Katy Gallagher (ACT, Australian Labor Party, Minister for the Public Service) Share this | Hansard source

As I said yesterday, the National Party smell a scare campaign and they can't wait to get on top of it. They race towards it: 'Here we go, here's something where we can drive a bit of fear and disunity and create myths across the community.' They love it. They love nothing more, especially if it's linked to climate change in some way. That really gets them out of bed in the morning, doesn't it? 'How can we take Australia back to when we were in government?', back to when there was no change, back to when there were 22 energy policies and you didn't land one of them when ministers lost their jobs if they even look sideways at doing anything supportive on climate. As we know, this has meant we are years behind on the energy transition—years behind trying to seize the jobs and the growth that will come from the renewable energy transition.

On the new vehicle efficiency standard, the government is consulting on a model. That's what we're doing. We are getting feedback on that. There are options in the consultation document. The minister is talking directly with industry manufacturers and with the Australian CEO's, and we thank them for their engagement. That process will continue until 4 March, as I understand it, and then the government will consider those consultations. But 85 per cent of the global car market is covered by fuel efficiency standards. We know that Josh Frydenberg said, 'We've always been committed to getting fuel efficiency standards in place,' and we saw what happened to him. We also know the member for Bradfield was all for them for a period—probably before being told that he wouldn't have a future— (Time expired)