Dean Smith (WA, Liberal Party, Shadow Assistant Minister for Foreign Affairs and Trade) Share this | Hansard source

I rise to address the latest Quarterly update of Australia's national greenhouse gas inventory. This report should have been an opportunity for the Albanese Labor government to demonstrate progress towards its 2030 emissions target. Instead, it exposes failure. It reveals rising emissions in key sectors and no credible plan for the future, and it leaves Australia off track to meet its targets. Despite the Albanese government's rhetoric, the data tells a very different story.

Transport emissions are now higher than they were before COVID. They're up one per cent since 2020, driven largely by a surge in domestic aviation. Agricultural emissions have jumped seven per cent since 2020, an increase of more than five million tonnes of carbon dioxide equivalent, largely from post-drought livestock recovery and fertiliser use. Fugitive emissions from gas venting are up by nearly a quarter, despite all of the government's talk about safeguards and carbon abatement. And the land sector, the one Labor heavily relies on as an offset, has weakened sharply since 2022 as La Nina ended, rainfall declined and bushfires increased. That is not a durable plan; it's a gamble on the weather.

The picture is just as grim when we look at Australia's carbon budget. Half of the entire 2030 budget has already been spent, but Labor has no credible plan for the harder work that lies ahead. Let us be clear about electricity. The reductions we see in that sector are not the product of Labor's new policies. They are the direct result of projects approved years ago—many under the former coalition government. Labor is coasting on our legacy, not delivering its own. The government's own update admits this:

There have been significant declines in electricity sector emissions since 2020.

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This decline in emissions has occurred while demand for electricity across residential and industrial sectors has increased. Residential demand is increasingly being met by rooftop solar supported by the Small-scale Renewable Energy Scheme, putting downward pressure on demand from the grid. Similarly, industrial demand is being met with a growing proportion of renewable generation, supported by state and federal policies such as the expanded Capacity Investment Scheme.

Even when progress is visible, it's progress built on someone else's initiative.

The Climate Change Authority has already warned that, at the current pace of emissions reductions, Australia will fall well short of its 2030 target. To reach that goal, emissions need to fall by around 15 million tonnes every year from now until 2030. Last year, emissions fell by just three million tonnes. Since 2006, the long-term average has been 12 million tonnes a year. It's straightforward mathematics and it confirms Australia is not on track. The Albanese government's own update reinforces this. On transport, the update says:

Overall transport emissions in the year to March 2025 are 0.1% above the levels … immediately before the COVID pandemic. This overall increase is largely the result of increases in annual emissions from domestic aviation and road transport diesel consumption, which are 16.8% and 7.6% higher … than they were pre-COVID …

Australians deserve an energy and climate policy that lowers bills, ensures reliable power and reduces emissions. The Albanese government has delivered none of this for Australian families or businesses. Their emissions reduction plan is failing, and Australian families and businesses continue to pay a high price. Australians were promised transformation, and that promise, like so many others from the Albanese government, has been broken. You only need to refer to Labor's own numbers to see the demonstration of that.