Mr TED O'BRIEN (Fairfax) (12:36): I rise to respond to the Minister for Climate Change and Energy's annual climate change statement of 2023. These annual statements are important, as are the accompanying progress reports just tabled by the minister. The executive summary of the inaugural climate change statement, from last year, makes the point that these statements are 'about accountability and transparency'. If that is what this climate change statement is all about, I'm afraid the minister is making a mockery of it. Instead of tabling these various reports well in advance to allow the parliament to have sufficient time to scrutinise their detail, the minister withheld those documents until only a couple of hours ago. I notice, too, that here we are listening to his climate change statement, and he failed to disclose whether under his watch emissions have been going up or down. How's that for accountability? How's that for transparency? What it tells you is that, behind the minister's bluster and self-promotion, lies a deep-seated insecurity. He is a false prophet who is big on future visions but not on tangible outcomes. The minister relies on the dark arts of politics, to which he has become very accustomed, with all the smoke and mirrors, deflection here, an announcement there—all make believe, mind you; it's all showmanship—to hide the fact that he has lost control of his portfolio, and his policies are in utter tatters. Like all false prophets, the minister conjured up visions of the future sprinkled with magical promises and targets. 'Follow me and I will lead you to a greater future, a cleaner, greener, cheaper future; just follow me,' said the minister. But then, as time went on, all those magical tricks, all those promises, all those targets, were broken or not met. What did the false prophet do? Did he come into this chamber today and take the opportunity in his climate change statement to bare all and say, 'This is where we're at today against these targets?' No, he did not. He did what he always does. He prophesies about the future. Having already failed to date, he again, instead of coming in and reporting on his track record, sees the light. He hops on the nearest rock and prophesies this conjured-up vision of the future in which he's going to cut emissions even more and make things even cheaper. It's going to be even greener under his watch! Yet what we know from the evidence that has been tabled today is that his policy is in tatters and that, in fact, he is not delivering on any one of his targets nor on any one of his promises. Let's look at those targets and promises. No. 1 is prices. There was no mention in the minister's speech of Labor's promise—a promise they made on no less than 97 occasions in the lead-up to the last election—to reduce household power bills by $275. It was a big promise at the time. The then Labor opposition were very confident, especially when we consider that that came on the back of the coalition government, which in the last term of government alone had reduced power prices by eight per cent for households, 10 per cent for businesses and 12 per cent for industry. But, no, this now minister and this now government claimed they were going to do far better than that. They were going to reduce power prices by $275 for Australian households. What was the result? Some households are now paying up to $1,000 more. Australians are now paying some of the highest power prices in the world. That was prices. Let's go to emissions. When Labor came to office, it was on the back of the coalition, which had reduced emissions to the lowest levels in our nation's history. But that was not good enough. The Labor Party promised a rapid, accelerated depreciation of emissions, the like of which has never been seen before. So confident were they, this minister strutted the House and declared 43 per cent emissions reduction by 2030. He didn't get Treasury to do the modelling, he didn't get the department to do the modelling, nor did he get the Productivity Commission to do the modelling, because he knew, he prophesied, that they were going to have this accelerated depreciation of emissions. What has happened? We know that this time last year, in the Annual climate change statement, it was stated very clearly, based on record, that under this government we started to see a 'slight increase on the previous year'. It was early days maybe, and people said we should cut them some slack, so on this side of the House, being the lovely men and women that we are, we cut them some slack. We said, 'Okay. They made big promises, and they're starting to fail because emissions are actually going up.' We cut the minister some slack, and here we are, 12 months later—another entire year where the economy could see the material impact of the policies that this minister had put in place—and what are we seeing? Are emissions going down as promised or going up? They're going up. Emissions are actually going up. Let that sink in. Let that sink in for every Labor MP who went to the last election. Let that sink in for the media, who have been conned by a prophet who's been out there all week saying, 'We're closing the gap. We're closing the gap to 43 per cent.' You can't say you're on track to something when you're actually off track. You're going in the wrong direction. You committed to the Australian people to getting emissions down. Emissions are going up. As families across this country go into Christmas not being able to afford what they want to see on their table for Christmas and wondering about their kids' school fees next year because things are costing too much, including electricity, and as businesses weigh up whether they need to close their doors or not because the price of gas, electricity, is going up and they hear the false prophet from the Labor Party saying, 'Yes, but we are getting emissions down,' they now know he has been speaking untruths. Emissions have been going up, not down. We are talking about four million tonnes over 2022-23—four million tonnes. That's close to one per cent. If there's been any glimpse of light here, it is in the electricity sector. Even there, the only reason that there's a glimpse of light is that demand has come down because of the cost-of-living crisis. Australians are using less electricity because they know they're going to be charged so much for it. Plus, thanks to the coalition's record on renewables, we have seen final investment decision renewables come online since Labor have come to office. The minister hasn't even had the decency—or maybe it's just the courage—to