Ged Kearney (Cooper, Australian Labor Party, Assistant Minister for Social Services) Share this | Hansard source

We have the Leader of the Opposition taking the last MPI of the year in what sounded like a desperate leadership-saving speech. We have leaders on this side who don't need to make leadership-saving speeches because we're respected around the world as leaders. Australia is stepping onto the world stage with credibility and purpose, and those opposite cannot stand it. They cannot stand that Australia is respected once again as a powerhouse around the world for change and for good—that we have a government that understands both climate change and affordable energy, and that we're united, coordinated and actually delivering.

Instead of celebrating Australia's world leadership, the coalition is wandering around with their heads in the sand—sandhills filled with denial, delay, dysfunction and division. They're the Ds that the Leader of the Opposition should be talking about. The tail is wagging the dog, with the Nationals calling the shots, and the Liberals are letting it happen. Meanwhile, this government is building the modern energy system Australians deserve.

The Liberal Party once claimed it would 'meet voters where they are'. Well, Australians overwhelmingly support climate action, clean-energy jobs and cheaper renewable power. The problem for the Liberals is that they've walked away from every one of those priorities and are wandering in a wasteland. They abandoned their commitment to net zero by 2050—a commitment backed by business, by agriculture, by energy investors and by the vast majority of Australians. Just months after promising to stick with it, the Leader of the Opposition dumped the target entirely. They are so far away from where Australians are it's beyond belief.

Their argument that they can walk away from net zero while still honouring the Paris Agreement simply doesn't stack up. The treaty requires countries to show progression and ambition. Backsliding breaks trust, damages our credibility and holds back our national economic interest at the very moment that global markets are shifting. The coalition love to talk about power prices, but for a decade they refused to replace ageing coal plants they knew were breaking down and indeed closing down. When coal breaks down, your bills go up. Twenty-four out of 28 closures were announced on their watch. They left households exposed, the grid exposed and prices vulnerable—and now they want to lecture us on energy. Please!

Because of that, we're now playing catch-up on the fact that of the mere 23 energy policies they announced, they couldn't land a single one. Their new plan boils down to two fantasies: (1) coal will magically last forever, and (2) nuclear reactors will arrive overnight—never mind the cost, the laws, the timelines, the geography or the expert advice.

The experts are crystal clear: nuclear is the slowest, most expensive, least flexible form of energy. Every credible authority—the CSIRO, the Australian Energy Market Operator, Treasury—says the same thing: the cheapest new energy is renewable energy, backed by storage and transmission. The CSIRO's latest GenCost report confirms this again. No amount of political spin changes the economics or the facts, yet the coalition cling to nuclear like a life boat. Except it's not a life boat, it's a sketch on the back of a napkin. It won't deliver a single watt until the 2040s or the 2050s, and only after taxpayers foot a multimillion dollar bill.

They claim they'll cut subsidies for renewables, but what they're really cutting is the cheapest energy available to Australian people. Investors know the truth. In 2024, two-thirds of global energy investments went to renewables. The market has chosen, and the coalition hasn't noticed. While they fantasise, we deliver.

In just a few years, the government has supported around 1,000 Australians a day getting behind the wheel of a cleaner, cheaper-to-run EV or hybrid. We've just recorded the strongest year ever for electric vehicle sales. Big batteries are coming online at record speed. Transmission upgrades are underway across the country. Renewables have hit 50 per cent of the national grid for the first time. In September, renewables hit 70 per cent for half an hour on 81 per cent of days. We've green lit 111 renewable projects, enough to power more than 13 million homes. More than 1,000 home batteries are installed every day; there are more than 500 new solar households every day. That means that one in three households now has rooftop solar, more than four million installations. More than 120,000 household batteries have been installed since July alone.

We're also reforming the energy market so consumers come first. That means stopping sneaky price-hikes by capping retailers to increase one a year, ensuring no customer pays above the standing offer when their discounted plan ends, banning excessive fees, guaranteeing fee-free payment options and putting a stronger obligation on retailers to support hardship customers. Our Solar Sharer plan will also require energy retailers to offer three hours of free electricity each day during the peak solar generation period.

This is real reform, real action flowing directly into people's homes. We're not stopping there. We've launched the Solar Saver retail offers. We've made home batteries cheaper. We've capped gas prices. We've delivered bill relief, and wholesale electricity prices fell by a third last quarter.

The Australian Energy Market Commission has warned that delays to collecting renewables and transmission will push prices up. That's why we're pushing ahead, not dragging our feet like those opposite. Let's not forget, when we came to government, the coalition had kept hidden from the Australian people a 20 per cent electricity price rise. They hid it from Australians and they want to lecture us about energy costs.

Under the coalition, emissions flatlined for a decade. Under Labor, we're already 29 per cent below 2005 levels and tracking towards 42 per cent by 2030. We've delivered the biggest fall in non-land emissions ever recorded outside the COVID lockdowns. And now the world is taking notice!

Australia has secured the presidency of COP31, not just a seat at the table, but chair of negotiations. Do we remember the empty rooms the former prime minister spoke to in Glasgow? That will not be us. We will be leading global climate negotiations from the end of COP30 through to COP31 in partnership with our Pacific family. We'll host a Pacific pre-COP. We will elevate the voices of those most vulnerable to climate impacts. We'll help shape the global agenda and Turkiye will host the summit in 2026—a partnership built on trust, respect and real diplomacy.

This is leadership. This is what it looks like when a government takes climate and energy seriously. This is what it looks like under the Minister for Climate Change and Energy, who I believe is the strongest minister the portfolio has ever had, supported by an exceptional team, including the member for Fremantle and the member for Jagajaga.

The opposition want Australians to be stuck with unreliable coal from the 1970s, nuclear reactors that won't exist for decades and rising power bills. Labor wants Australia to become a clean energy superpower with investment certainty, good regional jobs, energy security and cheaper, more reliable power for households. That's what Australians want. It's what they deserve, and it's what they will get from an Australian Labor government—an energy system that works for them, not one mired in chaos, denial and division. We will keep going. We will keep building. The coalition can either come with us or keep their heads in the sand, where they can only dream of the coordinated and wonderful action that this side of the House is taking.

The Labor Party cares about Australian people. We know where they are, we know what they want and we are here to deliver it.

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