Ms THEOPHANOUS (Northcote): Since my very first speech in this Parliament I have been committed to using the floor of this house to advance and elevate our efforts to act on climate change, and today is no different, because we have a moral responsibility and an existential imperative to do everything in our power to secure a sustainable future. In Victoria we are at the forefront of that work, transitioning our economy and propelling our state to net zero by 2050. Already since 2005 we have cut Victoria’s emissions by 25 per cent, moving away from a carbon-intensive economy and growing a booming renewables industry. Internationally our targets stand shoulder to shoulder with the ambition of climate leaders like the US and the European Union, and of course our 2030 target is almost double the woefully inadequate Australian target so lauded by the Morrison government.
But here is the thing: the climate is still changing and people are still worried, and around the dinner table, in cafes and in the classroom people in my electorate of Northcote are having conversations about the need to do more. Our young people in particular are growing up confronting the reality of a choking climate and of the terrifying consequences of all of the decisions that have been made before them. The weight of that realisation can be overwhelming. So, like my colleagues, I will be grieving today about our climate and the dismal head-in-the-sand attitude of our federal government and their friends on the other side of this house.
Last year the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change released the first part of its sixth assessment report. It collates climate research from around the world and paints a comprehensive picture of how much of a mess humanity has got itself into, and the verdict is not great. The IPCC makes it clear that human activity has bumped temperatures up by nearly 1.2 degrees Celsius and outlines the monumental task of reining it in under 1.5 degrees Celsius by 2100. At the time media reports called it terrifying, catastrophic, apocalyptic, but at its core this report is not a doomsday prophecy. It is a call to action. It says to every government, every leader, every industry, every business and frankly every person that we can and must turn this around.
Here in Victoria we are heeding that message and that call. Victoria is undergoing one of the most rapid transitions of its energy sector and its economy in its history. The climate change strategy released last year paves a path to zero emissions with interim targets that mean we will halve emissions by 2030, responding decisively to the calls for action from the IPCC. This ambitious target is not going to be easy to achieve, especially with the miserable efforts of the federal government hindering our progress, but we will not let others hold us back.
Just today we have taken another big step forward, releasing seven climate change adaptation action plans across key sectors that are vital in building our state’s climate resilience. One of those sectors, which the member for Prahran might be interested in, is the transport sector, and the member might find it useful, if he were still here, to review that and have a look at what we do have planned for the coming years in the transport sector. I know the Minister for Public Transport is here at the table, and I know that he has been doing extraordinary work in this space. This work comes out of our historic Climate Change Act 2017, which is world leading and the most comprehensive legislation of its kind in Australia. We are investing massive amounts in large-scale renewables. We have delivered the biggest battery in the Southern Hemisphere. We are moving more homes and transport onto electricity. We have set strong targets for zero-emission vehicles, and we are backing local clean energy projects like neighbourhood batteries and investing in new technologies like renewable hydrogen.
There are also big changes in industry and agriculture with support to cutting-edge research and technologies that will help our farmers reduce emissions and increase productivity, but that is just the start. We are also overhauling our recycling sector to get the most out of our precious resources and materials. Next year our container deposit scheme will come online, and some councils have already begun separating glass at the curb under our landmark new system. For as long as we can remember, our societies and our economies have been built around the linear use of resources—take, use, dispose. We are changing this, and I was proud to speak in support of our historic circular economy bill last year, which embeds our work to completely rethink our relationship with the resources that we rely on. We are also embracing opportunities to protect our state’s precious biodiversity and natural environment, and that means banning logging in old-growth forests and phasing out native timber harvesting as well as our critical work to restore habitat and store carbon in our landscape.
It is easy to list these achievements and actions and to enunciate them, but I do not think that listing them fully conveys the enormity or the difficulty of bringing these reforms about. The practical and political challenges are immense. As one of the newest and perhaps not quite one of the youngest MPs in this Parliament, I watched the debate in this house and in Canberra and I cringed at the conservatives pushing back on every single reform to address climate change. At every turn those opposite have chosen to stand in the way of critical change, and they use every tactic in the book: sidestepping, evading, justifying, exaggerating, fearmongering. The truth is, just as the member for Bentleigh described, they do not want to listen to the science. It is actually extraordinary. They have zero interest in the environment. They have zero interest in addressing climate change. Those opposite have voted against key legislation like our historic Climate Change Act 2017 and our renewable energy targets. They have put thousands of sustainable jobs and our climate at risk. Some of them have called climate change things like ‘rubbish’, ‘a religion’ and ‘a con’. Against every shred of climate science they have called for more coal power. More coal power? What the heck!
