Chris Bowen (McMahon, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for Climate Change and Energy) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

My question is to the Prime Minister. The government has been in office for nearly a decade. The COP26 congress in Glasgow starts in just two weeks. After nearly a decade how much longer is it going to take the Prime Minister to come up with a climate policy?

Scott Morrison (Cook, Liberal Party, Prime Minister) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Twenty per cent reduction in emissions since 2005 is the product of the policies that we have put in place, particularly over these last eight years, which have ensured that we have been seen technologies realised, that we have been able to drive down those emissions whilst stabilising and reducing electricity prices and keeping the lights on.

The world knows what our 2030 commitments are. We signed up to them. I took them to the last election and the Australian people endorsed them. I said we would meet them and we would beat them. And we will meet them and we will beat them, based on the policies that we have pursued: the technology, not taxes approach; the Emissions Reduction Fund; the work that we have been doing in the agricultural community. I'm sure the Minister for Industry, Energy and Emissions Reduction could add more of these.

Our policies are reducing emissions. At the same time we have realised one of the most significant expansions in our LNG industry that we have ever seen, at the same time we have seen the number of people in manufacturing go up—as opposed to under Labor when one in eight manufacturing jobs were lost. Under our policies we are getting emissions down, we are getting solar panels on people's roofs, we are seeing record investments in renewable energy, we are meeting and beating our targets, we are getting Australians into manufacturing jobs, we are expanding our resources industries—that's what the coalition's plans are doing. That's what they are doing. And we intend them to keep doing that as we pursue policies in this area which ensure we do the right thing by jobs, we do the right thing by the environment, we do the right thing by our national energy security. That ensures that Australians can look forward to their future with confidence, whether they're living in the Hunter, or on the South Coast of NSW, or out in Portland—where we have ensured that the Portland Aluminium Smelter will continue to operate and continue to run and support those jobs. That's what our energy emissions reductions and environmental policies are achieving for Australia. We will continue to make decisions in that vein. We will continue to do that.

We will not be taxing our way there. That is the approach that the Labor Party pursued when they were last in government. That's their approach. Taxes not technology. We are technology not taxes. That's how we get ourselves to achieve these goals. That's how we can make our way through the very difficult global economic challenges that will confront Australia over the next 30 years. We have been careful in considering each of these decisions because we are mindful of the impact they can have on rural and regional areas. We haven't signed Australia up with blank-cheque commitments like those opposite have. We will make and continue to make decisions—(Time expired)