Steve Georganas (Adelaide, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

My question is to the Minister for Climate Change and Energy. How is the Albanese Labor government providing overdue leadership on climate policy? How would this support our economy with job creation and cost-of-living relief?

Chris Bowen (McMahon, Australian Labor Party, Minister for Climate Change and Energy) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I thank the honourable member for his question. I enjoyed coming to his climate change forum before the last election, and I'll enjoy going to many more with him in the future, I'm very sure.

The world's climate emergency is Australia's jobs opportunity, but only if we get the policy settings correct. I'm very pleased that earlier today Senator Pocock confirmed publicly that he will be supporting our climate bill through the Senate, which gives it a pretty good chance of passing through the other place, by my count. This is a good thing because this will underline the end of 10 years of denial, delay and dysfunction. It will send a message to the world's investors that Australia is open for business when it comes to investment in renewable energy, in transmission and storage, which will create thousands of jobs right across our country.

The other thing I'm pleased about is that clean energy jobs played such a big role in last week's successful Jobs and Skills Summit. It's right that this is the case because clean energy jobs and clean energy investment are some of the keys to our economic future. This is important because we need to not only manage the transition underway but also ensure we have the skills and ability to make the most of and add value to our natural resources—our lithium and our rare earth and critical minerals—which will be in so much demand around the world. Under this government, we don't want to just dig them out, as important as they are. We want to add value and make more things in this country. That means having the skills to do so. It means investing in those skills, and that's why there are such important outcomes from the Jobs and Skills Summit.

The member asked me what else we're getting on with. We're also getting on with great job creation programs in relation, for example, to offshore wind, which is so important. A few weeks ago, I was very pleased to begin the process of declaring an offshore wind zone off the coast of Gippsland. I indicated that the Hunter will be next, as well as the Illawarra, the Indian Ocean off Perth and Bunbury, and Portland. These are all jobs in the regions. We know that renewable energy jobs will increase by at least 266 per cent, and 75 per cent of those will be in the regions. It's in the regions where we'll ensure we have that investment in the jobs of the future under this government, because we know there's been a decade wasted and now we don't have a second to waste.