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Touring UNSW's Solar Industrial Research Facility with Martin Green - the 'father of solar'.
1. My Permanent Energy Bill Relief Plan.
This week I announced my plan to reduce power bills for over 800,000 households, through financial support for rooftop solar, home batteries, and energy-saving upgrades.
Our community cares about the climate and it also cares about finding a permanent solution to energy costs as a national priority. Support for home electrification and energy upgrades is critical to both.
We need to do more to help households overcome the up-front cost of home energy upgrades. And we need to do more to help renters and social housing tenants – who rely on their landlords to make these kinds of energy upgrades.
My 5-year plan will help over 800,000 households permanently lower their power bills and emissions, through three types of support:
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Homeowners: Permanently lower power bills for homeowners by providing 10-year, zero-interest loans, worth up to $25,000 each, to help more than 456,000 homeowners overcome the up-front costs of home energy upgrades.
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Rentals: Permanently lower power bills for renters by providing a new tax incentive to encourage the installation of solar, batteries, and energy performance improvements for 276,000 rental properties.
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Social and Community Housing: Permanently lower power bills for social and community housing tenants by providing direct funding to support energy upgrades to more than 70,000 properties, by expanding the Social Housing Energy Performance Initiative.
Read more about my plan:
2. Set and deliver strong targets for 2030 and 2035.
The next decade is what matters for our climate and our energy security. With temperature records tumbling, we need to take action today to reduce climate pollution. And with 90% of coal-fired power due to retire in the next decade, we need to accelerate the deployment of cheaper and cleaner renewable energy.
That’s why I’m working to:
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Accelerate action to meet and beat our 43% target for 2030 by staying the course and building on the progress we’ve made.
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Set an ambitious but achievable target of up to 75% for 2035 that is aligned with the climate science – and provides policy certainty for business to guide investments in emissions reduction. The Climate Change Authority’s initial advice is that a target of 65-75% is ambitious and achievable, and I want Australia to aim for the upper end of that range.
3. Seize our clean energy superpower opportunity.
The clean energy transition is a huge economic opportunity for Australia. It’s vital we seize these opportunities.
We can accelerate our transition and create the clean energy jobs of the future if we:
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Accelerate the renewable energy roll-out to achieve over 80% by 2030 giving business policy certainty, and maximising the potential of Australia’s superpower potential.
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Expand and embed existing policies to power the growth of future industries like the Safeguard Mechanism, and tighten guardrails around Labor’s Future Made in Australia plan to ensure value for money.
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Phase-out over $11.8 billion per year in fossil fuel subsidies including by reforming the diesel fuel rebate so that our tax policy supports the climate transition– rather than works against it.
4. Get serious about nature protection.
Our natural environment is one of Australia’s defining features. But nature is in crisis. Over the last 200 years, Australia has suffered the largest decline in biodiversity of any continent.
That’s why I’m pushing to:
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End native forest logging by removing the exemptions for Regional Forest Agreements from our national environmental law.
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Fix our broken environmental laws by reforming the EPBC by implementing the Samual Review recommendations from 2020, which both the major parties have failed to do.
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Take account of climate pollution in our nature laws in a way that accelerates clean energy projects, takes account of the harm caused by large amounts of climate pollution, and is consistent with other climate policies already in place like the Safeguard Mechanism.
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Create an independent Environment Protection Authority that enforces our nature laws and takes decisions out of the hands of politicians and vested interests.
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Increase investment in nature to help protect our environment for future generations.
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