Kevin Rudd (Griffith, Australian Labor Party, Prime Minister) Share this | Hansard source

I have referred in my answer so far to what did not happen in the last decade or so on renewable energy. That is why the government has introduced its renewable energy target legislation—because we need to make a difference for the economy, for jobs and for the environment. And that is what we are getting on with the business of doing. Modelling produced for the Department of Climate Change in 2009 shows that the implementation of the expanded RET, together with the Carbon Pollution Reduction Scheme, if taken together, would lead to around $19 billion in investment in the renewable energy sector in the decade to 2020. Further, a 2009 Climate Institute study refers to the creation of 26,000 new jobs, primarily in regional areas. That is why we are getting on with the business of making sure that the renewable energy sector in this country has a future. That is why we are getting on with the business of ensuring that consumers have access to this scheme in order to provide support for the further installation of solar panels on their roofs. That is why we are getting on with the business of providing appropriate adjustment for businesses on the way through. But it all would have been that much simpler had those opposite instead risen to the challenge of leadership and put through legislation designed to create a proper carbon price, on the one hand through support for the Carbon Pollution Reduction Scheme and, on the other, supporting this particular means by which we provide further encouragement for the renewable energy sector—solar, wind and geothermal as well as wave and tidal and other forms of renewable energy. That is the way for the future.

Those opposite, in voting against the Carbon Pollution Reduction Scheme, have made the business compliance task for the Australian economy much harder than it need otherwise have been. Nonetheless, we have articulated our approach to this and we look forward to receiving what those opposite may have to say by way of amendments. Why have we had to do this? We have had to do this because at the end of last week they voted down the Carbon Pollution Reduction Scheme, and we need to provide certainty for the renewable energy business for a scheme which will begin in January next year. Secondly, we also need to guard against the possibility that those opposite will again vote against the Carbon Pollution Reduction Scheme come November, because, if we have seen this absolute explosion in party unity on the part of those opposite in their excitement to get behind the Carbon Pollution Reduction Scheme this time, what is going to happen next time given that they have no unity on this question at all? Thirdly, when it comes to the future of the renewable energy target regime, we need also to guard against the possibility that we are left in continued limbo into the future because of failed leadership on the part of those opposite.

I say to the Leader of the Opposition: it is time to put the partisan divide behind us. We need the national interest to prevail on this question of the future of climate change. It is time for us to act in the national interest in this parliament on something as critical for the economy and for climate change as the legislation which is now before the House. As the Leader of the Opposition finds this amusing, he finds it a matter for smirking, he finds it a matter of great general comic performance, I appeal to those opposite: this is not a matter on which the Australian people are prepared to tolerate your continued internal divisions. The challenge for those opposite is not, as the Leader of the Opposition sought to do on the weekend, to proclaim victory for the defeat of the carbon pollution reduction scheme. That is not leadership; that is a substitute for leadership. Real leadership means looking beyond the horizon and doing something for the future of climate change, doing something real for the future of renewable energy, and actually showing leadership with your own ranks so you can bring a united position to this debate and the critical one which now lies ahead in November. Therein lies the future. I suggest that he opposite, the Leader of the Opposition, lies firmly anchored in the past.

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