Jim Chalmers (Rankin, Australian Labor Party, Treasurer) Share this | Hansard source

Thanks to the member for Gellibrand for his question and also for his thoughtful contributions to our climate policy and to our economic policies more broadly. He knows, and we know—and I think Australians know—that the net zero transformation is a golden economic opportunity for Australia. The shift to cleaner and cheaper energy over time is an opportunity that Australians cannot afford to waste, and the Treasury modelling our 2035 target makes that really clear. That modelling helped to inform the decision we took and announced not that long ago. It also helps Australians understand why those decisions and those targets are so important to our economy and to our future.

Treasury compared two orderly scenarios with a disorderly transition and reached five key conclusions. Firstly, decisive action and clear targets will make us a big beneficiary of the energy transformation. Secondly, cleaner and cheaper energy will make us more internationally competitive. Thirdly, clear and credible action means more jobs, higher wages and higher living standards. Fourthly, clear targets and an orderly plan give businesses the clarity and the certainty that they need to invest with confidence. Lastly, a disorderly transition means fewer jobs, less investment, lower wages and living standards, and higher power prices in a smaller economy.

The only scenario worse for the economy than this disorderly transformation would be to abandon net zero completely, which is what most of those opposite want Australia to do. They have found a position which is worse than the worst-case scenario modelled by the Treasury. They have found a worse outcome. Our policy and our path to net zero is all about the national economic interest. It's guided by sophisticated Treasury modelling. Their position is driven entirely by coalition internal party politics. This unseemly spat between the far right and the further right over there is driving their climate policies. What it shows, once again, is that, whether it's net zero or the budget or the economy more broadly, they haven't changed a bit. They haven't learned a thing. They are more divided and more divisive than ever. There is not a whiff of economic credibility coming from over there, and we know that because in this case they want to smash investor certainty, they want to trash our economy and they want to make people worse off all in the service of their extreme hard-right internal coalition politics.

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