I am old enough to remember when being environmentally conscious seemed as simple as following the catchy Do the Right Thing jingle for anti-littering. It was a good jingle, to be sure. I am not going to repeat it. I am sure that there are others in this house that remember the jingle—
Members interjecting.
Ms THEOPHANOUS: That is exactly right. But the world has moved on from there, and it is just a hideous and terrifying reality that the Liberal Party has not.
In my community of Northcote we know and understand the urgency of climate change. We see the global joke that is the federal government’s so-called ambition and the embarrassment that was Australia’s performance at COP26 in Glasgow last year. The Prime Minister may as well have not gone at all. Our country needs leadership, not marketing spin. We need—
Members interjecting
Ms THEOPHANOUS: We need ambitious national targets that will allow Victoria to work hand in hand with a commonwealth that is committed to real transition. We need them yesterday, but May this year might have to do.
I have had hundreds of conversations with locals in my electorate over the last three years about climate change and our shared hopes for the future. My community appreciates that reform does not happen by chance but takes years of perseverance, engagement and policy refinement to get the balance right across employment, economy, energy security and environment. We know that real change comes when you have a seat at the table, when you put in the work, when you bring communities with you and when you make brave decisions. That is why I cannot accept the rhetoric from the member for Prahran either. The Greens talk a big game, and they are certainly happy to take credit for the hard work and the hard-won policies of others, but what have they actually delivered? And critically, what have they stood in the way of? The reality is that delivery is not really in their wheelhouse or in their interests. From Greens members standing against wind farms to voting against a federal emissions trading scheme to demonising workers, the Greens have a sad history to reflect on when it comes to climate action.
Time and again we see the Greens use climate action as an opportunity for themselves, an opportunity to protest rather than achieve progress. Critically, their false, divisive zero-sum game of pitting workers against climate action has been a gift to the conservatives—an absolute gift—that has set us back a decade at least, years that we just do not have time to waste on their vanity. Disingenuous political posturing is of course one of their tactics—one of their key tactics. In their desperate search for relevance the Greens will seize on any opportunity for a campaign, not for the cause but for themselves. And it would be laughable if the virtue signalling and disruptive vandalism were not so dangerous, but all it does is alienate communities and make it harder to galvanise support for real change.
Governments make tough decisions, and that is the burden of government. We are criticised and we are praised for them, but core to governing is navigating the tightrope and finding the fair balance that allows us to move forward and address the monumental challenges of our time. When it comes to climate change, only Labor is prepared to act on the evidence and put in the hard yards to deliver the real change this state needs to achieve a cleaner, more sustainable future that leaves no-one behind.
In my time as the member for Northcote I have been proud to work with our ministers and our government departments and my community to deliver some significant changes and local projects. This includes work to reduce our state’s reliance on gas by promoting the uptake of home solar and energy-efficient homes as well as securing completely gas-free social housing builds in Northcote and Preston. Last year I was thrilled to support Village Power and their team in their successful application to develop a neighbourhood battery in Alphington. I cannot wait to see that project continue. Likewise, I have been elevating the need for electric vehicle infrastructure across our suburbs, pushing for more charging stations in the inner north, and the minister knows about that. Protecting our local waterways and our precious ecosystems has always been a priority for me, so working closely with some of our passionate and dedicated locals we have delivered projects to reduce the flow of litter into the Merri Creek and we have secured a proposal to see the sensitive riverfront land adjacent to the old Alphington paper mill development become Crown land and be protected. It is an honour to help deliver support and funding for these and other local projects. While they might seem small in the global scheme of things, they are making a difference right in my community and they speak to the power of working collaboratively and effectively towards our shared vision.
Of course there is more to do, and fast. We need to be stronger on environmental protections, we need to be systematic in getting our state off gas, we need to seriously propel the development of Victoria’s renewable hydrogen sector and we need to convince the commonwealth to strengthen household energy efficiency standards, and I know our ministers are already digging deep into this work and doing the hard yards and fighting tooth and nail at a federal level too. But most of all we need to bring the community with us fairly, inclusively and with the science behind us. We cannot afford to be stymied by idealism. We cannot afford to gift the conservatives ammunition that sends us backwards.
Victoria is acting on climate change with determination and perseverance. We are doing this while ensuring we grow our economy and protect Victorian jobs. We reject the false narrative that equates climate action with rising energy costs and taxes, and we reject the heavy-handed idealism that would see matters of equity and considerations of workers, businesses and industries not addressed at all. Both sides of that pendulum lead to regressive policies, which sadly we have seen. And while I grieve for the prospect of seeing that regression again, I want to end optimistically, because I am excited for the future and what it holds for Victoria.
