PAUL MURRAY: The Federal Energy Minister and Emissions Reductions Minister is Angus Taylor. Now, we had a chance to talk to him a bit earlier today because, well yet again, there are people who are trying to pretend that Australia's doing nothing, not doing enough when it comes to climate change. There's even activist polling that's around at the moment that claims that in, so-called, rich Liberal electorates they care more about climate change than COVID. Okay, probably not at the moment if they're locked down in Sydney or Melbourne. I thought it was a chance to talk to the bloke in charge about what Australia is actually doing on climate change.

    

ANGUS TAYLOR: Look, the usual suspects line up, and they'll talk down Australia on every front, Paul. They'll talk us down on emissions, and how we're responding to the virus, on everything. They don't seem to love our country the way so many other Australians do. But, but if you, if you look at our emissions performance, it's outstanding. I mean, we're 20 per cent down on our 2005 levels, which was the baseline year for the Paris agreement. We're ahead of so many other countries - Japan, the United States, the New Zealanders, the Canadians whose emissions have barely budged. The OECD average, the G20 average. In the same time as our emissions have come down 20 per cent, Paul, you've seen Chinese emissions increase by 200 per cent over the last two decades. They've gone from 13 per cent of global emissions, up to 28 per cent of global emissions. They're approaching a third of global emissions. So you know, these people should focus on where the emissions problems and challenges are. We're getting on with the job. We're doing it in a sensible way, which is technology, not taxes - it's practical initiatives. Australians know, they're seeing the solar cells going up on their rooves, or their neighbour's rooves. These are the things where Australia's leading the world, and that's the practical way where Australians just get things done.

PAUL MURRAY: Well, that's what I said when those clowns were burning, doing great things for the environment, of course, by burning prams out the front of Parliament and writing whatever they could all over the Lodge. They were in the wrong building. They should have kept going over the hill and go to the Chinese Embassy. As the IPA said, 16 days they wipe out everything we do in a year, and they've got nine more years to keep ramping up their pollution before that's what even is the target that they have to start cutting back from between 30 and 50. That's the truth.

ANGUS TAYLOR: That's the truth. We just have a 1 per cent of global emissions, and our emissions are falling. They are 28 per cent of emissions as of 2019, and rising. So Paul look, people can spend a lot of time talking this great country down - I'm not one of them. I think we get out there, we get things done, and we do it in a practical, sensible way. The important thing is to do it without destroying our economy, destroying jobs, destroying our great regional centres, our great energy hubs. Whether it's the, the Hunter Valley, or Gladstone, or the Pilbara, or Whyalla, these are great Australian regional centres, they are leading global energy hubs, and we're going to continue to nurture them and make sure they succeed into the future.

PAUL MURRAY: Bloody oath. That's absolutely the case. I've been to many of those places with Our Town, which we celebrate each and every month here on Paul Murray Live. Now before you go, that process of technology over taxes, there's another tranche in that that's happening right now about trying to open greater consultation. Put simply, greater working relationships with private companies. Give me an idea about what that actually means to normal people.

ANGUS TAYLOR: Well, if you're a big industry, you're big company working in the steel sector or in fertiliser manufacturing, or you're a, you're a major meat processor, you've got significant energy use,  significant emissions. We're working with them to help them to improve their energy efficiency and bring down their emissions at the same time and that's using carrot, not stick. The Labor Party have always wanted to use stick. They've always wanted to tax these companies. We want to use carrot and make sure there's an incentive for them to go and find those energy efficiencies. Look, that's been working. That's been a very big contributor to our success in the last decade or so and it will continue to be. So our, our approach is to continue down that path, and that's exactly what we've announced. We're doing some consultation now with industry on how we best make sure that continues to happen but that is our focus, Paul. And that means more jobs, not less. It means strengthened industry, not weakened the industry and it means stronger regions, not weaker regions where much of this activity takes place.

    

PAUL MURRAY: Bloody oath. Good to talk to Angus Taylor.