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

The senator would well know, first, that domestic household gas consumption is an important part of people's everyday energy consumption, and it will remain so for some time. You would also know that the transition to renewables will take time and will take policy.

I regret—I do regret—that we are having this debate in 2023. I stood here in 2009—not in this place; I think it was over here—and I would've liked the mechanism that we put in place then to have been in place. What we did pass was the renewable energy target legislation; expansion of that target was legislation I introduced, and that has been successful. It shows what you can do when you have a regulatory system which actually drives investment in renewables and in the transition which is required.