QUESTIONS WITHOUT NOTICE

Mr BOWEN (McMahon—Minister for Climate Change and Energy) (15:10): I thank the member for Melbourne for her question. The member for Melbourne said to the people of Melbourne in May, 'Let's put progress over protest,' and the people of Melbourne responded with enthusiasm. It's no easy task to defeat a leader of another party.

There are two people in this parliament who can tell us how it's done, and the member for Melbourne is one of them. The member for Melbourne asked me about Australia embracing opportunities. Australians are making progress, with 101,942 households installing a cheaper home battery since 1 July.

You know what that means? Of interest to the member for Melbourne, that's more than the capacity of the MCG, which the member for Melbourne represents. When you consider most of those households would have more than one person in them, that's even more.

Just on the number of households, that's more than the MCG can hold. I told the House yesterday we had added two gigawatt hours of storage. An interesting fact is that it took Australia four years, from the time we installed our first big battery, to get to one gigawatt hour.

Australians, working with their government, have installed two gigawatt hours in the last four months—not four years, four months. That is real progress, real delivery and real achievement. I'm asked by the honourable member what could endanger this progress.

What could endanger the progress is an alternative government that doesn't know what the objective is, let alone the pathway. This is a party which went to the last election with a policy very different to ours and didn't get the memo from the Australian people, and has used every day since to argue about what the possible objective is. We know there were meetings today and meetings this week, and the Canavan review is due on net zero.

We are all waiting with baited breath to hear what Senator Canavan could possibly think about net zero! He admitted on Insiders on the weekend that there's been no economic modelling. The former leader, the member for Riverina, was asked why it's taking so long— Mr Small interjecting— The SPEAKER: The member for Forrest is warned.

Mr BOWEN: and he said: 'It's a process. It's not a McDonald's drive-through. You can't just turn up and ask for a report and get it within five seconds of ordering.' Well, you can work out in the four months or more since the election whether or not you believe in climate change, I would posit.

The opposition spokesperson who was out there this morning was asked when the opposition would finally declare their position on net zero, and he said: 'I hope before Christmas. That's what I'm working towards.' Well, I hope that before Christmas the opposition comes up with some policies, and I hope the No. 1 policy is whether they believe in human induced climate change.

We know plenty of them over there do not, and we know they don't want to seize the economic opportunities of action on climate change. They want to go back to 10 years of denial and delay. It's just as well there's an alternative—that is, that this government is delivering for Australian households and businesses.

Mr Marles: I ask that further questions be placed on the Notice Paper.