Barbara Pocock (SA, Australian Greens) Share this | Hansard source

I rise to take note of the minister's non-explanation. It was not an explanation. In fact, this government needs to take urgent action to address the climate crisis and the housing crisis hitting Australians. The Greens forced the public release of the national climate risk assessment report that Labor sat on for months. The government's own report shows 1.5 million people at risk of losing their homes through flooding or falling into the sea in the next 25 years. These chilling scenarios include twice as many catastrophic fire weather days, 50-degree days in major cities, a surge in heat related deaths and over $600 billion wiped from the property market. What will it mean for the homeless people living on our streets in their growing thousands? Despite the government knowing all of this, they still approved massive gas projects like North West Shelf and others in the first weeks of the 48th Parliament. Shame, shame on them!

A recent report by the Climate Council and PropTrack showed that homeowners are paying a climate disaster penalty as climate driven floods become more frequent and severe. We're in a housing crisis as well as a climate crisis, and the increasing frequency and intensity of climate driven disasters is making the housing crisis worse. It's making more homes uninsurable and uninhabitable, and it's lowering the value of homes in flood-prone areas, affecting many lower income households and widening inequality in our communities. Homeownership is already out of reach for so many Australians, and climate driven events hike up the cost of insurance and make properties unoccupiable.

This is further proof of where this government's priorities lie—appease coal and gas corporations whilst ignoring the costs of climate impacts on Australian households and keeping more and more of them out of homes. Many households across the country spend decades saving for their home deposit and then face huge recovery costs and huge and risky insurance premiums arising from climate driven disasters. Why should Australians continue to bear the cost of decades of government inaction on climate change?

Labor, you are captured by the interests of coal and gas corporations. You are prioritising the interests of polluters' profits ahead of a safe climate future for everyday Australians and nature. Where is your truly ambitious target based on science, based on the avoided costs of disaster that are putting too many of us at risk and pouring fuel on the housing crisis—a housing crisis made worse by inaction on climate, affecting so many thousands of Australians who find themselves homeless or unable to get that first home deposit together to get into housing, and affecting our renters as well. We need action on both the climate crisis and the housing crisis, and Labor needs to make it happen as a matter of urgency.