Josh Burns (Macnamara, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

I'm looking forward to seeing the plans of the huge Brighton beach nuclear reactor from the member for Goldstein. The minister, when he had the opportunity to invest in renewable energy—in wind farms, in wind technology—absolutely denied it and refused to allow the NAIF to invest in it.

A government member interjecting—

There's plenty of hot air coming from over there. We are becoming an international embarrassment. Like-minded countries are investing in clean energy. They are investing in renewable technology. Led by America and the United Kingdom, these countries are urging Australia to do the absolute bare minimum, to lift our weight as part of the international community efforts. What does this government do in response to the international community moving and progressing? They attack the very institutions that are going to help us get there. They attack the Clean Energy Finance Corporation and they attack the Renewable Energy Agency because this government and this minister are ideologically opposed to investing in renewable energy, and they are looking for each and every single way to attack the institutions that are going to help to bring us into line with international efforts to get towards, hopefully, 1.5 degrees global warming and to get towards net zero by 2050, if not earlier.

Each and every state in this country are on board. Each and every state and territory, the Business Council and the vast majority of Australians want to see this country invest in renewable energy. One thing that the member for McMahon says repeatedly, and he is 100 per cent right, is that if we do this, if we invest in the Australian Renewable Energy Agency and in the Clean Energy Finance Corporation, then we are going to create jobs. We are going to create jobs in cleaner and cheaper electricity and in cleaner and cheaper technology. But this government doesn't want to create clean jobs. They don't want to create a cleaner and lower-greenhouse-gas future. They just want to systematically attack the institutions that were set up by the previous Labor government, because this minister and these compliant Liberals are ideologically opposed to investing in renewable energy.

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