Sussan Ley on emissions reduction target: ‘you cannot trust a single thing this government says’
The opposition leader, Sussan Ley, says the Albanese government’s emissions reduction targets “fails on both counts” when it came to cost and credibility, adding she is deeply concerned about how much the plan will cost Australians and the details as to how it will take place.
She said during a press conference:
Under this government we’re seeing a trifecta of energy failures. Costs are up. Reliability is down. And emissions are flatlining.
… You cannot trust a single thing this government says.
If the government wants to have an honest conversation with Australians, they need to be upfront about announcements they make in critical areas of energy. Energy is the economy. They need to be upfront about what it will actually cost. Australians deserve to know this.
Key events
Ley says there is ’no division’ among Coalition to oppose ‘latest piece of trainwreck energy policy’
Ley said she just came out of a shadow cabinet meeting and said the Coalition is unified in its plans to oppose the emissions reductions targets.
She said:
I can assure you there was absolutely no division in opposing Labor’s latest piece of trainwreck energy policy. And we know that we’re doing this on behalf of hard-working Australians who actually expect better from a government whose credibility is in tatters.
Sussan Ley on emissions reduction target: ‘you cannot trust a single thing this government says’
The opposition leader, Sussan Ley, says the Albanese government’s emissions reduction targets “fails on both counts” when it came to cost and credibility, adding she is deeply concerned about how much the plan will cost Australians and the details as to how it will take place.
She said during a press conference:
Under this government we’re seeing a trifecta of energy failures. Costs are up. Reliability is down. And emissions are flatlining.
… You cannot trust a single thing this government says.
If the government wants to have an honest conversation with Australians, they need to be upfront about announcements they make in critical areas of energy. Energy is the economy. They need to be upfront about what it will actually cost. Australians deserve to know this.
More than 600,000 Indigenous and Torres Strait Islander peoples enrolled to vote
For the first time, the estimated Indigenous enrolment rate is more than 600,000 people, according to new figures from the Australian Electoral Commission.
The new data shows an estimated 93% of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples are now enrolled to vote, with 16,000 First Nations people estimated to have enrolled in the past year. The AEC has visited 50 communities since the 2025 election to improve electoral participation.
The national enrolment rate for the general population is 98.1%.
Jeff Pope, the acting commissioner of the AEC, said in a statement:
We’ve been working with Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander communities for many years now as part of our commitment to closing the gap in the Indigenous enrolment rate.
There is clearly still more work to do, but we’re very pleased with the significant increases to the figures over the past several years.
Australian government announces 2035 emissions reduction target – video
In his announcement, prime minister Anthony Albanese said: “It is the right target to protect our environment, to protect and advance our economy and jobs and to ensure that we act in our national interest and in the interest of this and future generations”.
Emissions reduction target ‘a denial of climate justice’, 350.org says
350.org, a major international climate change group, said the targets announced today were “nowhere near what is needed to secure our survival”.
Fenton Lutunatabua, the group’s deputy head of regions, said in a statement:
Anything less than a 75% cut this decade backed by a plan to phase out coal, oil and gas is not a climate plan, it’s a denial of climate justice.
Pacific peoples are already living the losses that come from every fraction of a degree of warming. The supposed ‘sweet spot’ decided by the Albanese government is nowhere near what is needed to secure our survival. Not only that, but it doesn’t address the enormous burden of Australia’s fossil fuel exports, the consequences of which the children of the Pacific will have to bear.
Sarah Basford Canales
Brittany Higgins to appeal damages after defamation ruling
Brittany Higgins will appeal a $341k payout and 80% of legal costs to her former boss, ex-Liberal senator Linda Reynolds, after a Western Australian supreme court ruled last month she defamed the once-Liberal frontbencher in two social media posts.
Two appeal notices, submitted to the court on Wednesday, show Higgins’ defence team will fight the orders delivered by Justice Paul Tottle on 27 August.
Tottle ruled Reynolds’ reputation was damaged by a 2022 social media post from Higgins’ partner David Sharaz, which Higgins responded to, as well as an Instagram story published by Higgins in July 2023.
Higgins’ legal team, however, successfully defended a third social media post – also found to be defamatory – as honest opinion, fair comment and qualified privilege. Reynolds was unable to prove Higgins and Sharaz had concocted a conspiracy to publicly release the details of Higgins’s alleged rape with the “sole or predominant purpose” of destroying the former senator’s reputation, Tottle’s judgment said.
The court ruled that Higgins pay $315,000 in damages with an additional $26,109.25 in interest. Earlier this month, the court made a separate ruling on additional costs, ordering Higgins to pay 80% of Reynolds’ legal costs for the five-week defamation trial. It’s expected the total bill will easily surpass million-dollar territory.
