Interview with Lisa Millar, ABC News Breakfast

LISA MILLAR: Let's go back to one of our main stories though, this morning. After months of marathon talks between the government and the Greens, Labor's signature climate policy has reached the support it needs to pass Parliament. Chris Bowen is the Minister for Climate Change and Energy and he joins me now from Canberra. Minister, thank you for joining us this morning on News Breakfast. Good morning to you.

CHRIS BOWEN: Pleasure, Lisa. Good morning and good morning to all the viewers.

LISA MILLAR: Hey, we just had Adam Bandt on the programme a moment ago, the Greens leader, and I just wanted to follow up with something that he has repeated again today, that half of the 116 projects that might have been in the pipeline are now overnight gone because of this legislation.

CHRIS BOWEN: No, that's Adam's talking point and he's entitled to his talking points, but that's not what we negotiated. What we negotiated was a very clear cap on emissions, which is perfectly reasonable and sensible for the country. And I thank Adam for his engagement on behalf of the Greens Party. He had a list of demands and clearly, in a negotiation, many of those were ruled out. But we continued to work on the things we could agree on. And what we agreed on is that the emissions reduction that we outlined as our ambition in January as part of these reforms should be reflected in the legislation. And there should be various mechanisms, CCA advice, transparency, public transparency, about whether that budget is likely to be met, whether it's being threatened, including if there are any new proposals. We've already committed to outlining their emissions through Tanya Plibersek's process, reviewing the Samuel Review, that will feed into the safeguard system. Now, that's quite appropriate. And the minister of the day, me, for the foreseeable future, for a long time, I hope, and then my successors will be obliged to consider policy options if that carbon budget is not being met, that's perfectly appropriate. And new facilities will need to comply with international best practice when it comes to emissions reduction. We made that clear as our proposal in January and we provided further clarity about how that will work yesterday.

LISA MILLAR: Well, I guess the argument then from the gas industry, we've seen some of that today, is that projects won't come online and that there will be shortages of supply and that energy prices across the board will go up.

CHRIS BOWEN: No, well, that's just not right, of course. What we're requiring is international best practice for all new facilities, including gas. I mean, gas does not get a free pass from the requirement for new facilities to be international best practice when it comes to emissions. In relation to the proposals that are currently on the books for things like Browse and Barossa and Crux, they are for export. Of course, one of them is covered by the Western Australian reservation policy, but they are being developed for export. None of them feed into the east coast gas market, none of them. And simply they'll be required to comply with international best practice, and indeed, Australian best practice. And several gas fields have been operating on those rules since 2007, so that's not an onerous requirement.

We'll continue to work with the gas industry to ensure that there are sensible ways of meeting those requirements, but they will have to meet those requirements, as will every other facility, whether it's gas, coal, any other new facility, an industrial emitter will need to meet international best practice when it comes to future emissions. And that's what we want for Australia. We do want international best practice.

LISA MILLAR: How's the carbon offsets review going to work?

CHRIS BOWEN: Well, I commissioned former Chief Scientist Professor Ian Chubb last year, supported by a panel including Justice the Honourable Annabelle Bennett AC SC, Dr Stephen Hatfield-Dodds, Ariadne Goring to review how our carbon credit system is working to ensure it's fit for purpose. They found that it is fundamentally sound, but they also recommended substantial governance changes going forward. We've agreed to that. We're implementing those. Also, we've agreed to full and proper audits and an independent audit of one particular method, which is controversial, the human induced regeneration method. We will audit those through a five-year process with the Clean Energy Regulator employing independent and arm’s length auditors. That's perfectly appropriate. More than happy to progress that. There's been some interest in that from the Greens and the Crossbench, Senator Pocock in particular, and they are sensible and important reforms.

LISA MILLAR: Just a quick question on our other lead story today, Latitude, this data security breach. Now, we're hearing that 8 million Australians might have had their details exposed. We keep hearing about this. As a senior member of the government, does it bother you that it seems to be a story that keeps getting repeated?

CHRIS BOWEN: Of course, it bothers me and the government that our cybersecurity as a country has not been fit for purpose. Minister O'Neil has made clear her very substantial reform package, that the previous government, frankly, talked a lot about cybersecurity, but did very little. That's not Minister O'Neil's approach. She's taking a very thorough and forward leaning approach to improving our country's cybersecurity and that's important work that she's doing. And, of course, every data breach is deeply concerning and deeply disturbing for the individuals that are impacted. I know this causes stress and anxiety. Clare O'Neil knows it and that's why she's getting on with the job of fixing it.

LISA MILLAR: All right, Minister, thanks very much for joining us this morning.

CHRIS BOWEN: Great pleasure.