Louise Miller-Frost (Boothby, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

A lot has happened since the member for New England proposed this motion to the House. We now know that the party the member may or may not be a member of—the Nationals—has rejected net zero. We also know that their partner in coalition—the Liberal Party—has obediently followed suit, sort of. They tried to have a bet each way, with the opposition leader saying they were abandoning net zero but that somehow they were going to stay in the Paris Agreement while also going against the entire principles of the agreement, no matter what their talking points say. Their commitment to reducing emissions only goes as far as entertaining it as a possible outcome that would be 'welcome' but certainly not worth trying to achieve. That all sounds very confusing and like a word salad that's trying to please everybody or at least not offend anybody—but, of course, it really fails to do anything. But fear not: it must be a real policy because they've also released a glossy leaflet!

It's full of dot points of lovely motherhood statements that sound great but have 'net zero' detail on how they intend to achieve them. There's no detail on addressing the shortfall in energy caused by 24 of the 28 coal fired power plants announcing their closures under the Morrison government with nothing done to replace them—nada. There's no detail on addressing the unreliability of ageing coal fired power plants that their owners know are uneconomic to repair or replace—zilch. There's no detail on addressing the lack of market interest in investing in coal fired or nuclear powered stations—zip. There's no detail on addressing the costs of energy for households or businesses that will be made worse by going away from the cheapest form of energy generation and instead backing more expensive forms of energy generation that need major capital injections—nil.

Bizarrely, this reminded me of the TV series South Park. Stay with me, and I'll give you a brief synopsis to explain. It's an episode called 'The underpants gnomes'. Our heroes, Cartman, Stan, Kyle and Kenny—you pick who is whom—meet another boy who insists the gnomes are stealing his underpants. It turns out that he's right. Our heroes trace the gnomes back to their cave, where they can see the cunning plan. On the wall is a chart. One the left, it says, 'Step 1: steal underpants.' On the right, it says, 'Step 3: profit.' And, in the middle, next to step 2, is a large question mark. That's pretty much the coalition's energy plan in three easy steps. Step 1 is get rid of net zero—tick! Step 3 has the possibility of 'welcome' outcomes. Step 2 has a big question mark. But don't you worry your pretty little head about it; it's all good. Here, look at this glossy brochure!

While this refers to their lack of energy plan, there is also a complete lack of plan to deal with climate change. The irony is that the coalition seats are largely based in rural and regional areas—some of the areas most at risk from the impacts of climate change. They are represented by people who don't believe in climate change or don't understand the science or are not willing to do anything about it or all three. Droughts, floods, cyclones, increasingly powerful and more frequent storms, algal blooms and marine die-offs as we have seen in South Australia—these affect us all, but they particularly affect farmers, aquaculture, commercial fishing and tourism, which are all largely based in the regions. The flow-on effects are felt by the towns and regional communities that support them.

Those opposite say they understand the science of climate change, but what are they going to say to their communities about their lack of action on climate change? A lack of a target or plan shows they don't care. It isn't a priority. To say, 'If it does happen, it would be welcome,' is an insulting crumb thrown from the table to keep the supplicants quiet. To those who say they care about the costs of electricity, what will you say to the households, businesses and industries in their electorates about a credible way to replace the energy generation that left the system under your watch or announced its imminent closure under your watch? When the evidence is there that coal and gas are an expensive form of generation and that nuclear is the most expensive form of generation for a country like Australia, how can they seriously look at the renewables transformation already well underway and say they want to stop progress? Will they look in the eyes of the next generation—our children, our grandchildren—and show them a glossy brochure with no substance, no plans, no targets and only the meaningless word 'welcome'? How insulting!

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