Jerome Laxale (Bennelong, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

and we're on track to achieve that target. I'll take on that interjection. We're on track to reach that target because we've unlocked billions in renewable investment. In the year to March 2025, emissions fell by 6.5 million tons, putting Australia 28 per cent below its 2005 levels. Preliminary data for the financial year ending June 2025 shows an even bigger reduction in emissions of 10.6 million tons—that's 29 per cent below 2005 levels—with more than 40 per cent of the electricity in our grid coming from renewable energy, further driving down emissions and helping our environment. That's not spin. That's not fake outrage. That's delivery. It's happening because of the safeguard mechanism, which we reformed, which forces our biggest polluters to cut emissions by nearly five per cent every year; it's happening because we've added over 18 gigawatts of new solar and wind since 2022; and it's happening because of popular policies like our cheaper home battery subsidy, with over 33,000 batteries installed in a matter of weeks adding more storage so that people can use the solar panels on their homes to reduce emissions as well. We've protected an extra 95 million hectares of bush and ocean, we've doubled funding to national parks like Kakadu and Uluru, and we've invested more than $600 million into protected threatened species. We've supported Indigenous rangers with a record $1.3 billion program, doubling their numbers to care for country. But we're not stopping there.

Australians are telling us and people in my electorate are telling me they want us to keep lifting our ambition. In fact, recent polling shows that 44 per cent of voters support stronger 2035 emissions reduction targets of between 65 and 75 per cent. I'll be one of those MPs pushing our government to go further on the environment and not take lessons and lectures from those opposite who did nothing in their near 10 years in power.

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