Josh Wilson (Fremantle, Australian Labor Party, Assistant Minister for Climate Change and Energy) Share this | Hansard source

I'm glad, grateful and humbled to be able to continue my work as the member for Fremantle in this place, and to continue my work as a member of the Albanese government; it is resolute in its focus on working with the broader Australian community to make Australia a fairer and more sustainable nation. I do that by bringing my Fremantle values to that work. Those are things that my community has been part of working towards for a long period of time. My community has a commitment to the things that we share. They are the most important things. They include fair working conditions and the social safety net. They include proper protection for our environment. They include public goods, like health and education and like community infrastructure—all of the things that we share and that we have a responsibility to protect, maintain and advance together.

The Albanese government has wasted no time in picking up that work again with the strong endorsement of the Australian people. From the very first sittings of this parliament, we acted quickly to reduce by 20 per cent the debt owed by people who have studied at university or at TAFE through HECS. We moved very quickly to legislate penalty rates so that working people are properly compensated when they're asked to work at times that we otherwise get to spend with our families or we get to spend in our community. We moved quickly to reduce the maximum price of medicines on the PBS. The PBS, the Pharmaceutical Benefits Scheme, is one of the great Labor reforms, one of the great foundational building blocks of our shared wellbeing. We have moved to bring the maximum price of medicines on the PBS back to $25, a level that was last experienced in 2004. We have done those things because of our enduring commitment to positive change, because of our enduring commitment to social equality and social inclusion, because of the work of antidiscrimination and the work of environmental protection.

Minister Murray Watt, the Minister for the Environment and Water, has started his work on ensuring that we deliver an effective national environmental protection framework. The independent reviewer made clear to the previous government years ago that the national environmental framework, the EPBC Act, was not fit for purpose, was not doing its job and was, unfortunately, really managing a steady trajectory of decline. We don't accept that. We are going to do what the previous government didn't have the resolve or the courage or the responsibility to do. We are going to implement those reforms. We're going to continue the work that we began the Albanese government focusing on with respect to climate change and energy. Of course, Australians know and support the fact that, when they elected the Albanese government in 2022, they closed the door on nine years of neglect. They closed the door on nine years of inaction and internal conflict that failed to produce a national energy policy, that saw a reduction of one gigawatt of energy generation in the system as a whole, that saw a completely abject failure when it came to emissions reduction.

We have already seen an increase of more than 40 per cent in Australia's renewable energy. We have crossed the 45 per cent mark in terms of renewable energy in our grid. We have increased Australia's commitment to reducing emissions by more than 60 per cent. We're on track to achieve that. We're on track to deliver 82 per cent of renewables by 2030. We are making a really significant investment in Australia's future manufacturing potential because, in addition to our opportunity to become a renewable energy superpower, we have the opportunity to be a clean industry powerhouse. If you ever are fortunate to be in any other part of the region, whether that's Japan, Korea, Indonesia or Singapore, they marvel at the incredible potential that Australia has to benefit from renewable energy and clean energy technology and then to parlay that into 21st-century industrial strength that is based around green metals, green hydrogen, low-carbon liquid fuels and so on. We are going to make sure that we help secure that for future Australian generations. Minister Bowen is leading that work through the safeguard mechanism, the Capacity Investment Scheme, Rewiring Australia, Australia's first National Electric Vehicle Strategy, Australia's first National Energy Performance Strategy and the programs that support that.

We know that there is an issue when it comes to housing. Housing is a human right. Housing is the basis of a safe and secure life from which people can pursue education, work and involvement in their community. For too long, affordable, safe and accessible housing has become harder and harder for young Australians and Australians facing disadvantage, and we're not going to tolerate that. We're making the biggest investment in affordable housing since the housing boom post World War II, with $42 billion worth of programs. Since the election, I've been fortunate to be able to make a couple of announcements in my electorate from the social housing accelerator, where we're partnering with states and territories to get new, affordable community housing into the system as soon as we can.

I was fortunate to be at the launch of a community battery in Coogee that I promised, with the Prime Minister, some time ago. We had a bit of a disagreement about the pronunciation of Coogee—

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