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

It is near Cockburn, Member for Bruce. We delivered that battery. It's one of five new community batteries in WA, adding to the 13 that are already there. It's, obviously, one of 400 that we're delivering nationwide through the $200 million community batteries program. We've made such great strides when it comes to the delivery of renewable energy. As I said, we've already increased it by more than 45 per cent just in the three-and-a-bit years since this government was elected. But we need storage to match. We are leaving no stone unturned when it comes to increasing the ability of Australian households and Australian businesses—and our system as a whole—to soak up that abundant and, at certain times of the day, virtually free solar energy and then to reuse it at peak times to bring system costs down and reduce prices for households.

As I conclude this speech, I want to pay respect to the tens of thousands of Australians Australia-wide who got out on the weekend and showed support for the people who have been suffering in Gaza, showed support for peace and showed their commitment to nonviolence, as we witness the humanitarian catastrophe that has been occurring in the Middle East. I'm glad to be part of a government that, from the beginning, rejected the violence that began on October 7 with that barbaric attack but has also rejected the unnecessary conduct that has resulted in the death of more than 60,000 civilians in Gaza, most of whom are women and children, and the unnecessary, unconscionable, intolerable, unacceptable suffering that's occurred through the deprivation of humanitarian aid from earlier this year. In relation to that conflict, the Australian government will do what we've done in the past. It's true to our values. It's true to our national character. We've done the same thing in relation to the violence and dispossession experienced by the Rohingya in Myanmar and in relation to the illegal and immoral invasion of Ukraine, and that is to say that violence is a terrible form of human conduct. It should be resisted as much as we can possibly resist it.

We are a nation that is defined by our commitment to peace, our compassion for one another and our compassion for our sisters and brothers all over the world. I'm grateful that people in my community, as well as right around Australia, take their democratic opportunity to express their commitment to peace and nonviolence and their desire to see peace, justice and self-determination for the Palestinian people. That's something that we want to advance in a concerted fashion with like-minded countries like France, Canada and the UK by recognising a State of Palestine at the UN General Assembly in September. All of our work that the Prime Minister has led and the Minister for Foreign Affairs has undertaken is devoted to trying to see peace in the Middle East as soon as possible and an end to that terrible conflict.

Debate interrupted.

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