The appeal notices show Higgins’ legal team is not appealing the judgment but focusing on the damages payout and the direction to pay 80% of Reynolds’ legal bills.
Krishani Dhanji
Well that was a highly anticipated announcement, and there’ll be plenty more reaction to it throughout the day! I’ll hand you back over to the wonderful Nick Visser to bring you all that.
Analysis: Labor’s climate targets promise everyone a prize
Adam Morton
The Albanese government has announced an Oprah Winfrey-style emissions target for 2035 – tried to promise (nearly) everyone a prize.
We haven’t had time to absorb the advice that underpins it, but the range of 62% to 70% is clearly at least partly a political solution. It is extraordinarily wide.
At the bottom end, the goal is clearly designed to dampen criticism from business organisations arguing for less action. At the top end it meets a demand from some scientists and climate campaigners that it must include a number with a “7” in front of it – that is, that it reaches into the 70s.
This won’t be enough to nullify criticism: it is already pouring into my inbox from climate-focused organisations and scientists. The reality is the target sets a minimum goal of 62% but scientists say the country’s part in meeting the goals of the 2015 Paris agreement would be more than 75% – possibly significantly more.
The range is well below what the Climate Change Authority thought was “ambitious, but achievable” early last year when it nominated 65% to 75%. Why the change? We need more detailed answers on that than we got at the press conference.
Will this goal help Australia take a leading role in avoiding the worst projections set out in the national risk assessment released on Monday? Certainly not if we end up at 62%.
But what matters now is the policies. And we will need a lot more – a lot more – to get where we need to be.
Fortescue head says Labor has shown ‘courage of leadership’ but calls for even higher emissions cuts
Andrew Forrest, chairman of mining giant Fortescue, has also called on the government to be more ambition, arguing the upper range of 70% should be a “floor” not a ceiling.
It [the government] has shown the courage of leadership. Yet let me be clear: the upper range of its target – 70% – must be a floor, not a ceiling.
A cut of at least 75% is what is needed for Australia to pursue emissions reductions in line with the science. This remains the only course that can avert the accelerating impacts of a world warmed beyond 1.5°C.
Fortescue was one of more than 500 businesses including Atlassian, Canva, and Unilever calling for a 75% target in the lead up to the announcement.
Former emergency leaders are also warning the target will leave emergency responders in a critical situation. The Emergency Leaders for Climate Action group warns the bottom end of the target will fall “dangerously short of what’s needed to protect both communities and emergency responders.” The former commissioner of Fire & Rescue NSW, Greg Mullins, says:
If that’s the level of risk we’re accepting, then what’s the plan for dealing with it? Emergency leaders want to see a concrete, well-funded plan for how the Albanese government is going to support communities and first responders to adapt to the compounding, cascading and concurrent disasters its own risk assessment outlines if we’re choosing not to cut climate pollution any further or faster.
Environmental groups’ verdict on Labor emissions targets: ‘weak’
We’re getting plenty of reaction to the 2035 target, and environment groups are pushing for far more ambitious action.
Greenpeace has called the target “weak” while the Australian Conservation Foundation has labelled it “timid”.
Both groups accuse the government of prioritising the fossil fuel industry over community safety.
Greenpeace Australia Pacific says the target is “not science-aligned, and undermines global action under the Paris Agreement to limit warming to 1.5C”.
It prioritises fossil fuel profits and business interests over people, and effectively abandons our commitment under the Paris Agreement… a temperature goal that is non-negotiable for Pacific nations staring down the barrel of climate catastrophe.
The ACF’s climate and energy program manager, Gavan McFadzean, says:
A target range of 62% to 70% falls significantly short on all measures of what’s needed, with the government’s plans preparing Australia only to meet the bottom end of the range.
PM won’t say how much power bills will drop under 2035 plan
The prime minister says there needs to be “lean in” from all levels of government and business to get to the target.
He also adds that the amount of wind and solar power in China is now “nearly twice as much as the rest of the world combined. Just a fun fact”:
We have a target range, it depends upon as we have outlined, whether there is a lean in and by other levels of government, by the private sector as well, industry … we know that the federal government can only do so much.
Finally, Albanese is asked exactly how much power bills will come down (which makes all the journalists in the room laugh).
Albanese won’t give a figure – you might remember how much the opposition likes to bring up Labor’s pre-2022 election promise of a reduction in energy bills by $275, which they had to abandon. The PM says:
You yourself laughed when he asked that question so, it should be treated in the spirit which you’ve done. What we know is if we do not act, they will be a cost [to] the economy as [the] treasurer has outlined. They will be: lower wages, lower growth, less jobs.
