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

The commitment about net zero at 2050 is a very serious matter. It's going to have big impacts and big opportunities for Australia in the future. You don't do it glibly. You don't just sign up to it without a plan, which is what I said from this dispatch box on many occasions. You don't go and sign Australia up to something like that unless you carefully consider what the plan is and what the impacts of that plan are.

We have been going through that very exercise very seriously, as a cabinet, as a coalition government—as a serious government does to make these important decisions. We understand that the global changes happening in our economy because of the response to climate change are going to have adverse impacts in Australia, in rural and regional areas in particular. That is going to occur, and our plans are designed to address that and to recognise the opportunities that can be gained from the changes occurring around the world to ensure that Australia can emerge more strongly, based on the plans that we're working on.

That's how we're coming to a decision on this issue. Those opposite came to a decision to commit Australia to 2050 without any plan, without any estimate, without any modelling. They claim some modelling, but that modelling assumes a carbon price. It assumes a carbon tax. That is where the Labor Party is at. We are doing this on the basis of careful consideration of the impacts of our decisions on Australians. This is one of the biggest decisions this country has to make. We will make it carefully, we will make it collaboratively and we will be listening to Australians, as we have done over the course of this term to prepare for this very moment, to ensure that when we consider this issue we can do so in a way such that we can position Australia strongly for the future. This is about an economic plan that gets Australia through one of these great challenges. We have such a plan, the low emissions technology plan, already set out, while those opposite, even right now, in the Senate are seeking to disallow a regulation which would see us being able to invest in clean energy technologies, in carbon capture, use and storage. And they are opposing it. (Time expired)

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