Page 1469 - Week 05 - Wednesday, 1 June 2022
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transmission and distribution network; and support industry to invest in new and clean technologies will mean that Australia can take great strides towards a zero emissions transition more quickly after years of irresponsible inaction and delay from the previous Liberal government.
Our government, like the Albanese Labor government, recognises that all levels of government need to be working in the same direction to drive the transition to cheaper, cleaner vehicles for Australians. I look forward to continuing our strong advocacy in this space and working with the incoming government to make meaningful progress on this in the weeks and months ahead. I present the following paper:
Driving cheaper, cleaner vehicles for Australia—Ministerial statement, 1 June 2022.
I move:
That the Assembly take note of the paper.
MS CLAY (Ginninderra) (11.52): It is really nice to be talking about climate change with a bit of hope today. I am really enjoying that. As we are meeting here, there are a bunch of locals at Parliament House welcoming in the new federal ministers. I imagine they will be amplifying the transport minister’s message, so maybe that will help a little. It is really good to hear about some of these national issues that we can now tackle in a cohesive way. I understand the transport minister’s frustration about our terrible emissions standards over such a long period. He is genuinely committed to climate change.
Some of these issues that have simply not been led nationally would have been so easy to coordinate. Many other countries have jumped ahead and done things that actually make our lives better. They deal with climate change. They also save us money. They mean that we spend less money on petrol and diesel. They mean that fewer of us are getting asthma and respiratory illness. There are so many reasons to do it. It has been really frustrating for so long to see such poor leadership. So it is great to hear this statement. We now have a chance to do things a bit differently. I am wondering how the conversations will go. I am half-hoping that we have actually missed the window for better emissions standards and that it might be time to skip straight to electrifying everything, which is where we are moving now for climate change.
We have got 100 per cent renewables here. Hopefully, soon all around Australia we will have 100 per cent renewables. We have got really good electric vehicles and we have lots of other options for zero emissions vehicles. If we can get those emissions standards for petrol and diesel cars—if we can get much better standards so that we are emitting less from those petrol and diesel cars—that would be fantastic. It may well be that industry tells us that it is time to skip ahead to the next step; let us just go for zero emissions vehicles. Maybe we are ready and maybe we can just do that with a really good, strong plan. With a committed federal government, instead of telling us that EVs will ruin the weekend—which they do not by the way; I have one and we go to the beach all the time and it is great—it might say, “Let’s electrify everything. Let’s
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