Celia Hammond (Curtin, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

My question is to the Minister for Energy and Emissions Reduction. Will the minister update the House on how the Morrison government's focus on technology, not taxes, is reducing emissions while strengthening our economy and creating a stronger Australia?

Angus Taylor (Hume, Liberal Party, Minister for Energy and Emissions Reduction) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I thank the member for Curtin for her question. As a former researcher, she knows that Australians are world renowned leaders in the adoption of technology. She knows that when technologies become economically competitive Australians rapidly adopt them.

Just today we've seen the Clean Energy Regulator confirm that Australia last year installed a record seven gigawatts of new renewable capacity. That's up 11 per cent from the previous year. It's an addition of around 10 per cent to total capacity, and it's a record level of investment. Central to that is very rapid investment in household solar and solar PV. We now have the highest total amount of solar PV capacity in the world—644 watts per person. One in four Australian houses now have solar on their roof. It's the highest rate of solar uptake in the world. Indeed, in the member for Curtin's electorate there have been 15,000 solar PV installations. That's an extraordinary number.

The success of technology adoption in this country is the reason we have recently launched the Technology Investment Roadmap. Because of the development and deployment of technologies we can strengthen our economy, create jobs and drive investment while at the same time bring down Australia's emissions and contribute to bringing down emissions in other countries as well. All of that means technology, not taxation. We are not going to tax our way to the Paris goals. We're going to take action by investing in our priority technologies, like hydrogen, carbon capture and storage, soil carbon, long-duration storage and low-emissions steel and aluminium.

We know that by 2030 those investments will create up to 130,000 jobs. The investment we committed to in the budget was an extra $1.9 billion. The total investment in priority technologies comes to $18 billion. Alongside the private sector and state governments, we expect a total of $70 billion of investment in these priority technologies. These technologies bring down emissions and bring down prices. There has been a nine per cent reduction in electricity retail prices in the last 12 months, bringing down the price of energy for Australian households and businesses. Whilst those opposite are fighting over their jobs, we're getting on with the job.