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

Last year, 2025, was Australia's fourth-warmest year since national records began more than 100 years ago. The national average maximum temperature was 1.48 degrees Celsius above average, the fourth warmest on record. Rainfall was below average across much of Australia. Ocean temperatures were the warmest they have been for the second year in a row. Indeed, a rise in ocean temperatures of 2½ degrees has been a significant factor in the devastating algal bloom that has been tearing through much of the South Australian coast, decimating marine wildlife and ecosystems and the local South Australian economy.

Extreme weather events are expected to cost our economy over $40 billion by 2050. It's unbelievable that it needs to be said in 2026, but for the benefit of those in doubt—if unwilling to respond to what former vice-president Al Gore famously called the inconvenient truth—climate change is real. We're in the middle of it. Our children are, and the generations after them will be, in the middle of it, and they will pay the price. To suggest that there is an easy exit ramp, having abandoned net zero, is like committing to cross the length of South Australia on half a tank of gas; it will never happen—although I'm tempted to say you'd probably fare better in an EV with South Australia's expanding network of charging stations. So, while the opposition continue the decades-long ideological dance around the realities of climate change, the Albanese Labor government continues to act urgently and practically.

Our plan targets every level of the energy sector while ensuring that households reap both environmental and financial benefits. The Albanese Labor government's Annual climate change statement 2025shows the enormous strides that have already been made in reaching the Climate Change Authority's recommended emissions reduction target of 62 to 70 per cent below 2005 levels. For the year to June 2025, we saw a decrease of 2.2 per cent, or 9.9 million tonnes of carbon dioxide, compared to the previous year. Outside of COVID lockdowns, this is the largest financial year reduction in non-land emissions on record. These reductions are not accidental. They are due to a suite of policies and programs deliberately put in place by the Albanese Labor government to ensure that, while we are tracking towards our emissions target, we are not derailed or distracted and we are able to forge ahead while the opposition dither and delay.

Our government has established the new $5 billion Net Zero Fund, in the National Reconstruction Fund, that will help industrial facilities decarbonise and scale up more renewables and low-emissions manufacturing. The government has provided another $2 billion for the Clean Energy Finance Corporation to help drive down electricity prices. The government has invested $1.1 billion to encourage the production of more clean fuels in Australia, and the government has introduced a safeguard mechanism to curb the high emissions of Australia's largest emitting facilities. Indeed, the renewable energy transition is well underway. It is charging ahead with a fury that no naysayer with a blinkered view of our present and immediate environmental dangers will be able to stop.

Forty per cent of Australia's two largest electricity grids now consist of renewable energy. In September and October 2025, renewables surpassed coal as the largest source of electricity in Australia's largest grid, the national electricity market. The increase of the Capacity Investment Scheme target by 25 per cent will further accelerate investment and expansion of renewable energy generation and capacity.

But even beyond the environmental benefits of a more modern, sustainable and cleaner energy system, we all know that renewable energy is the cheapest form of energy. The proof is in the pudding as Australian households themselves opt in droves to make the renewable transition. Over one in three households now have solar panels on their roof—the highest uptake of solar anywhere in the world. In fact, each day 500 Australian households are installing solar panels for the first time.

This has been supported by the government's Cheaper Home Batteries Program, which has made the installation of small-scale battery systems affordable for all Australians. The numbers again speak for themselves: over 250,000 batteries have been installed under this scheme since mid-2025, and 1,000 households more are installing a battery in their home each day. I'm proud to report that my electorate of Boothby has seen the third-highest uptake in all of South Australia and the fifth-highest uptake in the entire country.

From 1 July this year, the government's Solar Sharer Offer will see Australian households with smart meters enjoy free electricity for three hours a day. Additionally, the government has invested $40 million to accelerate the installation of kerbside and fast EV charging, which will include 10,000 public charge points, as EVs increasingly become the vehicle of choice for more Australian consumers. This is backed by the new vehicle efficiency standard, giving consumers more choice when it comes to low- or zero-emissions vehicles. More cheaper EVs are now available on the market, the second-hand market is starting up and more Australians are enjoying fuel security that is not dependent on overseas supply chains.

The Albanese Labor government is also committed to retiring our coal-fired power stations, most of which are more than 24 years old, and replacing them with renewable alternatives. The consensus is clear: these coal power plants are outdated, unreliable and difficult to operate. The owners themselves have announced their closures because they are financially uneconomic. In fact, they are driving up Australia's energy costs, not lowering them, with the average level of coal power capacity unavailable due to outages increasing by 28 per cent in the second quarter of 2025.

But we can't go at this alone. The Paris Agreement, whose 10-year anniversary we celebrated last year, entrenches this global effort. The agreement seeks to limit global warming to well below two degrees of pre-industrial levels, and has as its objective the decarbonisation of the global economy and the reinforcement of a reliable energy system—all of which the opposition have effectively given up on by abandoning net zero by 2050. In fact, the opposition are trying to catch up to a narrative that has long run away from them. The International Energy Agency reports that around US$2.2 trillion is going collectively to renewables, grid storage, low-emission fuels, efficiency and electrification—twice as much as the US$1.1 trillion going to oil, natural gas and coal.

Arguably, Australia is only one piece in a much larger puzzle. Our rates of pollution pale in comparison to the bigger economies, but there is something to be said for leading by moral authority. The Pacific countries, our neighbours, who are daily menaced by the possibility of rising sea levels, would expect as much, if not more. Many of our own island communities are facing a similar fate.

That is why Australia will assume the role of president of negotiations at COP31. With our Pacific partners, Australia will set the agenda on global climate discussions and lead the way in developing solutions to a climate crisis that is, as we speak, having a profound and acute impact on island communities and nations. As the Foreign minister last week declared:

Pacific countries have long been leaders on climate action, and their voices are central to shaping the global response.

While much has been achieved, the Albanese Labor government recognises there is much more to do. Complacency is the killer of progress, or, more regrettably, in the case of the opposition, ignorance is the killer of action. Net zero is—or, rather, should be—a non-negotiable benchmark, and, under this government's plan, Australia is on track to meet its emissions reduction commitments. Under the opposition's plan, Australia would still be idling at the starting line, having heard the whistle blow more than once.

Australia is already in the throes of a renewable energy transition, and it's a transition that is guaranteed to improve the financial standing of all Australians—cleaner energy as well as cheaper energy. While the government's Annual climate change statement 2025doesn't brush over the significant obstacles that are still to be confronted, importantly, it affirms the government's commitment to ensuring that the trajectory we are on now is firm and unyielding. Not only is climate change an issue of the generation and for the generations; it will define a generation. It will define a generation that either chooses to act or refuses to act.

I'm ending by quoting the Prime Minister of Canada, Mark Carney, whose visit later this week will no doubt include a discussion about our two countries' ongoing collaboration in the climate change space. He said: 'Climate change is the tragedy of the horizon. We don't need an army of actuaries to tell us that the catastrophic impacts of climate change will be felt beyond the traditional horizons of most actors, imposing a cost on future generations.'

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