Madeleine King (Brand, Australian Labor Party, Minister for Northern Australia) Share this | Hansard source

In relation to gas, it will remain a very important part of Australia's economy for some time to come. You would have seen—and everyone in this House would have seen—the Future gas strategy, which the government will pursue. It is an important part of our role in not only providing fuel and security to Australians and Australian industry but equally ensuring we play our role in helping to provide the energy security for the region.

I might add that countries in this region—Japan, Korea and many others—adopted net zero targets well before this country did, well before those opposite, when they were in government, eventually got there. Now, of course, they're trying to move back from that. Nonetheless, this government, on this side, is committed to net zero emissions, just like the government of Japan, the government of Korea and many others are. Our fuels that we export to those communities will be a really important part of their transition. Transition pathways are going to be different for every country. In Australia, we will be able to transition more quickly, because of the natural resources available to us through wind and solar. The vast spaces we have enable that. That is not the case for our friends in Japan and Korea, and countries like them, where they simply do not have those abundant renewable resources, so, in the meantime, we'll support them through our export industry, and that will be a really important part of Australia's participation in regional energy security.

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