Murray Watt (Queensland, Australian Labor Party, Minister for the Environment and Water) Share this | Hansard source

Thanks, Senator Whish-Wilson. What I can absolutely assure Senator Whish-Wilson and this chamber of is that the Albanese government will continue to take strong action on climate change. I think everyone is well aware that it won't be too much longer now before the government releases its intentions around 2035 emissions targets, and they will be more ambitious than the ones that we have in place at the moment. But the reality is that even the target we currently have, of a 43 per cent reduction by 2030, is far in advance of what we saw by the former government or any previous Australian government. I could remind Senator Whish-Wilson that there was another Australian government here once that tried to put in place a carbon pollution reduction scheme, but there was a party at the time that blocked that from happening. I've forgotten temporarily which party that was. It was the Liberals, but there was another party—ah, it was the Greens! I forgot. Imagine where we would be—ah, yes.