Joanne Ryan (Lalor, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

For the information of the member for Goldstein, we on this side are quite pleased not to have you standing up for us, absolutely pleased about it, because the member for Goldstein represents the global laggards that are the Morrison government. We have seen this writ large this week at the G7, have we not? We saw Prime Minister Boris Johnson—not our Prime Minister, for those at home, but the British Prime Minister—say in the lead-up to the G7 he was hoping to see a positive announcement from Australia regarding net zero by 2050. He waited and he waited and then eventually he said, 'I will make the commitment for them,' and he did. Our Prime Minister didn't see fit to correct him. He didn't see fit to say, 'Sorry, Boris, we haven't done that. The folks at home on my side of the Australian parliament, they're not up for that.'

But we had some good news. Senator McKenzie, as she does so well, outed not just the federal government but the Nats as well. She outed them both when she made the position very clear. She said the National Party, as the second party in this coalition government, has not signed up to net zero anything at any time. So it is never, as far as the good senator is concerned. We've sat here—it's been question time—and have had the Deputy Prime Minister being the Acting Prime Minister across the week. He has talked a lot this week about baristas, coffees. He's been trivialising this important debate. He's been selling out our future here at home.

Today we have had lots of talk about the UK FTA. Well, as a member of the last Australian parliamentary delegation, pre-COVID, to go to the EU, I can tell you that, when we went to the EU, there was a lot of talk about an FTA with the European Union. There was a lot of talk. There was also a lot of talk from the EU about what they would require of Australia in terms of a zero-emissions target by 2050 as part of that FTA. So it's not surprising there's a lot of celebration about getting a UK FTA while not delivering, not doing the things we need to secure the much bigger market.

Let's look at that market. The EU has a $15 trillion GDP and a population of 475 million. The UK has a $2.9 trillion GDP and a population of 66 million. Now, what would be our priority in signing up to an FTA, do you think? Where do you think the biggest market is? Where would we get the best bang for our buck? Where would we get the best deal? Well, just think, maybe it might have been the EU FTA, but this government are holding us back. They're holding us back because they can't come to terms with the economic reality that climate change is delivering the biggest economic change since the industrial revolution. They can't grasp it, so we're missing out left, right and centre. Where are we? We're sitting on the bench in the game of the century; that's where we are. I know the member for Nicholls hated sitting on the bench but here he is sitting on the bench. The game of the century is going on in front of us, and we're sitting on the bench. We're not going to get back in the game.

We are not going back into this game. We know that some of our biggest export markets, Europe and the US, are either considering or already developing carbon border adjustments. These are tariffs on exports, and countries that fail to meet minimums in decarbonisation will be taxed. This country will pay tax to others to be part of what we now consider some of our largest trading partners. Taxes—there will be a price on carbon in this country. They will deliver it. After all the angst and all of the rage, we will pay a price on carbon. Deloittes estimates that unchecked climate change will cost Australia over $1 trillion by 2050 and over $3 trillion by 2070. That will cost over 300,000 jobs by 2050 and almost a million jobs by 2070.

What should the government be doing? They should be making commitments to the future. They should be building good jobs in this country. They're missing the boat because they're stubborn, they're wilful and they can never say they were wrong. They're failing Australians, they're failing the next generation of Australians and they're failing the people of my electorate of Lalor.

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