Josh Wilson (Fremantle, Australian Labor Party, Assistant Minister for Climate Change and Energy) Share this | Hansard source

I thank the member for Kooyong for proposing this topic and for framing it in a way that is characteristically thoughtful, constructive and timely, considering our present circumstances.

The fact is that Australia is undergoing a comprehensive energy transition. It's being led by this government in a way that is starkly different from the approach that occurred in the 10 years previous under the coalition—a wasted decade—and it's occurring as part of a global shift being driven by necessity and good sense. It's a change that, for Australia, will mean lower costs than would otherwise be the case, more stability and control, cleaner air and lower emissions, more investments, more jobs and more export opportunities. That's why the Albanese government is leading that change in partnership with the broader Australian community—because it's a transition that the Australian community is 100 per cent up for. That also goes for our household sector and for our business and non-government organisation sectors. We know there's a lot more to be done, but the progress we've made is remarkable.

People can ask how we are going. I'll tell you how we're going. Last year, in 2025, we deployed more renewable energy and storage than ever before, we saw more new EVs than ever before, and we saw the largest annual reduction in Australia's emissions outside of the COVID lockdown period. That's what occurred in 2025. In terms of renewable energy generation deployment, there was seven gigawatts of additional utility in smaller scale renewables. That is seven gigawatts of additional generation when, in the previous decade, we actually saw gigawatts of generation leave the grid altogether because the coalition didn't even have an energy policy through that period of time. They flirted with 22 separate policies and delivered zero. We saw five gigawatts of additional grid-scale battery capacity added last year. That, in one year, is the equivalent of what was delivered between 2017 and 2024. That is real progress, but there's a lot further to go.

We know that the effort is occurring in difficult and turbulent global circumstances, from the war in Ukraine, which, sadly, continues, to the fresh conflict in the Middle East. As the member for Kooyong observed, that is putting pressure on energy prices, and that's why our work from 2022 and every year since then has been to provide relief and to take action to put downward pressure on energy prices through our approach, in terms of gas caps and rebates, to move now towards a reservation scheme, which I can say, as a Western Australian, is a very sensible thing to do.

This is not just in relation to energy prices. We've made a contribution to recognising that the cost of living doesn't exist in neat compartments. It's something you experience in aggregate. We've made a contribution to bringing down those pressures in all ways—by seeing real wages rise, by reducing common costs like health and education, by doing things to make a difference for Australian households, particularly for households that face disadvantage and socioeconomic pressures. I know that the member for Kooyong and members of the crossbench have supported that. Almost all of those measures—I don't want to say 'all of them', because there might be one or two that I'd be wrong about—have been opposed by the Liberal and National Party members.

There's no question that the clean energy transition is needed for lots of different reasons. It's needed to tackle dangerous climate change. It's needed because that's the way the world is moving. It's needed because the energy sources that we've relied upon in the modern era, over the last 150 years, are themselves finite. There is not an infinite amount of oil, coal and gas, so the transition has to occur. In Australia we have a remarkable ability to do that in world-leading fashion, and we've already seen some of those benefits.

The way in which it is experienced by households at a time of cost-of-living pressures is pretty dramatic. The moment that a household goes from not having solar to having solar can save them $2,000 a year. If they add a battery, it's a further $1,000. If you make some of the investments that the member for Kooyong is talking about—which, frankly, probably come at the top of that list, such as insulation, thermal sealing and, perhaps, window treatments—the efficiency savings and the savings that accrue from having energy efficient appliances can add another $1,000 a year. If you go from a combustion vehicle to an EV, that's probably $1,000 in savings just in the fuel costs, not to mention saving on the operational costs that come from cheaper and less frequent maintenance. We know that that makes a big difference. That's why we're delivering that at the same time that we recognise the systemic benefits.

Because the word 'household' is in the topic, I'm just going to try and cover a couple of the more household focused measures that have occurred and that the member for Kooyong didn't cover. I've said we're already the world leader for rooftop solar. One in three households, more than four million households Australia-wide, have it. In some jurisdictions, such as WA, it's two in five. Solar not only makes a big cost pressure improvement for those households; it makes a systemic benefit for the grid as a whole.

When we got to, probably, April or May last year, we knew there was a big challenge in terms of distributed storage, because, while we had one in three with solar, there were probably fewer than one in 40 with batteries. In terms of distributed battery storage, we've now actually added the same amount in the last eight months as existed prior to the Cheaper Home Batteries Program. There are 250,000-plus households at six gigawatt hours of storage alone. The regulators are observing that that contribution in eight months is putting downward pressure systemically, which is really heartening. There's $1 billion through the Clean Energy Finance Corporation Household Energy Upgrades Fund. That provides green loans, cheaper finance, for people to undertake energy performance upgrades, which can include insulation, glazing, solar, batteries et cetera.

We know that the transition should only occur on the basis that we place proper focus on the people who need it most—the households and the parts of our community that face socioeconomic disadvantage. That's why we created the Social Housing Energy Performance Initiative, which the states have put $300 million into and we've put $800 million into. That will see the upgrade of 100,000 social housing dwellings. I went to the launch of the South Australian version of that program with former member in this place Nick Champion, and we visited a house occupied by a tenant, Janet, who'd lived in that house and raised her family there for 35 years. She was getting insulation that afternoon for the first time. I think that's a fantastic and characteristically Labor program to lift up people in social housing at the same time as we deliver a lot more social housing. We're making sure that the benefits of solar can be experienced by people who can't necessarily put solar on their roofs, through the Community Solar Banks Program and the Solar for Apartments Program. There's $100 million there.

I've touched on transport. Under this government, we've tripled the number of EV models available to Australians, with many more cheaper and affordable EV models, because of the reform that we undertook through the first National Electric Vehicle Strategy and the delivery of the New Vehicle Efficiency Standard for the first time. So we've tripled the availability of EV models, we've tripled EV charging and we've seen the sale of EV vehicles go from four per cent in 2022 to 13 per cent last year. The ratio of new vehicles that are being sold as EVs has tripled. In the first couple of months of 2026, it's at 17 per cent. So we've gone from one in 25 new vehicles being EVs to one in six in four years. We're now approaching 500,000 EVs nationwide. Last year, sales increased 38 per cent, and year on year—if you go from February 2025 to February 2026—it's jumped 96 per cent. That's making a massive, massive difference.

In terms of energy performance, we've extended the Nationwide House Energy Rating Scheme that applied to new dwellings from about 2003 to 2004. We recognise that there are lots of existing homes that haven't had the benefit of that scheme. We will extend it from 1 July this year to all existing homes. That's an additional seven million dwellings that will be able to measure their energy performance. We know that, if you go from a two-star rating to a five-star rating, you see 40 per cent less energy use. That's 40 per cent lower energy costs. We want to support that, as I said before, through the Household Energy Upgrades Fund.

We are delivering the new Solar Sharer program, which will become available from 1 July. It'll be in New South Wales, South Australia and South-East Queensland. That will mean retailers have to offer a three-hour free power period. We think that's really significant. We'll start to see some of that time shifting, where people can use energy when we've got massive amounts of solar, and it will bring system costs down. So I really, really welcome this topic. I could go on for another 10 or 15 minutes and rattle through lots more programs. It's part of the big, big difference that the Albanese Labor government is delivering on behalf of the Australian community.

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