Don Farrell (SA, Australian Labor Party, Minister for Trade and Tourism) Share this | Hansard source

I thank Senator Cox for her question. I think the gas industry is perfectly correct here. Gas is a transition fuel. In a perfect world where we know that there are serious future issues with climate change, it would be terrific if we could turn a switch and go from fossil fuels to renewable fuels. But we know that that's absolutely impossible. No country in the world has managed to today turn off gas and tomorrow be completely reliant on renewable fuels.

This government intends to be a renewable superpower. We're going to transform this economy in a way that that mob over there would have never ever even contemplated doing, but, if we're going to do that, then we have to keep the lights on between now and when we can make that change. The fuel that we're going to do that with is gas. Without gas in that intervening period, we cannot make the transition, nor will we have the support of the Australian population to do it. (Time expired)