Appropriation Bill (No. 1) 2025-2026
Ms KEARNEY (Cooper—Assistant Minister for Social Services and Assistant Minister for the Prevention of Family Violence) (16:26): Climate change is not some weird distant threat. It's actually here with us now. Do those on that side of the House believe that?
How about you get your own party in order before you start ordering this side of the House. Climate change is the smoke we're breathing while our summers are burning hotter and longer, and it is the floods that are tearing through our communities across the Mid North Coast. Climate change is the droughts that parch our farms in Coleraine, and it is the fear that I see in young people's faces right across my electorate of Cooper.
Climate change is not an inner-city issue, like some of those on that side proclaim. Climate change is affecting all of us, but they don't care. They simply don't care on that side of the House.
When the Albanese Labor government was first elected, we inherited a wasted decade, and they dare to come into this chamber and try to pick holes in a government that is dedicated to fixing climate change, that the entire caucus believes in, and the entire caucus is behind our minister, who is working his guts out, along with the assistant minister. Years of coalition fighting continues about whether climate change is real or how real—a little bit real, not real enough to actually do anything seriously about.
Frankly, they were an international laughing stock, and that continues. We had the member for Wannon come in just before, railing against some apparently secret Treasury modelling that he's demanding that we table. He's demanding that we— Honourable members interjecting— The DEPUTY SPEAKER ( Dr Haines ): I ask that members lower their voices so that I can hear the member for Cooper's contribution.
Ms KEARNEY: The member for Wannon was demanding that we table some so-called secret Treasury modelling that is so secret it's actually available freely online for everyone to see! If he weren't just hopping across in a fantasy trip around the US looking at some nuclear-energy pipedream, he might have noticed that that was actually there. We are lifting our country's 2030 emission reduction target from 26 to 43 per cent and enshrining those in the law of the land.
We set our 2035 targets from 62 to 70 per cent on 2005 emission levels. In setting this target, we accept the independent Climate Change Authority's advice. We've also given the Safeguard Mechanism teeth; cut the cost of home batteries by 30 per cent, with nearly 80,000 batteries being taken up; and introduced new vehicle efficiency standards so that Australians finally have access cheaper-to-run, cleaner cars.
We have a Net Zero Economy Authority to ensure no community is left behind in this transition. We've got our six sector decarbonisation plans too—detailed practical roadmaps for how every part of the economy will do their part. All these changes have led to renewables delivering enough energy to power six million homes, and yet they laughably say, 'Nothing is happening.' We're putting our money where mouths are by investing in a new $5 billion net zero fund in the National Reconstruction Fund to help industrial facilities decarbonise and scale up more renewables with low-emissions manufacturing.
There are $2 billion for the Clean Energy Finance Corporation to continue to drive downwards pressure on electricity prices, $1.1 billion to encourage more production of clean fuels here in Australia, $40 million to accelerate the roll out of kerb-side and fast EV charging to help up roll out up to 10,000 public charge points by 2029. This is not nothing. Contrary to every dollar we invest is the cost of doing nothing.
Treasury modelling finds that a disorderly transition would make Australia's economy at least $1.2 trillion worse off, cumulatively, by 2050. That's what we'd get with the other side. Let me be clear.
The coalition kept us behind, and now they want to take us backwards. Many of them wanted to scrap action on climate change and net zero and waste hundreds of billions on nuclear fantasies—the most expensive form of energy, mind you. They keep arguing while the rest of the world races ahead, and for whom?
The CSIRO found it would take 15 years before a single nuclear power plant produced a single watt of power—15 years! We can't wait that long. They don't have any answers.
They want to play politics while the planet burns. Senator Duniam said there would be a mass exodus from the frontbench if the coalition committed to acting on climate change and kept net zero targets. And it goes on.
The opposition is a mess. We on this side of the House have our house fully in order. We are acting on climate change, we are doing the hard work and we are going to make sure we get there.