The member for Point Cook over there quite clearly talked about his community in Point Cook having a very high uptake of the Solar Homes package. I would say that my community in Truganina overtook Point Cook with the number of solar panels they put on their homes, thank you very much. I pretend that Cranbourne over the other side of the bridge is not really pipping, I think, Truganina at the post after Tarneit in the uptake of the Solar Homes package. It really shows that hundreds of thousands of families have not only embraced our Solar Homes package to reduce their energy bills but also truly believe in climate change, want action taken and understand that that package is indeed delivering action on climate change.

But the purpose of this bill before the house is to again build upon our government’s incredibly ambitious climate action and renewable energy targets. Over the past five years – it will be my sixth year this year – I have stood time and time again in this place to talk about the importance of taking action on climate change but also the importance of having an ambitious plan when it comes to tackling climate change and setting renewable energy targets. We heard the member for Point Cook pointing this out to the member for Malvern, the member for Kew and the member for Sandringham, quite rightly, and asking them, ‘What is your plan? Do you have a plan?’ We have an ambitious plan, and that is what this bill is about.

There could not be a better time to be in this chamber talking about our government’s commitment to tackling climate change and bolstering Victoria’s renewable energy infrastructure. The events of last week were absolutely catastrophic. I do want to start my contribution by saying that my thoughts are with those communities affected because of that catastrophic weather event and in particular the family that has lost a dear loved one. My thoughts and my heart go out to those communities.

I was little bit upset to hear that my children last Tuesday told my mother on the phone that they were absolutely terrified coming home from school. My mum was pretty quick to let me know how disappointed she was in my husband and me for allowing them to come home on the trains, but they were truly frightened by that catastrophic weather event that was unfolding in the city at that time.

I also really want to thank the true heroes of this state. Time and time again their tireless, tireless efforts rebuild communities that are hit so hard by natural disasters, which are becoming so much more intense and frequent because of climate change. Those true heroes of Victoria are the SES workers and volunteers, who are still out there right now, as the Premier quite rightly reflected, providing aid, assistance and support to affected communities, and they will certainly be on the ground for some time to come.

We saw last week just how vulnerable our traditional energy suppliers really are to extreme weather, and that weather was extreme. Folks were talking about it not just being wind and wild weather but it being tornado and tornado-like. We know it is something that we are facing more and more as the impacts and effects of climate change are getting worse, and we are seeing more and more of these natural disasters happen each and every single year. Rather than talk about that and coal-fired power plants and things that those opposite always want to talk about, I think it is important to reflect that bills like this are all about us being able to set ambitious targets, meet those targets, have a real impact on climate change and increase our renewable energy supply. Those things, as the member for Point Cook quite rightly pointed out in his contribution, are things that time and time again the Victorian community, no matter where they are, have voted for. They want to see action taken and want to see ambitious plans.

I have mentioned before in this house that working in the energy sector was where I spent 13 years prior to becoming a member of Parliament, working across the energy sector on things like pricing resets, policy regulation and lobbying governments for change in legislation, laws and rules. It is why as I stand here I find it quite amusing to talk about and see the discourse that has erupted at seeing several transmission towers pulled down by catastrophic wind and how the obvious solution talked about in the media or now being debated and conversed about is the undergrounding of the entire transmission network. I think there has been some great conversation recently about the cost of that but also indeed about how when you need to do work to those lines you go ahead and dig them up and find where the faults are. I think if you look to somewhere like Auckland you can see what that scenario can look like. People were left without power for five weeks because they could not find the faults and fix them. I mention all of this in this place to make the point, especially to those who want to spend their time railing about transmission line projects instead of acknowledging that climate change and the extreme weather events it brings are the real threats that require real action.

Fortunately, what we know is that most Victorians know the solution to most of these issues is to invest in a strong renewable energy system. That is what this bill is about, and that is exactly what we are doing here. When it comes to our country I feel really proud to say that Victoria is without a doubt leading the nation in relation to climate action. We were the first jurisdiction in this country, let us not forget, to legislate an emissions reduction pledge based on 2005 emission levels and one of the first in the world to legislate for net zero. In 2021 we saw a 32.3 per cent reduction in emissions below 2005 levels, which means that we have smashed through our 2025 renewable energy targets, and this has given us the confidence to make even more ambitious targets when it comes to emissions reduction and renewable energy targets.

That is what we have done so far, and we know that that is now being replicated by other states. As someone who spent a long time in Queensland – I went to uni there and even had my children there – I am very pleased to see that the Queensland government has now decided to follow our lead and legislate an emissions reduction target of 75 per cent by 2035. I have to say that is a really big deal for Queensland. They are slightly different, and I do not just mean in geography or size, to us here in Victoria. There are many things that we can probably say over dinnertime conversation, and I am sure my colleagues in this place will no doubt be sure to tell me some of those running jokes about Victoria and Queensland, but for a state like Queensland, which for many is seen as the home of our country’s coalmining industry, it is a really big deal for them to be going ahead and legislating an emissions reduction target of 75 per cent by 2035. That is because Victoria has led the way. Legislation like this is a really good example of not only what can get done but of how doing so delivers massive economic benefits for households and businesses. What this bill does is it puts our renewable energy targets, including net zero emissions, into legislation and embeds them in our framework.

I could talk about this for a very, very long time, but I know I have only got about 50 seconds left. What I do want to say to folks, particularly in the Truganina community out in Wyndham, is how very thankful and very proud I am that they have had such a huge uptake in our Solar Homes program. I know that families absolutely have loved this program. I have had the minister out time and time again to visit homes in Wyndham, and when you talk to families, they could not wait to build their house and put a solar panel system on their roof. Indeed when you come out to Wyndham and it is wall-to-wall houses, and if you are up high enough it is just wall-to-wall rooftops, what you can actually notice out there – it is quite distinct – is the number of solar panels that are indeed on the top of people’s homes. I commend the bill to the house.