DAN COX, HOST: The Federal Member for Shortland, Pat Conroy is Labor's Shadow Minister Assisting on Climate Change, and he's going to be at the climate summit in Glasgow next week. Good morning, Mr. Conroy.
PAT CONROY, SHADOW MINISTER FOR CLIMATE CHANGE: Morning guys, how are we?
COX: Well, thank you. What do you think about the Prime Minister's plan for net zero emissions by 2050?
CONROY: Well it's not a plan. It's a 15-page PowerPoint presentation that provides no real details. In fact in the so-called document, it says this is all based on existing policies. So they haven't announced a single new policy to get to net zero emissions by 2050. They're basing it on an existing technology roadmap that actually doesn't encourage new technologies, and won’t actually help the deployment. It's based on global technology trends that are unknown. It’s based on buying international carbon offsets from other countries. And then the kicker is another 15% from unknown further technology breakthroughs. Like, this is not a plan. This is just saying 'I’m going to achieve net zero emissions by 2050 and here's some headlines about how I might get there’.
JENNY MARCHANT, HOST: So you think it won't work?
CONROY: It won't work because there's no detail. It is a joke to call this a plan. They wouldn't release their modelling that’s supposedly behind it, and if you talk to every independent expert, they are all universal in condemning this document as a disgrace that actually jeopardises our economic future.
COX: Right, well the Coalition disagrees. It says it is a plan for the next 30 years. What would Labor do differently then?
CONROY: Well we’ve announced some of our policies already including a $20 billion Rewiring the Nation fund that will build the electricity infrastructure that's essential to get more renewable energy and storage into the grid that will also lower power prices. We've announced policies to make electric vehicles cheaper by $9000, and a community battery scheme. All those things will help achieve real carbon reduction and create jobs, and we've said that post-Glasgow, well before the next election, we'll announce further details of our policies.
But we've got the runs on the board. Of the 20 per cent of emissions reductions that have occurred in this country, 19 per cent of that either occurred under Labor or occurred due to policies such as the renewable energy target that were Labor policies that this Government tried to abolish. So we do have the runs on the board, and we've announced that we will have policies well and truly out there before the next election.
MARCHANT: The Coalition too has announced several policies that make up a big part of this plan including the investment in hydrogen which we hear a lot about here. Is this a sign that carbon emissions will go down, that the Government is heading in that direction at least?
CONROY: Well hydrogen has got great potential and and I'm a real enthusiast for it, but you can talk about investing in developing the technology, but then you need to take the next step of actually encouraging the uptake of it, and this Government doesn't have any of those policies in place for hydrogen. They’ve just talked about how they'll invest in new technology –
MARCHANT: Is that up to industry though to take up the product of those investments?
CONROY: Well let me give you an example previously that's been really successful. The only reason we've got renewable energy, the solar on people's roofs, is the technology has come down in price, and we've had government policies to encourage that. The Renewable Energy Target drove the biggest uptake in solar in the global history which has occurred in Australia.
You actually need active government policies to drive that. So for example, that's why we're trying to make electric vehicles cheaper by up to $9,000 to encourage people to get in low carbon technology. You can't just say ‘here's a nice shiny technology that we like’. You have to actually support the market to embrace it.
COX: Pat Conroy joins you, Federal Member for Shortland, Labor's Shadow Minister Assisting on Climate Change. What's your role in Glasgow at the climate conference being in Opposition?
CONROY: I'll be going as an official Australian observer which means that I will have access to the various negotiating rooms and the other pavilions. I’m obviously not negotiating because I'm not part of the Government, but it's very important to understand what's going on and to talk to delegations from around the world.
There are going to be critical decisions made at that conference that not just affect the future of Australia, but the future of the Hunter in particular. For example, there's one whole day devoted to the future of energy where we may see announcement from our trading partners about what they intend to do with coal. And that's obviously going to determine the future of our coal mines, not decisions made in Canberra, but decisions made in the boardrooms and governments of Japan, South Korea, India, and China.
So it's really important that the alternate government is represented at the conference because by this time next year we could be the government, could be. And secondly, it's really important that we have someone representing the Hunter given how carbon intensive our region is.
COX: Who invited you to be that observer?
CONROY: So what happens is Anthony Albanese wrote to the Prime Minister requesting that I attend. This happens every year, so for example when were in government, Greg Hunt who was Shadow Climate Change Minister attended, and prior to 2007, Anthony Albanese when he was Climate Change spokesperson attended. So it's standard practice for this thing to occur. It's just unique that we've got someone from a region that has been built on coal mining such as ours going.
MARCHANT: I hope we'll be able to speak to you while you're there. Pat Conroy, thank you.
CONROY: That’s a guarantee, thank you.