Published in The Australian on 28 October, 2021

Protecting regional Australia, our industries and the jobs of hardworking Australians is at the heart of the Coalition Government’s emission reduction policies.

The Government’s Long-Term Emissions Reduction Plan, announced by the Prime Minister on Tuesday, sets out the responsible, practical steps we will take over the next 30 years to reduce Australia’s emissions and secure our economic future.

Our Plan has been designed for Australia.  By investing in new technologies like hydrogen, ultra-low cost solar, carbon capture and storage and improved soil carbon measurement, our Plan will strengthen our agriculture, mining and manufacturing sectors, and see Australia’s emissions reduce to net zero by 2050. 

It imposes no new costs on households or businesses.  It doesn’t raise the price of energy or reduce the competitiveness of our export industries.  Australia will remain a trusted commodity producer, including of coal and gas, to those who want to buy it.  Not one job will be lost as a result of the Government’s actions or policies under the Plan. 

It is built on a set of key principles; the most important being technology, not taxes. Unlike Labor, we won’t introduce a carbon tax that drives Australian jobs overseas and punishes the most vulnerable in our community through higher prices.

Whereas Labor’s policies are designed for international audiences, ours are grounded in the suburbs and regions of Australia.

We won’t sign our country up to policies that undermine the prosperity of our regions or make life harder for everyday Australians.  

Calls by some to reduce methane emissions by 30 percent by 2030 will do just that.  At present, almost 50 percent of Australia’s annual methane emissions come from the agriculture sector, where no affordable, practical and large-scale way exists to reduce it other than by culling herd sizes.

What activists in Australia and elsewhere want is an end to the beef industry.  Ged Kearney, the Labor Member for the inner Melbourne seat of Cooper, has endorsed calls to reduce meat consumption and move Australians onto plant based diets.  In Parliament, Labor voted in favour of legislating a 60% 2030 target, 15% higher than the economy-wrecking 45% target they took to the 2019 election.

Extremist views like these are rife throughout modern Labor Party, having been infiltrated by the Greens over a long period of time.

Equally, calls to reduce methane emissions from the gas sector, a critical fuel source that complements the increasing share of renewables in our electricity grid, by shutting down production and generation is an invitation for the type of chaos we are seeing in Europe at the moment.

In the United Kingdom, up to 11 million households on default market offers are suffering as a result   of rapidly rising electricity prices, with prices up by 12.5 per cent since October.  Factories, producing steel, paper, glass and cement among other things, are halting production because of a lack of affordable, reliable energy.

We have reduced, and will continue to reduce, Australia’s methane emissions in a way that protects our economy, jobs and our way of life. This has been driven by the Government’s Emissions Reduction Fund, the world’s largest government-run offset scheme, which has successfully delivered over 100 million tonnes of abatement.

It is the right Plan for the right time.  The decision by Australia’s largest and most important trading partners to adopt a net zero by 2050 target will have a gradual but lasting impact on our country given our status as the world’s fourth largest energy exporter. 

As any small business owner will tell you, a business that refuses to take notice of the changing preferences of their customers isn’t around for very long. You have to sell the products that people want to buy

By bringing these priority technologies to cost competitiveness with the existing alternatives, we will create new jobs and open up new opportunities to export our goods and services to the world.  Our $464 million Clean Hydrogen Industrial Hubs program for example, will see new industries and businesses spring up in regional centres, like Gladstone in QLD, the Hunter Valley in NSW or the La Trobe Valley in Victoria.

Under our Plan, 62,000 net new regional jobs will be created in mining and heavy industry.

At the next election, Australians will decide who they trust to reduce Australia’s carbon emissions, while keeping the country and economy strong.  It will be a choice between our sensible, fully-costed Plan and Labor’s blank cheque.

We believe Australians should be empowered to make the choices that are right for them and their family.  Labor’s approach in contrast will see control of the economy and people’s lives handed over to activists and the courts. Our approach is the Australian way, Labor’s is not.