Doorstop interview at Parliament House

ASSISTANT MINISTER FOR CLIMATE CHANGE AND ENERGY, SENATOR JENNY McALLISTER: Well, it's the first day of Senate Estimates and it's going to be a day when we can expect Labor Senators and senators right across the Parliament to ask questions of Labor Ministers. Of course, this is a year where the Labor Government is delivering on the change that Australians voted for. Our ministers are hard at work, delivering improvements to housing, delivering fee-free TAFE, ensuring that our energy system is fit for purpose and can deliver lower prices and lower emissions, and working to ensure that Australians enjoy the standard of living that they hope for. We want every Australian to be able to prosper and we are absolutely determined not to waste a day in government. We want to do everything we can to deliver the change that Australians were promised.

Now, of course, I'll be sitting in the chair answering questions about energy, about climate change, about the environment, and I expect that we'll hear questions from a range of Coalition Senators which will demonstrate that very little has changed for them in their transition from government to opposition. I think you'll hear questions about energy prices, and they'll be questions asked by the very same senators who voted against energy price relief in December. We'll hear questions from Coalition Senators about energy security and they'll be from the very same senators who were part of the party room that allowed the Australian energy market to deteriorate into a state of chaos and destruction. The one thing I don't expect to hear very much about is the Coalition's commitment to net zero. As far as I'm aware, that remains the policy position of the Coalition and yet they never talk about it. I'd love to hear questions from moderate senators, moderate Liberals who say that they support climate action, constructive questions about how we're going to transition to net zero. But I don't expect to hear anything about that because nothing has changed. The Coalition are incapable of putting together a policy framework to deal with energy or climate that can unite their party room and the questioning today, I expect, will confirm that that remains the case.