Matt Burnell (Spence, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

My question is to the Minister for Climate Change and Energy. How can households and communities benefit from more renewable energy and storage? What obstacles stand in the way of these benefits?

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

I thank my honourable friend for the question. I'm happy to report to him and to the House that, as of today, 47,342 Australian households have installed a battery. I'm happy to tell the member for Spence that his outer suburban electorate in Adelaide has the fifth-highest take-up in all of Australia. Congratulations to the people of Spence.

Indeed, it is a suburban and regional story. Take New South Wales, for example. The top electorates for take-up of cheaper home batteries are Gilmore, and Page, and Richmond, and Riverina, and Macquarie. The top five electorates in New South Wales are all rural or regional. Indeed, rural and regional people know that they stand to benefit from this transition, as households and as communities.

The honourable member asks me what the obstacles are. One of the obstacles are people who used to support the transition who now engage in division and political pointscoring, who engage in hypocrisy. We heard earlier from the Prime Minister about the member for Mallee, who's been protesting against projects and transmission lines that she once lauded and celebrated when she was in office. But, to be fair for the member for Mallee, she is in reasonable company. We could start at the top, with the leader of the National Party, who's also been railing against renewables. You couldn't miss the leader of the National Party, who said of Maranoa:

We actually want to become the renewable energy electorate. Western Downs shire is screaming at me to become the renewable energy shire of the country with solar and wind.

Or perhaps I should have started with the putative leader of the National Party, the member for New England—my personal favourite—who couldn't resist claiming credit for renewable energy. He said in 2020:

We've made massive investments in the New England into renewable energy, in fact we're one of the biggest renewable energy hubs in Australia.

…   …   …

I made sure it happened.

Then, of course, we can't forget the current Leader of the Opposition, who said: 'My strong belief is that rural and regional Australia has lots to benefit from in the move to net zero, and I certainly hear that from my farmers and from my rural communities. So I'm excited for my rural communities and for the country as a whole for that future. I think that net zero by 2050 aim is perfect.' So says the Leader of the Opposition.

The Australian people know when a government's getting on with a job, and they know when an opposition is engaged in hypocrisy. If coalition hypocrisy created energy, we would have gigawatts to spare.