Fiona Phillips (Gilmore, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

My question is to the Minister for Climate Change and Energy. How are people in rural and regional Australia taking up the opportunities of clean, reliable energy? What are the threats to the best interests of rural and regional Australians?

Opposition Members:

Opposition members interjecting—

Milton Dick (Speaker) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Order! The member for Lyne.

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 her question, and what a champion job she does in representing the interests of regional Australians and rural Australians in this House, representing the aspirations of those on that beautiful part of the south coast of New South Wales. The honourable member for Gilmore knows that people in regional Australia are taking up the opportunities for cheaper and more reliable energy, particularly through the Albanese government's Cheaper Home Batteries Program, which, I am pleased to inform the House today, has now been taken up by 108,494 Australian households.

Increasingly, we see a heavy representation from rural and regional Australia in those figures. The member knows that the people of Gilmore have taken up the scheme with some great enthusiasm, but I have to say it is not a podium finish anymore in New South Wales, because the electorate with the highest take-up of cheaper home batteries in all of New South Wales is Page. Second, we have Richmond. Coming in a very strong third in the trifecta is the member for Riverina, who has the third-highest take-up of cheaper home batteries in all of Australia. I know it warms his heart to see his constituents taking up the opportunities of cleaner, more reliable, cheaper energy.

Opposition Members:

Opposition members interjecting—

Milton Dick (Speaker) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The member for Gippsland. The Leader of the Nationals.

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

And many people who have solar panels and a battery get a net zero energy bill. It is a very good thing to get a net zero energy bill, and some of them, indeed, get paid.

Of course, just as it is on the small scale, this is also true with the large scale. Of course, people in rural and regional Australia know we need to get this right. We need to get the community consultation right and the community benefits right, and it's good to know that around $200 million of community benefits will flow to regional communities between now and 2030 and a billion dollars of benefit to the landholders and farmers who are taking up the opportunities and droughtproofing their income. These are matters that were discussed at the Farmers for Climate Action conference here in Canberra earlier this year, which I spoke at. I didn't run into many members of the National Party there; in fact, I didn't see any. But they know that those in rural and regional and Australia are the people who are going to pay the price of climate change, with natural disasters and farm productivity falling. This was a view put by a delegate from the Young Nationals who said, in relation to any decision to move away from net zero, 'Regional Australians will be paying the price for increased natural disasters.' I think Perrin Rennie is correct. He's speaking up for future generations in regional Australia who know that they will pay a price in natural disasters and falling farm productivity, and that will be the price of the betrayal by those who are meant to represent farmers in regional Australia but who just do not.