Speech to Better Futures Forum, Canberra

I acknowledge the traditional owners of this land, the Ngunnawal and Ngambri peoples, and pay my respects to elders and all First Nations people present.

It’s an honour to address the Better Futures Forum today in what is my first major speaking engagement as the Assistant Minister.

I can’t think of a better way of describing the game we should all be in, as much as we can – which is to be engaged in thinking about a better future, and then to join together in working to make it real.

So, at the outset let me thank you for your involvement in that enterprise.

And I want to acknowledge the contribution that Better Futures Australia and its partners have made in organising this forum, and bringing us all together to reflect on some key themes over a couple of what I’m sure will prove to have been a couple of very full days.

I pay tribute to this forum for its focus on galvanising local action to underpin national ambition and national change, especially when it comes to the net zero transition – with all the challenges and opportunities that it involves.

There is no greater or more significant challenge in Australia or anywhere else than responding to climate change.

The challenge has lots of dimensions. The scientific reality and the broad ecological ramifications of climate change are the dimensions that ought to be paramount. We need to respond to that reality with common sense – but we also need to build consensus for that response. We can say the challenge is technological, which is true. But it’s also true to say that it’s political – to the extent that politics is about decision-making and creating confidence in the decisions that are made.

And there’s no doubt that in Australia we desperately need a period of stable, sustained, focused, and reformist government to make sure that we rise to every dimension of the challenge.

We cannot afford to waste any more time in being absolutely serious when it comes to:

Our responsibility to be part of coordinated global action to reduce emissions; and

Our opportunity to undertake the transformation of our energy system, and to position Australia as a global leader in a net zero world indeed, as a renewable energy superpower.

In my view we should be energised by the opportunity to shape the change that is necessary and inevitable, rather than being knocked about by change.

I’m energised by it – and I’m lucky in this job to be in contact all the time with community members and civil society organisations and businesses that are energised by it too.

Because this endeavour that we all share is complex and fascinating – but above all, because it matters so much.

I’m also lucky that my job description is pretty clear: I have responsibilities in government for both our work on climate change and our work on energy.

On climate, my specific responsibilities include delivering the first National Climate Risk Assessment and the first National Adaptation Plan.

And in the energy space, I’m responsible for our work on energy performance – which I think is an under-regarded area within the broader energy transformation task.

So let me say a little bit about each of those areas.

On climate risk and adaptation, the bottom line is that we’re living with climate change right now – and have been for some time.

2023 was the hottest year on record. The ten hottest years were the last ten years, just not in that order.

In Australia, we’ve gone beyond being a land of ‘droughts and flooding rains’ in a lyrical sense, to literally being a land that is breaking records when it comes to floods and bushfires with monotonous regularity.

Our environment – Australia’s our rich and unique biodiversity – which has already suffered from deforestation and invasive species, is now under an additional and amplifying pressure.

So we need to do a better job of seeing the risks that confront us, and a better job of adapting to the change that we can’t avoid. And that will be required in virtually every aspect of Australian life.

And as with everything in Australian life, making sure we do that on a coordinated and harmonised national basis is no easy task – partly because our continental mainland and surrounding islands and ocean territory is so diverse, but also because of our 3 levels of government!

There is no doubt that we need a shared understanding of the most significant climate risks we face.

And we need a framework that can prioritise the risks and the responses to those risks; to help identify who is best-placed to lead that work; and to make sure that we work together in a joined-up and accountable fashion.

In March, we got a preliminary picture of the key climate risks, following the release of the first-pass broad qualitative assessment.

As I’m sure will come as a surprise to few people, critical infrastructure, health, agriculture, our regions and the economy are some of the areas identified as at significant risk.

Now, as a second pass, we’re undertaking an in-depth quantitative analysis of the risks, which I expect to be finalised before the end of this year.

Let me turn briefly to the energy performance part of my responsibilities.

This area of policy faces in a couple of different directions.

The first is the contribution it makes to our national tasks of reducing emissions and of building a cleaner and cheaper energy system.

The second is the contribution that better energy performance can make to people’s living conditions, their health, and their cost of living.

As my Department said to me on my first day in the job: the cheapest energy is the energy you don’t use. And we could equally say that the lowest-emission energy is the energy we don’t use.

Australia can do a lot better when it comes to our energy performance.

That’s why we’ve made it a big focus of our work – with a new National Energy Performance Strategy adopted in April, and then a $1.7 billion dollar package of supporting measures in the May Budget.

Those measures cover a relatively broad field, with support for:

• Local government (Community Energy Upgrade Fund, CEUF, $100 million).
• Small and medium businesses (Energy Efficiency Grants, $56.7 million).
• Homeowners (Household Energy Upgrade Fund, HEUF, $1 billion).
• And one I’d particularly like to emphasise, the support for social housing tenants (through the Social Housing Energy Performance Initiative, $300 million).

The reason I pick the SHEPI is because as we work towards a better future when it comes to action on climate change and the transformation of our energy system, we should be able to do that in a way that is inclusive; and that makes our future fairer too.

Australia has made great progress when it comes to the uptake of home solar PV – but the benefits of that technological leap forward haven’t been experienced by everyone.

And for vulnerable and disadvantaged households, our changing circumstances mean conditions that are less liveable and less healthy – and when those households have to make-do with substandard energy performance, it will also mean copping higher energy costs, which of course they are in no position to bear.

The fact is too many Australian homes fail to meet modern energy efficiency standards, which is why we’re undertaking work to adapt our home ratings system to existing houses – at the same time as we provide incentives for people to take-up simple improvements like insulation, solar PV, modern glazing, LED lighting, and energy-efficient appliances.

I’m heartened by the fact that the International Energy Agency estimates that by doubling the rate of annual efficiency progress we could cut energy bills in advanced countries by one-third, and account for half of emissions reduction by 2030.

For all those reasons I’m very focused on making sure that Australia doesn’t underestimate the enormous value when it comes to energy performance, at the same time that we increase renewable energy and storage, and deliver the much-needed upgrade to our national grid and transmission system.

I’d like to finish with a return to my initial theme about the inevitability of change, and the imperative to shape change rather than be buffeted by it – and on that theme it’s worth looking back to the middle of the last century when Australia’s top 5 exports were: wool, wheat, beef, sugar, and dairy products.

And then to consider last year when the top 5 was completely different. In 2023, it was iron ore, coal, gas, higher education & tourism, and gold.

One thing’s for sure: in the middle of this century, it will be different again.

We know that hydrocarbons have to come out of the global energy system, and we know there will be increasing demand for low-carbon products of every kind.

So there’s no reason why green hydrogen and green metals and new energy minerals shouldn’t be pressing their claim as leading Australian exports of the future.

And there’s no particular reason why manufactured products like battery systems and solar energy components shouldn’t be part of the picture too.

We shouldn’t limit ourselves by sticking with old stories about who we are, and what we can or can’t do.

We should be prepared to conceive of and create a better future.

A future made in Australia. A future in which we achieve our destination as a renewable energy superpower. A cleaner, fairer, and more sustainable future – in which some of the changes we shape and pioneer are also shared for the benefit of other nations, especially in our region.

That will not just be a better future for Australia, it will be Australia at its best.

That is the work I’m very grateful to be part of – and I value the contribution you are all making to what I’m convinced is our most important shared endeavour.

Thanks for having me as your guest this morning.