrastructure and Transport.

The transport industry contributes 19 per cent of all greenhouse gases in Australia, vastly more than any other industry. Since 2005 greenhouse gas emissions have increased by 11 per cent and are currently projected to be the largest source of CO2 emissions in Australia by 2030. This government knows that reducing emissions in the transport sector through using more renewable energy sources will require concerted action across government and industry to secure long-lasting benefits by managing and minimising the impacts of the transition. That's why this government is acting through the development of a transport and infrastructure net zero road map and action plan. A draft road map will be developed this year, and the action plan will be drafted in early 2024.

This action plan will present an integrated decarbonisation road map to ensure that we take up the opportunities by carefully managing the transition to new energy sources. Further, the government is already decarbonising the transport sector through increasing the uptake of electric vehicles and developing a fuel efficiency standard through the National Electric Vehicle Strategy. Fuel efficiency standards are common elsewhere around the world. In fact, through the inaction of the former government, Australia is playing catch-up in introducing these standards. That's just a fact. We are playing catch-up because of the inaction of the previous government. Fuel efficiency standards help by reducing transport emissions, improving air quality in and around our cities, making it easier for Australians to breathe and, importantly, ensuring for people around the country that they will save money at the petrol pump.

Moving away from how we are tackling emissions in transport, the government has also reformed the safeguard mechanism. This mechanism is an important reform and one which we took to the Australian people in the last election and received a strong mandate for. No amount of denial by those opposite, who seek to undermine the climate emergency— (Time expired)