TOM ELLIOT: Our next guest is the Federal Minister for Industry, Energy, and Emissions Reductions, Angus Taylor. Good afternoon.

ANGUS TAYLOR: Good day, Tom. Thanks for having me.

TOM ELLIOT: Well, thanks for joining us. Now, I’ve got so many questions about this. First, is it technically possible, given current technologies, for Australia to have net zero carbon emissions?

ANGUS TAYLOR: It can, with reasonable pathways for those technologies, and that’s the point about this plan. It’s about a practical, achievable pathway, using technologies as they improve to drive down emissions. We’ve seen this before. If you look at solar, the cost of solar since the early 1970s when we first saw it has come down on average twelve per cent a year, every year since the early 70s, and that led to very small take up in the first 30 years. Just one gigawatt. The next 10 years, we saw around 100 gigawatts installed and that last 10 years, leading up to the end of this year, we'll see more like 1000 gigawatts in total installed. So that's what have you, the costs come down. Now we know there's a bunch of technologies – including solar, by the way – which will continue to come down in cost and they’re low emissions technologies. They build from our traditional industries, like the gas industry. Clean hydrogen, for instance, we know we can produce that at a relatively low cost already, and it will keep coming down. Energy storage, we know the costs are coming down. Low emission steel and aluminium, priority technologies for us, because we're in those industries and we need those industries to prosper and succeed in the future. Of course, the role of our agriculture, soil carbon, regenerating our soils creates a huge carbon sink. We’ve got 90 million hectares in this country, a fantastic agricultural land…

TOM ELLIOT: But does that mean we can, say, continue to burn coal or maybe gas as fossil fuels, but using the carbon sink that is - does our soil somehow sort of offset the emissions that come from the fossil fuels?

ANGUS TAYLOR: Well it’s net zero. See, it’s net. This is the point. It’s not absolute zero. Look, there's a whole lot of people here who really want us to get to zero. That means they want to wipe out a lot of our traditional industries and that’s not our plan.

TOM ELLIOT: Okay, okay. But let's stick with net zero. Right. So what do we actually do to the soil? I mean, is it just tilling it? Or is it letting the grass grow to a certain height, or what?

ANGUS TAYLOR: Well, if you take my electorate, for example, Tom, where it’s tablelands country, a lot of the rundown soil might only have one or two per cent carbon in the soil. When it's well looked after, when it's fertilised and limed, and you've got perennial pastures in there, you can raise that to five, six, seven or even eight per cent. Massive difference. That's just one of many technologies but it’s an important one.

TOM ELLIOT: Okay. But you talk about fertilising. Now, to make fertiliser, it takes an enormous amount of gas. I mean, in fact, without large amounts of gas, I think is impossible to make it. So, I mean, do we take that into account? You've got to use a lot of gas to make the fertiliser, to actually stick the carbon in the soil?

ANGUS TAYLOR: We sure do.

TOM ELLIOT: We do?

ANGUS TAYLOR: We sure do. A nitrogen fertiliser is one way to do that, which is what you're describing. Of course, you can put nitrogen into the soil through legumes, through clover. That's why farmers love clover, because it puts nitrogen into their soil. So there are other ways to fertilise the country. Look, let's be clear. Fertiliser’s part of it and you can produce fertiliser increasingly with low emissions. You can sequester the gas, the CO2 and that's happening all over the world now.

TOM ELLIOT: Now, what about nuclear power? I mean, I heard a former spokesperson for Extinction Rebellion of all bodies in the UK has suddenly came out and said she supports nuclear power. Joel Fitzgibbon who’s a soon-to-be retiring Labor MP in Queensland, he's also said he now we've got to start the conversation on nuclear. Now your government’s already committed to nuclear submarines. Why don't we talk about nuclear reactors to generate electricity?

ANGUS TAYLOR: There's no question we want the broadest portfolio of technologies that we can use to bring down emissions. The challenge with nuclear, of course, is that there's a moratorium. We strongly believe it would require bipartisanship, not just to get rid of the moratorium, but to get approvals and to get community support. Labor is not there yet. I'm hopeful that will change, but we're not there yet.

TOM ELLIOT: So if Labor gets behind it - I mean, Labor, I know, didn't really oppose the nuclear submarine issue. So if they're sort of halfway there and they get across the line, will you pursue it? Because, I mean…

ANGUS TAYLOR: Well, sadly Albo came out the next morning and said, yep, we sort of vaguely, with lots of conditions, support the subs, but we absolutely oppose nuclear generation. I mean, this is Labor’s approach where they say, look, they like some technologies, they hate others. They hate carbon capture and storage. They're not interested in soil carbon. They’re certainly not interested in nuclear. They rule a whole lot of things out. Frankly, that means the only pathway to reduce emissions is to tax people, to raise the cost of traditional energy sources. That's not our approach, our approach is technology, not taxes.

