SUBJECTS: Net zero.

ANTHONY ALBANESE, LEADER OF THE AUSTRALIAN LABOR PARTY: Well, the Conference of the Parties in Glasgow is finishing and Australia's report card is a definite fail. And that's why the conference has agreed that countries like Australia that refused to increase their 2030 target, have to return to the next conference in 2022 with a higher target. I note that that is something that the Australian Government has said they agree with. Well, if the Australian Government has signed up to an increased target for 2022, they need to tell the Australian people before the next election, what that target is, because what we've seen from this Government is more spin rather than substance. What we see from Scott Morrison is someone who's not sure whether he's actually going to change his position on climate change, because he's all things to all people, is what he's trying to be. The most brazen of this is on electric vehicles. In the modeling that was released on Friday afternoon. It predicts a 90 per cent electric vehicle take up by 2050. Now, this is the same guy who said that electric vehicles would end the weekend. So is he saying we won't have weekends in Australia in 2050? Then he denies that he's ever ridiculed electric vehicles, when he's on the record, on tape, as ridiculing them as ending the weekend just like he's on the record for saying that renewable energy are "nuts". And just as he is on the record saying that battery storage for renewable energy is as useful as the big banana or the big prawn. This is a Prime Minister who can't be trusted, who himself says, I'm not concerned about what I said yesterday. So given that he can't give any credence to what he said just yesterday, why should Australians have regard for what he says today? This is a Prime Minister on areas like electric vehicles has invented a new way of operating. This is electric gaslighting, when it comes to electric vehicles, because the Prime Minister has said exactly the opposite, just a short time ago as what he's saying today. But this decision by Australia to sign up to a higher target in 2022 for 2030 is something that the Prime Minister must explain also. Why is it we went to the Glasgow conference with Tony Abbott's target in 2015? And why is it that he'll pretend once again, that facts don't matter? Happy to take questions.

JOURNALIST: Inaudible.

ALBANESE: Well, I am, what needs to happen is a transition and I'm comfortable with the world working together. The difference is Australia needs to be a part of working constructively, rather than as we are at this conference, where we've worked with Saudi Arabia, with Mexico and Brazil, as one of the few industrialized countries that refuse to change the 2030 target.

JOURNALIST: So what do you mean by that? The transition would be a phase out the transition anyway? You think we will always be reliant on coal to some degree?

ALBANESE: Well, what I'm saying is what's happening out there, which is that there hasn't been a new coal fired power plant built in Australia under this Government's watch, or under the previous governments watch for a long period of time. The Government wants to send messages that it knows aren't true in some parts of the electorate. It's an arrogant Government that is prepared to say anything at all in the short term, and to be prepared to use taxpayers money to do that. So we have for example, the proponents of a new coal fired power plant in Collinsville in North Queensland being given $4 million for a project for a feasibility study that they know won't go ahead. If construction on that project does not start during this term of government, then the people in that electorate will know, essentially, they've been conned, they'll know they've been conned. And their decisions re Australian exports, as I've said consistently, will be decisions made in the boardrooms of Japan and China and India and other countries, they will be dependent upon the demand for our resources for all of them. What we need in Australia, though, is a government that does two things, one that starts to value add to our resources and make more things here. And secondly, we need one that recognises the opportunity that is there. Just as individual Australians recognise that by putting a solar panel on their roof, and if they can afford it, to have battery storage, they get paid back on that investment, within a short period of time. The average time is around five or six years. And from that point on, they're better off, their households are more productive, they have more income. That principle applies to the national economy as well, that same principle, so that we need more electrification, we need more renewables. But in order to do that, what we need is Labor's plan to Rewire the Nation, we need a plan to fix the electricity transmission in this country. It is the single most important thing that we can do between now and the next decade, to really make the possibilities which are there for lowering our emissions while lowering our our energy costs while increasing jobs in our economy. So the Government is trying to decouple economic growth from what we need to do in terms of a clean energy economy. The truth is that those two things are linked. The shift to clean energy is one of the major factors that will drive our economic growth that will drive job creation into the future. And that's why you need a government that isn't pretending in some areas that they still pandering to climate skeptics and in others, recognising, as Josh Frydenberg said today, that there isn't a link between it's not either or, it's not a binary thing. If you deal with climate change, or you have economic growth. The truth is that dealing with climate change is a key to economic growth. And that's what the Government won't say, take that next step, because they're held back by the climate skeptics in their own ranks.

JOURNALIST: (Inaudible) When will you outline your medium term target?