be upfront with the Australian people on this issue. He didn't mention emissions going up in his speech. He comes in here, effectively duckshoving all of these reports into the parliament, failing to give sufficient notice to those who wish to scrutinise it, and then in his speech he fails to mention that emissions have been tracking up. Need I remind the minister that this is his Annual climate change statement? When it comes to climate change, emissions count. When it comes to climate change, when you make your annual statement, you might want to report on whether, under your suite of policies, emissions are going down as you promised or whether in fact they're going up, as they are. So much for that transparency and accountability. That's prices; that's emissions. Why don't we go to electric vehicles? When Labor came to office—in another wonderful magical trick that was going to be performed by this false prophet—they committed to a target of EV, electric vehicle, sales representing 89 per cent of sales of new vehicles by 2030. But according to the department, as revealed in recent Senate estimates, it's more likely that they will come in not at 89 per cent but at 27 per cent. They promised 89; they're on track for 27. That's less than a third of what this minister and Labor promised at the last election. That's prices, that's emissions, that's EVs; now we have No. 4, renewables. On the back of record investment in renewables under the coalition, which saw 15.7 gigawatts coming online over the last term of government alone, Labor came to office claiming they would unlock so much private capital that we were going to see 82 per cent renewables on the grid by 2030. They were going to unlock so much private capital, but what's happened since Labor has come to office? Investment in renewables has dropped to among the lowest levels since they even started to be recorded. In fact, the most recent September quarterly report indicates, according to the Clean Energy Council, that investment in solar, wind, and battery is below one-tenth—I will say that again; below one-tenth—the pace that's required for Labor to meet its target. This failure on investment in renewables explains their latest ponzi scheme, their Capacity Investment Scheme, now expanded, a scheme that has a seemingly uncapped, uncosted underwriting of 32 gigawatts of new wind, solar, and battery projects. That's courtesy of the Australian taxpayer, of course, via a blank cheque signed by this minister, who is failing again on renewables—failing his own target. No. 5, let's go to reliability. Labor came to office promising a reliable electricity grid. Mr Young: How's that working? Mr TED O'BRIEN: 'How has that worked?' I hear people ask. Well, it hasn't. In practice, Labor's unprecedented market interventions are killing off gas. Gas supply is looking woeful. It's dire. The forecasts of shortfalls over the years ahead get worse and worse, a direct consequence of Labor's interventions. That's gas. Let's talk about base-load power stations, coal-fired power stations. Labor is refusing to do anything about the fact that we will have 80 per cent of Australia's base-load power exiting the grid by 2035. Surely, despite the ineptitude of the false prophet that is the minister, he must understand the importance? If 80 per cent of base-load power is coming out of the grid by 2035, with zero guarantee of a replacement, there is time to act, but he has refused to do so. Mr Bowen: Yes, like 10 years ago! You guys did nothing! Mr TED O'BRIEN: I'll take the minister's comment. The minister is questioning what we did when we were in government. When we were in government, the Liddell plant was to close. So I'll tell you what the coalition government did. The coalition government, as a federal government, got directly involved. This minister hasn't got involved in any of this. He keeps his head under his desk on it. We negotiated an extension of the Liddell plant. We put gas and coal into the capacity mechanism. We also invested in the Kurri Kurri gas plant. By the way, when this minister came in, he took coal and gas out of the capacity mechanism and then he decided that the Kurri Kurri plant had to work on hydrogen. Do you think that's up and running? It should have been up and running this summer, but it isn't. As we look forward, we know that we've got the pending closure of Eraring, the single biggest plant on the grid. What have we heard from this minister about the closing of Eraring? Radio silence. Is it any wonder that our grid is now amidst a constant crisis, with the market operator sounding the warning bell that brownouts and blackouts may come as early as summer? Let's go to point 6, which is on energy security. The minister was out in the media this morning expressing grave concern about the increased occurrence of extreme weather events due to climate change and the risk it poses to energy security, along with the volatility in the Indo-Pacific and threats to supply chains. On these observations, I take no issue. I don't disagree. But such issues should inspire the minister to change direction, not double down. We need the optimum level of renewables, not the maximum level. Let's think this through. We face a future of increased occurrence of extreme weather events, and this government's solution is to dump base-load power and create an energy system that is entirely weather dependent. How does that logic match up? You can't square that circle. Renewables will play an important role as part of a balanced mix on the grid, but he has a notion of a grid based entirely on renewables—he wants 82 per cent by 2030 and up to nearly 100 per cent by 2050—with an entirely intermittent weather-dependent system while he stands in this House talking about the very real risk of weather events that are going to make it even harder. Energy security is national security. Amidst heightened uncertainty in an increasingly volatile Indo-Pacific, it is important that Australia looks very carefully at its own supply chain. Again, Labor needs to change direction. Labor has adopted a renewables-only policy. Yet we know that more than 90 per cent of solar panels will be coming from China to deliver on this minister's plan. On one hand he talks about the need to diversify supply chains, yet he comes in here, lecturing about energy security, with a policy that actually makes Australia, as a nation, even more dependent on foreign powers. Generations of Australians have worked for years on Australia's international reputation, and we have built a reputation as a trustworthy supplier of resources