Yesterday afternoon, the Government opened the floodgates to corruption in the National Parliament. Yesterday afternoon, in the first time in the history of the Federation, the Government rejected a referral from the Speaker of the House of Representatives. A referral, quite justifiably, to look into the Christian Porter matter, where Mr Porter accepted up to $1 million of undisclosed donations to help him on a private legal matter. This means that Mr Morrison forced every single Coalition MP to vote down Mr Smith’s recommendation. To vote to protect Mr Porter.
This is a dark day for Australian democracy. This is a dark day for transparency. And yet again it demonstrates the urgent need for a National Anti-Corruption Commission. This Government committed to one over 1,000 days ago. It was weak as. The legislation was a joke. They couldn’t even deliver that.
And the Australian people are crying out for a National Anti-Corruption Commission. When I go home to the Hunter, people have a pretty low opinion of politics, and actions like last night just demonstrate why they do. They have a suspicion that there are people in this place not here for the right reason, not operating in the interests of the Australian people, and that’s why we need a National Anti-Corruption Commission. That’s why Mr Morrison has to remove the protection on the up to $1 million slush fund that Christian Porter received. And we need urgent action on that.
On climate change, yet again we see the Barnaby show. Mr Joyce in Question Time yesterday admitted that the ultimate decision maker, the ultimate arbiter of the Coalition’s climate policy, is the National party room. We have Bridget McKenzie and Matt Canavan deciding, determining, whether the Government will finally take action on climate change.
And this is really critical to our entire national economic future. We already know that countries around the world, trade blocs like the EU, have said that if we don’t take action, we could face tariffs on our mineral exports, our agricultural exports, our manufacturing exports. We will face tariffs if we don’t take action. We will also lose the economic opportunities from the transformation of our economy. We will lose the opportunity to be a battery manufacturing hub, a clean energy hub. We will miss the opportunity to rebirth Australian manufacturing driven by clean, cheap electricity. We will miss the opportunity for the Hunter to be the steel capital again through green steel and cheap energy intensive aluminium.
So this is what’s at stake in the civil war that’s going on within the Coalition party room. It’s the future of this entire country that’s being determined by Matt Canavan, Barnaby Joyce, and Bridget McKenzie, and it’s a national disgrace.
REPORTER: Some of the nation’s biggest emitters like Rio Tinto are pledging to slash their emissions by 2030. We’re still talking about 2050 here in Australia. Is Australia going to be embarrassed on the world stage in Glasgow?
CONROY: If Mr Morrison takes a net zero emissions in 2050 to Glasgow as his only commitment, we will be embarrassed. The rest of the world is taking much stronger action. The United States, the UK, many of our international comparators have committed to 50 per cent reductions by 2030. This Government is refusing to lift its woeful target, a target that I must say they will at best only achieve because of Labor’s policy.
Mr Morrison talks about a 20 per cent reduction achieved so far. 14 percentage points of that 20 per cent occurred under the Labor Government. The rest? Five of the remaining six percentage points occurred because of Labor’s Renewable Energy Target that this Government tried to abolish multiple times, and the final one per cent is because we had the COVID recession.
So this Government needs to lift its target otherwise we will be an international embarrassment and we will face potential trade retribution.
REPORTER: How high should Labor aim for 2030? Would you like to see a higher target than you took to the last election, say 50 per cent this time?
CONROY: Well we’ve been very clear that we will announce our policy well before the next election. We’re going to see what comes out of Glasgow, but I should point out that we’re not the Government. This Government has been in power for eight years. They haven’t had four hours to decide their policy. They’ve had eight years to decide their policy, and they still haven’t landed on one that’s credible and scientifically responsible. We will announce our policies –
REPORTER: But we are close to an election now so the public deserves to see both parties’ (INAUDIBLE)
CONROY: And we’ve given them a commitment that we will announce our policy well before the election so that the Australian public can make a decision. We’ve taken strong and progressive and credible climate policies to every election since 1998. We’ve got the runs on the board. As I said, emissions fell 14 percentage points under Labor when we were last in Government, and the other five per cent that’s occurred since then is because of Labor’s policies.
So we’ve got the runs on the board. You’ll see our policies. We’ve committed to net zero emissions by 2050 many years ago. We’ve announced already a $20 billion Rewiring the Nation fund to turbocharge renewable energy into the grid. So we’ve got a strong track record and you’ll hear more from us before the next election.
REPORTER: Has your plan to reach net zero by 2050 been finalised?
CONROY: Well key elements have such as the Rewiring the Nation initiative, but you’ll see more policy particularly around the medium-term targets before the next election. But I will point out that there’s a raft of economic modelling from the BCA to the CSIRO that point out that moving to net zero emissions is in our economic interest. The economy will be larger if we commit to net zero emissions, if we achieve that, than if we don’t achieve that. So it’s very important that we move there.
REPORTER: So have you committed to net 50 without having or requiring to completely finalise your own case?
CONROY: Well we’ve committed to a target for 2050 and we will release our full plan before the next election. It’s achievable. We’ve seen multiple policy proposals out there from the BCA, ClimateWorks, CSIRO about how you get there, and the key thing that they all have in common is that we will be economically better off achieving net zero emissions by 2050.
Thanks guys.