Bridget McKenzie (Victoria, National Party, Shadow Minister for Infrastructure, Transport and Regional Development) Share this | Hansard source

Minister, that wasn't my question. Somebody had to come in and help the Albenese government appreciate that their ambition was going to impact the regions. You needed to just check with the AWU; they would have been very, very happy to tell you what that impact would have been. You raced off to update our nationally determined contribution, and I'm happy to table your 2022 change to our NDC where you explicitly remove what we had put in, which was the five-yearly updated review.

You stand up here today and you make an argument like it was all Albo's and Bowen's kind of plan the whole time to make sure that rural and regional Australia impact would be part of your plan, but it wasn't. Getting the Climate Authority to do this and only look at the benefits is the concern of mining communities, Labor towns, around the country have with your bill. A much more rigorous, authentic and genuine way to address that concern would be to have a five-yearly review by the Productivity Commission. So if you were serious about actually genuinely understanding the impact, and therefore ponying up on levels of support for those communities, then you would be supporting our amendment around the Productivity Commission. I think it's the height of cheek to come here into this chamber and make out like it was always the Labor Party's plan, because it wasn't, because if you read what you put forward in our nationally determined contribution, there is no mention of a review, there is no mention of analysis specific to rural and regional communities, and that's just a fact.

My second question to you is: given that the impact is unquestionable, the desire to move on a pathway to net zero by 2050 is occurring, what guarantee will rural and regional Australians have in your October budget around the programs that our government put in place to support those communities around the country—over $21 billion of new money? What guarantee do those communities have that your government recognises that there will be benefits and challenges for different places in our country?