Zaneta Mascarenhas (Swan, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

Thank you to the member for Groom. From one engineer to another, I say to him that I think it's important to look at the root causes of problems, and you need to understand the foundations of the nation and what we've inherited. I recognise that the cost of living has gone up, and these costs started going up under the coalition government. During the election campaign, my team and I knocked on 45,000 doors, and the cost of living was the No. 1 issue for people.

But who was sleeping at the wheel? Who had a decade of delay and waste? Who had nothing to show for it? We know what the root causes were. There were disruptions to supply chains due to the pandemic. The war in Ukraine had an impact on energy commodities. And we had skills shortages as well. So this is what we inherited after a decade of waste, rorts and wrecking. That's what Australian businesses and households had to deal with. Talking about supply disruptions, we had to lift the scab off and see this weeping wound that was festering under the Liberal government. Frankly, they did not have meaningful industry policy. How could they, with nine industry ministers? That's nine years with no plan.

Harvard University's Center for International Development, which ranks economies according to their diversity and complexity to assess their potential for growth, placed Australia at 91 out of 133 in 2020. Our neighbours on that scare were Kenya and Namibia. In the last decade we have slipped 21 places. I wonder who has been at the wheel in the last decade. Meanwhile, the Albanese Labor government has a once-in-a-generation nation-building exercise to build our industry capability. The National Reconstruction Fund will help diversify our economy and broaden our base. Leaders know that Australia needs to transition from a lucky country to a smart country. This is precisely what the NRF does.

On energy policy—I know you guys are passionate about this—while one may think that having nine industry ministers with nine policies over the decade was bad, we had over 20 energy policies. Holy moly! I worked for 12 years with the ASX200, helping them with their energy and climate related needs. Do you know what the No. 1 thing was that they said that they wanted? It was certainty. That is certainly something the coalition failed to provide. Those on the other side that accepted the science on climate change lost their seats at the last election and are now left with climate deniers. The lack of decent energy policy meant that the National Energy Market was horribly exposed to those energy shocks caused by the war in Ukraine. It meant that those price rises were worn by businesses and households—because, again, you were asleep at the wheel.

Meanwhile, the Albanese Labor government has legislated a 43 per cent reduction in greenhouse gas emissions. We didn't have to legislate that target, but we did that because we wanted to send a strong signal to markets to show that we were serious. Do you know what? We have seen financial markets move. There's a whole bunch of renewable energy being unleashed, and that is happening because of the Albanese Labor government.

This is being coupled with our safeguard mechanism, which will help big emitters know their trajectory to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and what we expect them to achieve. What they wanted was for it to be predictable and known. When the coalition introduced Emissions Reduction Fund, they also introduced the safeguard mechanism. That was to ensure that there weren't increases elsewhere in the economy when the ERF was reducing emissions elsewhere. They failed to do that. The safeguard mechanism was actually put in the architecture but it did nothing. We are trying to get this to work to help businesses.

On skills shortages, again, they were asleep at the wheel. The coalition government were not interested in thinking about the skills we need for the future. I guess that is because they had no vision. They didn't invest in skills for the future. I know that a good education is a ticket to a better life. But maybe the coalition doesn't want to support Australians' aspirations. The Albanese Labor government is investing in 180,000 TAFE replaces with an additional 20,000 university places. At Curtin University, in my electorate, we got an additional 1,000 places. So what did the demolition coalition government do? (Time expired).

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