around the world. Some of our key allies—certainly our key trading partners—rely on Australia for their own energy security. Yet this reputation has been trashed within 18 months of this government. The problem is that, once you heighten sovereign risk to the extent that Labor has, you can't just turn it off; you can't just say, 'We're going to turn it down now.' Once countries start looking at Australia and saying, 'They're a risk to our own energy security,' it's going to take years of yet again building trust with those partners. You only have to look at the very public statements of business leaders and diplomatic leaders from Japan to know the seriousness of this issue to some of our closest partners. Yet Labor's policies demonise the very resources that our trading partners rely on for their own energy security. Let's go to No. 7, social licence. Labor wants more than 22,000 solar panels installed every day, and 40 wind turbines every month, all the way up to 2030, along with tens of thousands of kilometres of transmission lines—all carpeting regional Australia. The minister's own community engagement process that would help facilitate such a plan is broken. And he knows that, because he himself commissioned the Australian Energy Infrastructure Commissioner to undertake a review of that broken scheme because regional communities were up in arms about not being listened to by this minister. Yet, having commissioned such a review—conceding that the process was broken—the minister ploughed ahead anyway. After that he declared an offshore wind zone for the Hunter, a declaration that he knew very well was based on a process that was broken and that did not give adequate voice to that local community. That is why that should be rescinded, the process should be fixed, before community consultation is opened up again. But this minister refuses to deal with what is happening on the ground. If he himself took the time to attend open forums with the public, he would have understood that we are not just talking about people in regional Australia who don't want action on climate change. They do want action, but they have deep concerns about ocean life, about bird life, about prime agricultural land. They have concerns about fishing zones. They have concerns about tourism. This goes to the heart of their way of life and their livelihoods. Once you breach a social compact with the Australian people and try to steamroll over them you'll be mugged by reality—and they may indeed be mugged at the ballot box as a result. Let's go to No. 8, industry certainty. The catchcry for Labor's safeguard mechanism—which is, in substance, a carbon tax—was that it would give industry certainty, despite its being the most punitive tax of its kind. But, since its introduction, businesses have been writing down their assets and threatening to move operations offshore as a direct consequence of Labor's safeguard mechanism. So, as for certainty, the safeguard mechanism has not given it as promised—unless you consider certain hardship as something that falls into that 'certainty' category. We know this is the case because only a few weeks ago the government released a consultation paper on introducing a new tariff to mop up their new tax. The carbon border adjustment mechanism, or CBAM, as it's known, is effectively an admission by Labor that its new carbon tax is hurting business. It is undermining the competitiveness of Australian manufacturing, as businesses look to relocate operations to higher emitting economies. No. 9 is energy projects. With great fanfare, Labor claimed that they were up to the task of managing an economic transformation as grand as the Industrial Revolution. But, only 18 months on, they have lost control of the very projects that fall under their responsibility. I've already spoken about the Kurri Kurri gas plant, but let's now take Snowy 2.0, for example. According to the National Audit Office, which assessed the project at the end of the coalition government's term, the project's contract was being well managed and governance was well in place. But, since then, what has happened? After a series of bungles and direct interventions by the minister, including a complete contractual overhaul, the project has doubled in cost. Within 18 months it's gone from $6 billion to $12 billion. This is the legacy that's going to be created. No. 10 is job creation. Labor promised to create 604,000 additional jobs as part of its Powering Australia plan. The problem is that those estimates were based on the same modelling and the same base assumptions which led Labor to promise a $275 reduction in household power bills. It's heading in the same direction: failure. I could go on and on, but 10 massive failures is probably all that this House can stand to hear about today. What we have to remember is that all of those failures land on the Australian people, because they're the ones who are feeling the pain. The problem, it should be noted, is not the end destination of emissions reduction that Labor genuinely wants to achieve. Amidst all the argy-bargy on energy and climate change in this country, we do have a bipartisan agreement on net zero by 2050. The problem is not that target. The problem is the pathway that Labor is taking to get Australia there. It's a pathway that is leading to a nation, come mid-century, that will be weak, that will be poor and that will be dependent on foreign powers whose interests may not align with our own. There is an alternative pathway, and it's one that we will certainly be presenting as the next election comes near. It's a pathway that balances multiple objectives, something Labor is failing to do. We need to reduce greenhouse gas emissions but also protect our environment and native ecosystems. We need to make major investments but also keep prices down. We need to embrace new technologies to clean up the grid but also maintain reliability and keep the lights on. We need to build new energy infrastructure but also respect the communities which are to host them. We need to prioritise our own energy needs but also remain a reliable supplier for our trading partners and allies who have their own energy security challenges. None of this is easy, but a determinant of our success will be balancing these objectives, something Labor is failing to do. If we can do that, then what we will see under the coalition is a country, mid-century, that is not weak but strong, not poor but rich and not captive to foreign powers but fiercely independent because we got rid of the false prophet and implemented a pragmatic policy.