PRIVATE MEMBERS' BUSINESS
Mr LAXALE (Bennelong) (11:04): Sometimes you see a motion from the opposition and you just scratch your head, and that's exactly what happened as I saw this on the Notice Paper a couple of weeks ago. It gives me the opportunity to talk about the government's environmental credentials at a time when the opposition don't even have an environmental policy. They're tearing themselves apart over environmental policy, and here today we've got this motion.
This motion lays bare the arrogance and hypocrisy of those opposite who try to call out a government that's actually doing something about the environment when they did nothing to protect it in their nine years in government. As I said, this is all at a time when they're tearing themselves apart over net zero. Let's be very clear.
Australians rejected the Liberals' and Nationals' environmental vandalism at the ballot box not once but twice because they saw a decade of climate denial, division and delay. They axed climate laws. They sabotaged the Murray-Darling Basin Plan.
They cut funding to the environment department by 40 per cent. They halved marine parks, ignored Indigenous water commitments and left the Great Barrier Reef on the brink of being listed in danger. That is the coalition's legacy, and it continues.
It didn't end at the 2022 election, which you thought it would. It didn't end at the 2025 election, when they were thumped. Just this weekend, the Queensland Liberals voted to dump net zero as their major environmental policy—gone.
That follows on from the Liberals' and Nationals' state divisions across the country—in New South Wales, South Australia, Western Australia and the Northern Territory—all dumping net zero. They can't even agree on that. Sometimes I don't even think they can agree on what day of the week it is, but they can't agree on net zero.
They're in here today feigning outrage and saying that we don't have environmental credentials, and we're actually doing something about it. Australians do not trust them on the environment, and that's why they've been rejected at the last two elections. Since coming to office, our government has overturned nearly a decade of denial and delay and put Australia back on track when it comes to taking action on climate change.
The results are clear. We've legislated stronger emissions reduction targets: a 43 per cent cut by 2030 and net zero by 2050. We put those targets into law so no future government can walk them back— Ms Bell: Did you meet that target?
Mr LAXALE: and we're on track to achieve that target. I'll take on that interjection. We're on track to reach that target because we've unlocked billions in renewable investment.
In the year to March 2025, emissions fell by 6.5 million tons, putting Australia 28 per cent below its 2005 levels. Preliminary data for the financial year ending June 2025 shows an even bigger reduction in emissions of 10.6 million tons—that's 29 per cent below 2005 levels—with more than 40 per cent of the electricity in our grid coming from renewable energy, further driving down emissions and helping our environment.
That's not spin. That's not fake outrage. That's delivery.
It's happening because of the safeguard mechanism, which we reformed, which forces our biggest polluters to cut emissions by nearly five per cent every year; it's happening because we've added over 18 gigawatts of new solar and wind since 2022; and it's happening because of popular policies like our cheaper home battery subsidy, with over 33,000 batteries installed in a matter of weeks adding more storage so that people can use the solar panels on their homes to reduce emissions as well.
We've protected an extra 95 million hectares of bush and ocean, we've doubled funding to national parks like Kakadu and Uluru, and we've invested more than $600 million into protected threatened species. We've supported Indigenous rangers with a record $1.3 billion program, doubling their numbers to care for country. But we're not stopping there.
Australians are telling us and people in my electorate are telling me they want us to keep lifting our ambition. In fact, recent polling shows that 44 per cent of voters support stronger 2035 emissions reduction targets of between 65 and 75 per cent. I'll be one of those MPs pushing our government to go further on the environment and not take lessons and lectures from those opposite who did nothing in their near 10 years in power.
The DEPUTY SPEAKER ( Ms Mascarenhas ): I'll remind members from both sides that members deserve to be heard in silence.