TOM ELLIOTT: Okay. Now, what about cars? I think cars are like 15 per cent of our total emissions, so they’re a large, although not massively- they're not as big as power stations, for example. But I mean, are we going to make electric cars compulsory by 2030 or 2035?

ANGUS TAYLOR: No. This is a very important principle. So first principle, technology not taxes. The second principle of our plan is to expand choices, not impose mandates. The Government shouldn't be telling people what kind of car to drive, what kind of food to eat, how to farm their farms. This is not the role of the government…

TOM ELLIOTT: Well… Okay.

ANGUS TAYLOR: It might be what Labor thinks governments should do, but it’s sure as hell not what we think we should do. Now…

TOM ELLIOTT: The only thing there - I'm sorry. But if you look at cars right now, the two top selling cars are Toyota Hilux and a Ford Ranger. Now, they're both big diesel utes, and I'm sure in your electorate, lots and lots of people drive them.

ANGUS TAYLOR: That’s our family car, is a Hilux, so I understand well.

TOM ELLIOTT: Well, there you go. That’s what Australians without a subsidy or a tax such as- well, there are taxes on cars, but they choose to buy that sort of vehicle. Now, all I'm saying is, left to our own devices. I mean, I'd rather drive a V8 than drive an electric car. So, you know, if there's no incentive for me to buy an electric car, I'll just continue demanding a petrol V8. So…

ANGUS TAYLOR: So the greatest incentive to buy an emerging technology is the cost of it comes down and the performance of it goes up. That's exactly what we're seeing now. Now, the truth is, we're not going to see tradies where I live buying electric vehicles tomorrow, that's for sure. But that you will see, as we are already seeing, Uber drivers buying hybrids. It's happening now at a really rapid rate. So, technologies improve. They come down in cost and as they do, people choose them because it makes sense for them. So choice, allowing choice, and as we bring down the costs of these emerging technologies, that's the way to do it, and respecting the fact that Australians can make their own choices. They're doing it now with solar cells on their rooves, Tom at a rapid rate…

TOM ELLIOTT: Well, they are. Look, I have solar cells and I have a battery, but I have the maximum number of cells my local council will permit me to have and I have a battery which, when I got it two years ago, was the latest and greatest. But, I mean, at best, in the middle of summer, I probably get maybe 60 per cent of my daily power needs out of all that. So I still need baseload supply from the grid.

ANGUS TAYLOR: Sure. Solar is advancing in Australia faster than any other country in the world – one in four houses. We've developed a lot of that solar technology here in Australia, at the University of New South Wales, an extraordinary story. The costs keep coming down. It has to be balanced. That's why gas generation is still going to be very, very important for many, many years to come.

TOM ELLIOTT: Because over in Europe, they've gone through a patch where they rely more upon wind than upon solar, but I mean, the wind has not blown. And suddenly, various western European countries are on the hook to Russia to get enough gas supplies to make up the difference. So it seems to me, if we look at that, we can't just get rid of gas and say we won't just have that anymore.

ANGUS TAYLOR: Spot on. Our plan recognises that gas will have a big role to play, not just in our grid, but in grids around our region, around the Asia Pacific, for many, many years to come. We're not expecting the gas industry to fall away. Many from Extinction Rebellion, many activists would like to see it gone. But we've got to do this in a way that is right for Australia and that means having a balance in our grid. Solar is great, but you've got to have that balancing technology and gas is certainly one of those technologies right now.

TOM ELLIOTT: Very quickly, your good friends, the Coalition partners, the Nationals, are they on board?

ANGUS TAYLOR: Absolutely. So, you know, obviously this has been a difficult time for all regional MPs because regional MPS, whilst we've – and I’m one of them – we face that downside from getting this wrong. We also face the upside if we get it right. So, all of us have been very focused on making sure that we have a plan that's right for Australia. We do this the Australian way, that supports our regions, and of course, that makes the Liberals and Nationals the right side of politics to do this because we do understand the regions certainly better than anyone in politics, in my view. That is why we've had strong support from regional MPs from across both parties.

TOM ELLIOTT: And finally, in doing this, are you hoping it's just- it stops being an issue for the next election, which isn't that far away?

ANGUS TAYLOR: Well, my hope is we just get on with it and do this in a sensible way which protects jobs, which creates opportunities for all Australians, which strengthens our traditional industries like agriculture and manufacturing, and that Labor come in behind that. I mean, that's what we all want to see, is a sensible pathway forward, getting rid of some of the madness like the carbon tax, as we've seen in the past. That's what I'd really like to see, Tom

TOM ELLIOTT: Alright. Well, good luck. We will watch it with interest over the next 29 years. Angus Taylor there, the Federal Minister for Industry, Energy and Emissions Reductions.