Zaneta Mascarenhas (Swan, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

I recognise that it is a challenging time in our world at the moment, and we are feeling some of those impacts here in Australia, whether it be family members affected in the Middle East or, more broadly in the community, fuel pump prices. Wisely, the good people of Australia, at the 2025 election, elected a Labor government, and that is partly because they fundamentally understood that during challenging times we are a government that will have their backs. I am proud to be part of an Albanese Labor government that is strengthening fuel, energy and economic security for the future. A part of that relates to action on climate change.

It is fascinating that those opposite are here lecturing us, after a decade of neglect. They had—was it one, two or three energy policies? It was 22 policies. The thing that's fascinating is that they're lecturing us on a reason to not act on climate change. But if we act on climate change, that means we reduce our reliance on fossil fuels, which means we become more energy secure. Earlier it was explained to us that we shouldn't have targets. But when we see more fuel-efficient vehicles, when we see electrification, guess what? That actually means we are being more wise with our energy and being more energy secure. What I hear from the other side, and the member for Gellibrand said this earlier, are delusions—absolute delusions.

The Albanese government has indeed been working on the way we decarbonise the transport sector. It's fascinating: Australia has been a dumping ground for inefficient vehicles, because those opposite didn't want to give Australia these opportunities, so they talked down electric vehicles, talked down efficient vehicles. The truth is that people who have those more-efficient vehicles are thinking, 'I'm glad I made that decision.'

We have seen from independent research that Australians have paid billions more for fuel because previous coalition governments refused to introduce fuel efficiency standards. A report showed that if the standards had been introduced in 2016 we would have saved almost $6 billion in fuel costs. That's the equivalent of nine million tonnes of carbon dioxide. This inaction, restricting low-emission and electric vehicles, has created a lack of productivity for our transport sector. The Albanese government has acted and is delivering the standards that experts have been recommending for more than a decade, improving fuel security, cutting emissions and saving families at the pump.

But this is also a government that wants to see energy independence and energy security for all. This is one of the reasons we introduced the home battery scheme. In my electorate of Swan, 1,400 cheaper home batteries have been installed, while those opposite were promising nuclear power, which would not arrive for decades. The private sector is not waiting, either. Fortescue is rolling out hundreds of electric haul vehicles and heavy vehicles across Pilbara operations, replacing diesel powered fleets that previously burnt millions of litres of fuel. By electrifying one of the largest mining fleets in the world, Fortescue is dramatically cutting diesel demand in WA and helping ease the long-term pressure on Australia's fuel suppliers.

We're also seeing electrification of transport in my community and projects such as Metronet, which is a great project that the WA government and the federal government have funded. We've seen the rail line raised and we are seeing more people wanting to catch public transport. In fact, you can do that for only $2.80 all across metropolitan Perth. So the thing I'd say is that there is a role for metropolitan centres to be more efficient when they have access to that infrastructure to make sure that the areas that are hard to abate have access to those fuel supplies. This is one of the many examples of what the Albanese government is working on, along with work we're doing with the ACCC that the Treasurer has been doing a fantastic job on.

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