Adam Bandt (Melbourne, Australian Greens) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

My question is to the Minister for Environment and Energy. At the recent global climate summit in Marrakech, the United States climate envoy said that, because of rapid melting in Antarctica, current levels of global warming could see 1½ metres of sea level rise by 2050. In other words, even if the world stopped all pollution tomorrow, by the time a child born today reaches her 30s she would live in a world where the sea is 1½ metres higher than now. This is not a green group or climate activist saying this; it is the US government. Minister, given our coastal capital cities, what would be the impacts on Australians' homes, businesses and infrastructure if sea levels rise by 1½ metres?

Josh Frydenberg (Kooyong, Liberal Party, Minister for the Environment and Energy) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I thank the member for Melbourne for his question, and I can inform him that this government is taking the challenge of climate change very seriously. In fact, the foreign minister and I recently went to Morocco, and we were representing Australia after having ratified the Paris Agreement and our commitment to a 26 to 28 per cent reduction by 2030 on 2005 levels. On a per-capita basis, that is one of the highest in the G20. Australia was praised for the work it is doing in carbon capture and storage, praised for the work it is doing in innovation and praised for the partnership it has struck with countries like Indonesia to work on deforestation. Unlike those opposite and unlike your party, I say to the member for Melbourne, we are being responsible in our targets. We have one eye on energy security and another on energy affordability, while we are also transitioning to a lower emissions future.

It is okay for the member for Melbourne to sip on his latte in the streets of Brunswick, to put his sandals up on the seat and say—

Government Members:

Government members interjecting—

Opposition Members:

Opposition members interjecting—

Tony Smith (Speaker) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The minister will resume his seat. Members on my left and right will cease interjecting.

Mr Husic interjecting—

Dr Leigh interjecting—

The member for Chifley! The member for Whitlam!

Adam Bandt (Melbourne, Australian Greens) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

On a point of order on relevance, Mr Speaker: it was not a partisan question about policies. If the minister cannot tell us about climate impact on infrastructure, he—

Tony Smith (Speaker) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The member for Melbourne will resume his seat. The minister has the call.

Josh Frydenberg (Kooyong, Liberal Party, Minister for the Environment and Energy) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I was informing the House not only about how successful we are, having met our first Kyoto target and beaten it by 128 million tonnes, and how we are on track to beat our 2020 target but also about how we have ambitious 2030 targets. But what I was also pointing out was that it is okay for the member for Melbourne to put his sandals up on the seat, sip his soy latte, sit in the streets of Brunswick and say that it is the end of coal—because he put out a press release saying it was the end of coal—and to celebrate the loss of jobs in the Latrobe Valley for the people of Hazelwood. Shame on him, when he joined with the Labor Party when they were last in government to pay $5½ billion to those brown coal power stations to keep their doors open.

The member for Melbourne does not understand that you need a smooth transition, one which encourages the resources sector and understands that coal is an important part of the energy mix. If you want to hear a summing-up about the Greens, you only have to listen to the former Prime Minister Paul Keating, who said, when he launched the member for Grayndler's election campaign:

I’ll tell you about the Greens … They are a bunch of opportunists and trots hiding behind a gum tree trying to pretend they’re the Labor Party.

They do not have to pretend they are the Labor Party, because the Labor Party has now joined them.