ALBANESE: We will be outlining all of our program well before the election. But on climate change, we will have more to say this year. We will have more to say this year about our positive plans we've already outlined net zero by 2050. We've already outlined our rewiring the nation plan a $20 billion commitment, we've outlined our commitment to solar energy through community batteries, we've outlined our plan to ensure that Australians can fill those jobs through our new energy apprenticeships program, and we're about lined our plan to support new industries and to support transitions of existing industries with our $15 billion national reconstruction fund. All of these are major contributions towards what we would do in the short, medium and long term. And we'll have more to say before the election. The Government dropped out its modeling late on a Friday night that shows that they don't think it stacks up. And we'll be examining that in detail. We'll be prosecuting the case when Parliament resumes on these issues. And will be, as I said, having more to say this year about what our positive plans are to secure Australia's future.

JOURNALIST: (Inaudible) Has Shadow Cabinet settled Labor's policy and climate targets yet?

ALBANESE: No.

JOURNALIST: Or is it still up for debate within the Party? You haven't?

ALBANESE: No, I reckon, I reckon there's a fair chance that you'd know about it if we did. So we will continue to work in a positive way. But the difference is that the Labor Party all accepts the science on climate change. And we also all accept the opportunity that is there. So what we'll have is a considered response. One that has the support of our united party, not one that says one thing in one area and the opposite somewhere else, not something that goes to the Toyota factory that the current Coalition Government told to leave Australia and pretend that we're concerned about jobs. What you won't see also as this sort of nonsense of pretending that electric vehicles would end the weekend, and then kind of saying that they're all okay, and we'll reach 90 per cent without any policies to actually drive that change. We will make electric vehicles cheaper by removing the fringe benefits tax and by removing excise. That's a practical plan to make it cheaper. What we have from the Prime Minister is pretending he cares about climate change, but at the same time, trying to run a scare campaign about action on climate change. And that just undermines the whole point, which is there.

JOURNALIST: Inaudible.

ALBANESE: We will make all our announcements at at an appropriate time. We'll do all of that. It will be there for everyone to see. But we say this when it comes to the shift on electric vehicles, a shift that the Government's modeling says will lead to 90 per cent electric vehicles by 2050. And that the Government says there'll be 1.7 million electric vehicles in operation by 2030. What we'll do is make electric vehicles cheaper. We've said that, and I say this about some of the Government's dishonest rhetoric. Scott Morrison is getting a bit of a reputation. It's one thing to lie to foreign leaders. But this Prime Minister lies to the Australian public, when it comes to electric vehicles. When it comes to what his own words have been. He just pretends that he hasn't said them. And now he's talking about somehow Labor's policies in the past or indeed at the moment, being about forcing people to do things. It's a bit rich coming from the guy who forced bushfire victims to shake his hand when he visited those communities like Cobargo. It's a bit rich for a Government and a Prime Minister who in spite of the fact there was a vote of the Australian people on marriage equality, still didn't accept that vote and and refused to support that even after we'd been to a referendum. It's a bit rich for a Government that has a range of measures which are punitive, but aimed towards pensioners, aimed towards poor people. The party of Robodebt, wants to talk about freedoms, when the party of Robodebt imposed massive costs on people who didn't actually owe anything at all, and caused a great deal of trauma. We won't have from this Government that believes in big government when it comes to imposing their will, that believes in big government when it turns trying to spend taxpayers money on sports writes, on commuter car parks, the pork and ride scheme and other things, that's racked up a trillion dollars of debt, with nothing to show for it in terms of any major legacy. This is a government that is hypocrisy writ large.

JOURNALIST: Inaudible.

ALBANESE: I believe that Australia can be very successful at lowering emissions. And the reason why is because we have incredible advantages. We're standing here in Marrickville today. We have some of the best sun, solar resources in the world, the best wind resources in the world. We have copper, lithium, zinc, all of these materials that go into a battery. We have incredible opportunity. I met this week with the proponents of the Sun Cable project. Sun Cable will be making the largest solar farm in the world. Built in the Northern Territory, exporting energy to Singapore, helping to power Singapore. We can not only be successful nationally, we can be an exporter of clean energy, we can be a renewable energy superpower for the world. All it requires is government leadership, and for the Prime Minister this week to speak about business and the need for business to lead, well, business are way ahead of this Government, in spite of this Government, trying to get rid of the renewable energy targets, the Clean Energy Finance Corporation, the Australian Renewable Energy Agency, in spite of this Government opposing net zero by 2050, for so long, in spite of this Government, being held back by climate skeptics, Australia has still reduced its emissions because of the actions of the business community, the actions of state and territory governments, be they Labor or Liberal, like the Government here in New South Wales, and because most importantly, the actions of the Australian people themselves who get it. Who get that by the shift to renewable energy, they're lowering their own power bills showing as an example what we can do as a nation. Thanks very much. 

ENDS